I’ve never seen a more blatant example of corruption than this years cfb playoff rankings. There is a clear P-5 non P5 bias and if we don’t make noise about it this year when there is the most clear cut case I can remember, this will come back to bite us when our team deserves a higher ranking. They have Iowa state at number 6, and Louisiana Lafayette at 19. when in week 1 Louisiana Lafayette smashed Iowa state 31-14. Louisiana is now 9-1 with there only loss to unbeaten Coastal Carolina. You would think that Coastal Carolina being unbeaten and having beaten a team Iowa state lost to, would at least be above them. You would be wrong. They sit at 12th. This is the most rigged P-5 money corrupt ranking I can remember. Years past have been bad but this is ridiculous. Why even play D1 when if you beat the team on the field you’re still considered lower than them in the rankings. This is an outrage and people need to be making more noise about it.

You make excellent points. Reminds me of a situation a number of years ago when a MAC team beat a Big East team in basketball during the regular season. The Big East team ended the season barely above 500. The MAC team ended the season with 20+ wins. Come selection Sunday the Big East team is in the NCAA Tournament and the MAC team is not given an at-large bid. And, this is not a lone example. This kind of thing happens every year where a very deserving team from a lesser known league is left out in favor of a less deserving team from a "name" conference. A friend of mine, who has a coaching background, decided after one of these inequitable NCAA tournament selections to personally boycott the NCAA Tournament. Since that point he's never watched any NCAA men's Tournament games. He watches the women's tournament, which he says is fairer in the selection process and features better fundamental basketball. I have not boycotted the tournament myself, but I do understand where he is coming from.

It's almost as if playing in a conference that isn't eligible for a national championship makes teams in that conference ineligible for a national championship.

Non P5 schools can't win national championships in football. They're just straight up not eligible, even if the rules don't indicate that. It's been proven in practice time and time again.

What is ridiculous is that five conferences are playing for four spots. Throw in Notre Dame in a non Covid season and that is basically six for four spots. Eventually these money hungry leagues will figure out they need to invite eight to the dance and put the shaft to the little guys again.

I completely agree. I use to watch mostly power 5 football for over 20 years. Anymore I just don't care about it. I have not watched 1 single power 5 game this year. Its a rigged game. Unless you are a buckeye fan( which i hate osu), a bama fan, Clemson or Oklahoma you basically don't have much of a shot. College football use to have some semblance of parity, those days are looooong gone.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30534280...

The below story from ESPN says it all. What a shame!


We can quibble over résumés and who was most worthy of facing the No. 1 Crimson Tide as a double-digit underdog, but there is no surprise in what the committee did. In fact, the decisions on the top four were so predictable, it made the entire process stale and boring and so filled with an utter lack of meaningful debate that there is no reason for outrage because we all saw the way this was going to unfold.

This speaks to a system that was set up to favor teams in the Power 5 conferences (and Notre Dame, of course) to keep power and money for themselves. From the beginning, the same teams in Power 5 conferences have dominated the top four. That, in turn, has watered down who actually is capable of making a playoff run. Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Oklahoma have combined to take 20 out of 28 possible spots since the playoff began in 2014.

If Clemson and Alabama end up meeting in the national championship, it would be their fifth playoff meeting in the past six years.

Talk about a lack of competitive balance across a sport with 130 FBS teams.

And, although Oklahoma is not in the playoff this year, the two-loss Sooners still proved their Power 5 stature Sunday when the committee jumped them four spots all the way to No. 6 in the final rankings because they just won their sixth straight Big 12 title. In the process, Oklahoma moved ahead of undefeated Cincinnati, a team that should have merited consideration but instead was deemed to have an insufficient résumé -- like every other undefeated Group of 5 team in BCS/playoff history.

