You may find yourself reading Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany’s term “that team” a certain way, Alabama fans:
College Football Playoffs: No Alabama In Jim Delany’s Preferred Championship?
“I don’t have a lot of regard for that team,” Delany told The Associated Press. “I certainly wouldn’t have as much regard for that team as I would for someone who played nine conference games in a tough conference and played a couple out-of-conference games on the road against really good opponents. If a poll doesn’t honor those teams and they’re conference champions, I do.”
Update! Nick Saban responds all “Hell no!”-ishly to the conference champions-only proposal while on with CBS Sports’ Tim Brando:
By "that team" he's referring to the hypothetical team that makes the championship game despite not winning its division, not the one that actually just did that, of course.
The problem with the hypothetical is there’s very rarely going to be a team that matches that list of ideal criteria and still has one or fewer losses. Last year, neither No. 3 Oklahoma State nor No. 5 Oregon played multiple out-of-conference road games. No. 4 Stanford did, but one of those was at Duke, and Stanford didn’t win its own division anyway. No. 7 Boise State played at Georgia and Toledo, so maybe we’re arguing Boise State deserved in over Alabama last year? Boise State didn’t play a nine-game conference schedule.
I’m all for seeing tougher schedules and out-of-conference games like Alabama’s against Penn State and Michigan, but by setting all these standards for what a championship team is supposed to look like, might we only be making it more and more difficult to actually choose four teams to compete in a tournament every year?
While we’re here, let’s watch some college football videos from SB Nation’s new YouTube channel together:
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