[Eleazar]

Big 12 jilted in 1st College Football Playoff

The four national semi-finalists have been selected, and the Big 12 is left on the outside looking in



Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones, right, runs with the ball as Wisconsin linebacker Marcus Trotter defends during the first half of the Big Ten Conference championship NCAA college football game Saturday, Dec. 6, 2014, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings) The Associated Press
Joke's on you, Big 12.

A day after Bob Bowlsby, the commissioner of the Big 12, gave out two championship trophies and hailed Baylor and TCU co-champions, the College Football Playoff vaulted Big Ten champion Ohio State over both and into the No. 4 ranking and the final national semi-final berth.

Ohio State will play No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl while No. 2 Oregon faces No. 3 Florida State in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

Baylor and TCU finished No. 5 and No. 6, respectively, with equal 11-1 records. Both teams played and won their final conference games on Saturday but the Big 12 was the only one of the Power Five conferences that did not showcase a championship game over the weekend. The Buckeyes smashed No. 14 Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big Ten championship.

As it turns out, having a championship game made a difference for the Big Ten, which has been criticized this season for being the weakest of the Power Five conferences. While the decision to elevate Ohio State over TCU and Baylor was a tough one, College Football Playoff selection committee head Jeff Long said the committee was impressed by the way Urban Meyer's Buckeyes responded to the injuries they've suffered at the quarterback position.

Ohio State compiled its 12-1 record despite season-ending injuries sustained by starting quarterback Braxton Miller at the beginning of the year and backup quarterback J.T. Barrett at the end of the regular season. The Buckeyes shut out the Badgers with third-string quarterback Cardale Jones making his starting debut.

"With the championship game, Ohio State demonstrated they were a total team," Long said.

That final opportunity to prove themselves in the Big Ten championship game made a difference for the Buckeyes and was enough to render the debate over Baylor vs. TCU moot. The Bears held the head-to-head win over TCU, but until their win over No. 12 Kansas State on Saturday, many thought the Horned Frogs had played a stronger schedule.

The Big 12 drew criticism this week when Bowlsby came out and said that it was league policy to acknowledge co-champions. This appeared to go against statements he had made at Big 12 media day earlier this year, when he mentioned that head-to-head tiebreakers would always be applied.

But in an interview with ESPN on Sunday, Bowlsby admitted that he "just plain misspoke" during media day.

"Next year, when we have to send a representative to the Sugar Bowl, we'll apply a tiebreaker, but we don't use a tiebreaker to determine champions. We use a tiebreaker to determine (bowl) representative," Bowlsby said. "Our rule is that if two teams tie with the same record, they're co-champions."

Props to Bowlsby for admitting his mistake, but the point remains that not having a championship game hurt the Big 12's College Football Playoff aspirations this year.

"It's clear that we were penalized for not having a postseason championship game," Bowlsby said. "It would have been nice to have been told that ahead of time. ... That will cause us to go back to the drawing board a little bit and think about whether we need to have a different model. We will talk about whether we will leave the two teams tied."

Current NCAA rules dictate that a conference has to have 12 members before it can divide into two six-team divisions and introduce a championship game. The Big 12 has 10 members at the moment. Will they be forced to expand to 12 to put itself on equal footing with the four other Power Five conferences and have a championship game?

Not if they have their way with the NCAA.

"Along with the ACC, we've asked to have the rules around conference playoffs be regulated so you don't have to have two six-team divisions," Bowlsby said on ESPN. "We think in the air of deregulation, we may get a change that allows us to have a playoff with fewer than 12."

Still, Bowlsby conceded that the current situation is a "catalyst for discussion" and that the Big 12 will have to "wait to see if it's substantial enough to add institutions."

Whether or not you agree with their decision, in the first year of the new playoff system, the selection committee has shown what it values.

1. Style points matter: Florida State has been undefeated all year, but as recently as last week, the committee wasn't particularly swayed by the Seminoles' record, often pointing out that their multiple close shaves had been underwhelming.

2. Quality matters: The committee does appear to place a premium on the overall strengths of a team. For instance, the Buckeyes had some close shaves against sub-par Big Ten opponents, but ultimately, they got it down despite a depleted quarterback position.

3. Strength-of-schedule is king: The reason Baylor was ranked under TCU until this week? The Bears had played weaker opposition, and it took one final win against a ranked Kansas State team to convince the committee that the Bears are superior to the Horned Frogs. Whether that is true is up for debate, but you can't argue that a championship game would have given both teams a chance to prove their mettle one last time. This same factor will completely doom the Group of Five teams for as long as the playoff stays at four teams.

Marshall was undefeated until Thanksgiving Week, but only made it into the committee's rankings once because the Thundering Herd played a weak C-USA schedule. The Group of Five was thrown a bone when they were given one guaranteed New Year's Six bowl berth every year. But that is basically akin to the Power Five saying, "OK, we gave you a prize, now go away and leave us alone." We will probably never see a Group of Five team in the national semi-finals because their schedules are too weak vis-a-vis the Power Five for them to ever play their way into top-10 contention.

Still, stay tuned. There's now a slim chance that the Big 12 will have to add two more teams to its stable to put it on equal standing with everyone else. Which two Group of Five teams will win that sweepstakes?