{"id":187768,"date":"2024-12-23T22:33:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T03:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=187768"},"modified":"2024-12-23T22:33:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T03:33:23","slug":"random-thoughts-cfb-playoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2024\/12\/23\/random-thoughts-cfb-playoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thoughts: CFB Playoff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it\u2019s basketball season, but this week\u2019s edition of Random Thoughts centers completely around the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Predictable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really wasn\u2019t a shock \u2013 the opening round of College Football Playoff games featured games that weren\u2019t exactly competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll admit, I\u2019m still surprised by Ohio State\u2019s margin over Tennessee, simply because I didn\u2019t know quite what to expect going in. I thought the Buckeye would (should?) win, as long as the team that showed up against Michigan didn\u2019t take the field against the Volunteers. Obviously, that didn\u2019t happen. The team that showed up Saturday night was the team many Buckeye fans expected to see throughout the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, there really weren\u2019t any surprises. How many people thought Indiana would actually go to South Bend and win? How many thought Texas would lose at home to Clemson? How many thought SMU would actually go to State College and beat Penn State? Ok, that one is fair \u2013 I at least thought that might be more competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too many?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is 12 playoff teams too many? I suppose it\u2019s fair to say it\u2019s too soon to say. After all, this is the first year of the 12 team playoff. I also think it\u2019s fair to say yes, 12 teams is too many. Heck, I pointed out when the playoff field expanded that it was too many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the correct number? Honestly, I think eight may be too many but at least in some years, it may be ok. Six seems to be a better number. At least you can make the argument that in most years, there are six teams that could be truly considered national championship contenders. The top two seeds would get a bye and the remaining four would square off in the opening round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Of course, that\u2019s not going to happen. The number of teams isn\u2019t getting reduced. In fact, it\u2019ll probably go to 16 teams at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio State<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, the only think that stopped Ohio State against Tennessee was two bad calls in the second quarter. The first was the interception that despite a video review, was most likely out of bounds and even if it wasn\u2019t was a horribly missed call on blatant pass interference, and the roughing the passer call that wasn\u2019t even close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One more thing \u2013 time will tell, but if this is the Ohio State team that shows up on New Year\u2019s Day and two games after that \u2013 the Buckeyes will indeed win the national championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SEC<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear SEC fans and coaches \u2013 please stop. Alabama, you really need to stop. One of your three losses came to a Tennessee team that got smoked by Ohio State. There\u2019s more, but you get the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ole Miss \u2013 see above although I\u2019ll admit, the Rebels might have had a better case than Alabama. Still, there\u2019s the home loss to a bad Kentucky team and if you want to talk about strength of schedule, your non-conference games were Furman, Middle Tennessee and Georgia Southern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it turns out, the SEC was good this year. Good, not great. Also, the SEC isn\u2019t entitled to 4-5 playoff spots every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NCAA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear NCAA,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please fix the seeding\/bye system and do it pronto. It\u2019s too late for this year, but it\u2019s obviously not right. Three of the higher seeds in the quarterfinals are underdogs. That\u2019s backward. The whole conference champions should get higher seeds thing is well intentioned, but it\u2019s very flawed. I know this is the first year of the expanded format so it\u2019s ok, but please do fix it during the offseason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, if you have thoughts or comments on any of the above topics, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>. In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports Yes, it\u2019s basketball season, but this week\u2019s edition of Random Thoughts centers completely around the College Football Playoff. Predictable It really wasn\u2019t a shock \u2013 the opening round of College Football Playoff games featured games that weren\u2019t exactly competitive. I\u2019ll admit, I\u2019m still surprised by Ohio State\u2019s margin over Tennessee, simply because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 22:57:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187800,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187768\/revisions\/187800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}