Perception Often Does Not Reflect Reality
A few days ago the University of Oregon played The Ohio State University in the championship game of the first four-team college football playoff. Had we continued to use the previous system, called the BCS, to determine the two teams who would have played for the championship, neither one of those teams would have been involved in the championship game.
The two teams that would have played had the previous system still been in use, were the two teams defeated by Oregon and Ohio State in the first round of the four-team playoff, Alabama and Florida State. So, as was widely suspected over the years, there’s a good chance many of the past 16 NCAA football champions who were crowned may not have been the best team after all.
In fact, of the four teams who participated in this year’s playoff, three of the four were fairly unanimous picks: #1 Alabama, #2 Oregon and #3 Florida State. The only controversial pick of the four was #4 Ohio State, who incidentally won the championship game by a convincing score of 42-20. Going one step further, reasonably good arguments can be made that two teams in Texas, TCU and Baylor, deserved to be involved in the playoff more than Alabama, Florida State, and Oregon.
The SEC conference, which was widely perceived to be the best conference in college football as a result of their dominance of the BCS era, had five ranked teams coming into this year’s bowl and playoff season and finished 0-5 losing by an average of over 15 points per game. Many felt the BCS was biased in favor of the SEC in that they played less league games, soft non-conference schedules, and rarely played out of conference games on the road.
Commissioner Mike Slive and the SEC did a remarkable job of controlling the message and creating a perception of dominance during the BCS era. Unfortunately, perception often trumps reality in everyday life. Just as the former mass perception that ‘heavier than air flying machines were impossible to build’ before the advent of the airplane or the conventional belief that the eye evolved many, many times, before the PAX genes were discovered that regulate eyes and are found throughout the animal kingdom, proved that eyes evolved just once.
Maybe it is time to let go of the long held belief in the SEC’s dominance of college football. You can’t win a championship if you are not in the championship game. This year the SEC had to win on the field to get into the championship game and failed. Perhaps the SEC would not have had a team in the last eight BCS championship games (both teams in 2011) if they had to earn their birth through a playoff?
If perception was all that mattered we could just ignore the playoff results and crown Alabama this year’s champion as Mark Titus alluded in the following prediction he made on Grantland prior to the game: “Ohio State 84, Oregon 0. Oregon attempts a field goal with 1:17 left in the game to avoid the shutout. Ohio State blocks the kick and runs it back for its 12th touchdown. Knight is so embarrassed that he cuts ties with the Ducks. Oregon then becomes a Fila school. An ashamed Mariota quits football forever. The number of babies in Ohio named “Cardale” skyrockets. Ignoring the new playoff system, Alabama declares itself the national champion anyway, citing its “strength of schedule” and “body of work.” Pollsters agree. The dynasty continues as Bama wins its fourth title in six years. Roll Tide.”
As far-fetched and tongue in cheek as he was being, that’s a pretty accurate description of how many (even pre BCS) champions have been crowned. If perception accurately reflected reality, there would be no reason to play the games. Let’s hope we eventually get a larger play-off and a shorter regular season to make sure the best team, rather than the best perceived team, is crowned champion at the end of the year.
