Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
There is a famous scene in "Alice In Wonderland" called "The Mad Tea Party." The guests at this party - the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse - are perpetually at tea-time so, while they change seats regularly, there is never time to clean up the previous week's mess.
In other words, meet the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Each week, the members - Condi, Ollie, Barry and the rest - shuffle over to a slightly new position. But since they are making up their selection criteria as they go along, the previous week's dirty dishes just pile up higher and higher. This week's buzzwords - "game control" and "victory margin" - accumulate on top of "eye test" and "schedule strength" and "quality loss" and the sour-milk stench of "injury factor" - until there is no way to determine what items among the crockery are usable. Perhaps none will be, in the end, when "conference championship" sweeps those other considerations off the table and into the floor and committee chairman Jeff Long disappears, like the Cheshire Cat, until only a smile is left.
None of that matters much to Alabama at this point. The Crimson Tide emerged from its weekend win over Mississippi State as the new No. 1 and will be hard to dislodge if it stays that way. Long said a great deal when he called Alabama "clearly" the best team. Oregon and that team of America's sweethearts, Florida State, are in equally strong position, and no one can really quibble that those three teams belong. Any rational selection process, including the old BCS formula (ahem) would have them in the Top Three. But the devil is in the details - and in picking the fourth spot.
At least for this week, the committee members opted for Mississippi State. That sounds great for the SEC, and, if the Bulldogs hang on, it even raises the argument of whether MSU actually increased its chances by losing a close game at Alabama. Alabama should have no problem with Western Carolina this week, but still has to beat Auburn and (potentially) Georgia. MSU has Vanderbilt this week and a difficult rivalry game at Ole Miss to end the regular season. So, will it be a bonus to avoid yet another difficult game? Or will MSU find itself out of sight, out of mind, especially if Ohio State beats Wisconsin in what will be a massively-hyped Big 10 title game?
The Buckeyes figure to be Mississippi State's real competition for the spot; if the Committee chooses either TCU or Baylor from a league that went 0-3 against the SEC West and has no quality non-conference wins (please don't say Minnesota), then they are simply going by a political agenda.
But if I were sitting in Starkville on that final Saturday watching others play, I would feel anything but confident.
America still doesn't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the SEC after years of watching other conferences get bounced. Whether the committee can filter out emotion remains to be seen. So far, the backlash - mainly from perpetually aggrieved FSU - hasn't seemed to hurt the SEC, but every week includes a troubling reminder that the entrance requirements are anything but predictable.
Ultimately, it's all guesswork - and at this point, no one can see the outcome for all the dirty dishes.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1706104
TideSports.com Columnist
There is a famous scene in "Alice In Wonderland" called "The Mad Tea Party." The guests at this party - the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse - are perpetually at tea-time so, while they change seats regularly, there is never time to clean up the previous week's mess.
In other words, meet the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. Each week, the members - Condi, Ollie, Barry and the rest - shuffle over to a slightly new position. But since they are making up their selection criteria as they go along, the previous week's dirty dishes just pile up higher and higher. This week's buzzwords - "game control" and "victory margin" - accumulate on top of "eye test" and "schedule strength" and "quality loss" and the sour-milk stench of "injury factor" - until there is no way to determine what items among the crockery are usable. Perhaps none will be, in the end, when "conference championship" sweeps those other considerations off the table and into the floor and committee chairman Jeff Long disappears, like the Cheshire Cat, until only a smile is left.
None of that matters much to Alabama at this point. The Crimson Tide emerged from its weekend win over Mississippi State as the new No. 1 and will be hard to dislodge if it stays that way. Long said a great deal when he called Alabama "clearly" the best team. Oregon and that team of America's sweethearts, Florida State, are in equally strong position, and no one can really quibble that those three teams belong. Any rational selection process, including the old BCS formula (ahem) would have them in the Top Three. But the devil is in the details - and in picking the fourth spot.
At least for this week, the committee members opted for Mississippi State. That sounds great for the SEC, and, if the Bulldogs hang on, it even raises the argument of whether MSU actually increased its chances by losing a close game at Alabama. Alabama should have no problem with Western Carolina this week, but still has to beat Auburn and (potentially) Georgia. MSU has Vanderbilt this week and a difficult rivalry game at Ole Miss to end the regular season. So, will it be a bonus to avoid yet another difficult game? Or will MSU find itself out of sight, out of mind, especially if Ohio State beats Wisconsin in what will be a massively-hyped Big 10 title game?
The Buckeyes figure to be Mississippi State's real competition for the spot; if the Committee chooses either TCU or Baylor from a league that went 0-3 against the SEC West and has no quality non-conference wins (please don't say Minnesota), then they are simply going by a political agenda.
But if I were sitting in Starkville on that final Saturday watching others play, I would feel anything but confident.
America still doesn't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about the SEC after years of watching other conferences get bounced. Whether the committee can filter out emotion remains to be seen. So far, the backlash - mainly from perpetually aggrieved FSU - hasn't seemed to hurt the SEC, but every week includes a troubling reminder that the entrance requirements are anything but predictable.
Ultimately, it's all guesswork - and at this point, no one can see the outcome for all the dirty dishes.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1706104