College Football Playoff


College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)
Jan. 11: 8 p.m. ET on ESPN and the ESPN App

College Football Playoff Semifinal at The Rose Bowl Game
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
Jan. 1: 4 p.m. ET on ESPN and the ESPN App

College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)
Jan. 1: 8 p.m. ET on ESPN and the ESPN App

That the committee actually says it "respects" the undefeated Group of 5 teams it is charged with evaluating smacks of so much hypocrisy you can only laugh (or cry if you are Cincinnati or Coastal Carolina or even San Jose State).

There is no respect and never has been. Look at how the committee treated undefeated UCF in 2017. The Knights, the only undefeated team that year, finished 12th overall in the final rankings behind five two-loss teams and one three-loss team. It's no wonder they declared themselves national champions. There was no way the power structure would let them prove it legitimately. The following year, after another undefeated regular-season run, UCF was ranked eighth -- but only behind two two-loss teams that time!

Former Boise State athletic director Gene Bleymaier saw the same system rewarding only Power 5 programs during the BCS era. He once told me, "Had we beaten Nevada in [2010], we would have had a chance, and that was under the BCS system and this was after we had gone to Congress and put a little pressure on it. Now, there's no chance, in my opinion, for a Group of 5. They can go undefeated all they want, but that committee is not going to let them in the top four. I don't see that happening, and I think that's a shame."

Even in a year in which a pandemic significantly altered résumés, with only two tepid options between Notre Dame and Texas A&M for the No. 4 spot, the committee refused to consider Cincinnati on its merits. Instead, Cincinnati finished No. 8 and gets to play Georgia in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl -- a no-win situation because, even if the Bearcats win, their critics will claim Georgia simply did not care enough. Then there is undefeated Coastal Carolina, which finished No. 12 and was bypassed for an at-large New Year's Six spot in favor of teams with multiple losses: Iowa State, Georgia and Florida.

Although this particular year looks especially egregious, we have become immune to this lack of consideration now, and it cannot be good for the long-term health of the sport if half the teams playing it are simply going to be disqualified from the playoff every year before the season begins.

"That the committee actually says it "respects" the undefeated Group of 5 teams it is charged with evaluating smacks of so much hypocrisy you can only laugh (or cry if you are Cincinnati."


Hypocrisy is the key word. This bunch of good ole boys, although Paola Boivin Arizona St. Professor is the lone female in the committee, can't bring themselves to give anyone other than a power five school an opportunity. This committee doesn't want millions of $$$$ to go outside the good ole boys group. If it didn't happen in this Covid season, it won't happen unless the playoffs expand to 8 or 16 teams.

This

I looked this up for another thread: the current CFP committee has 13 members, eleven of whom have direct or indirect ties to "P" schools. There are the ADs from Iowa, Okla, Colo, Ga Tech and Florida, a former reporter who's now on Arizona State's faculty, former USC DB Ronnie Lott, former Penn State OL John Urschel, and a former Army chief of staff who is recused from considering NC St. There's also Ken Hatfield, who coached at Arkansas and Clemson, as well as Rice and AFA. The only G5 reps are the ADs from Wyoming and Arkansas St.

I think most of those games have contracts with the SEC. Plus, something like 20 teams have opted out of bowl games for covid or other reasons. There are something like 62 bowl slots because of cancellations and with so many teams opting out they're reaching down into the dregs. North Texas (4-5) is playing App St at Myrtle Beach this afternoon.

It may come to that but I feel like that is conceding defeat. If that happens G5 schools will always be viewed as lesser than the P’s. For the most part the P’s are better but the great G5 schools that are unbeaten deserve a chance in the playoff, like in basketball to prove they’re better than the P schools. A true victory would be for the G5 schools to find a way into the playoff and win. Most years it may prove that the unbeaten G5 schools aren’t as good a the P schools but every now and then there might be a great team that can do it. They at least deserve a shot. I think the only format where this would work is every conference champion gets in with a few at larges. 16 team playoff. Maybe can cut out OOC games if the schedule is too long. Could even negotiate to make G5 schools have play in games against eachother to get in.

But Ball State earned that beating! And heaven forbid that some teams and players would play more games than NFL players.