Leave it to Loyola of Chicago, Oral Roberts and the other disciples of anarchy to remind us what it is we’ve been missing in the College Football Playoff these past few years.
And, we don’t mean just Sister Jean leading cheers.
For all that the CFP has going for it, the NCAA Basketball Tournament captures — and holds — our attention in March in ways that the football championship cannot because the CFP stage, such as it is, has no room for Cinderellas. And no wish to let any inside the velvet ropes.
CFP brooks no potential chaos and assures us that four teams of impeccable resume is all you need. Any more than that, we are counseled, would be just to water down the product.
Hoops is more egalitarian, opening the door slightly ajar to opportunity and spreading widely the NCAA Tournament money while admission to the CFP and the funds it distributes are the heavily guarded preserve of the elite Power Five conferences.
Part of it is, of course, just the pure numbers involved. The CFP takes only four of the 130 teams that play on the Football Bowl Subdivision level, whereas the NCAA Tournament makes room for 68 of the 340 that compete in D-1 basketball.
More teams means more opportunities for the type of March Madness we have been witnessing. And so does the scholarship distribution. Football allows up to 85 scholarships and basketball 13. Two players in basketball can change the dynamics, with Oral Roberts’ Max Abmas and Kevin Obanor being prime examples.
“The P-5 Invitational,” is what American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco has called the CFP, and not without reason. In its seven years of operation, the CFP has yet to admit a team from the lower caste Group of Five conferences (AAC, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt). Which is why Cincinnati this past season and Central Florida in earlier years are among those who were left on the outside looking in.
When college football season starts you can already narrow down the contenders with some certainty. If you say Alabama and Clemson, you’ve named five of the seven winners. If you add Oklahoma, Georgia and Ohio State you have pretty much identified the “in” crowd.
And it is a small group, one where you wouldn’t find lower echelon P-5 members, such as Oregon State wading into the thick of things the way the Beavers are doing in hoops now.
Only one team that has gone on to win the CFP title started its season ranked lower than fifth in the Associated Press preseason poll. That was LSU in 2020 and the Tigers were all of sixth.
Nor are the powers that be much interested in entertaining thoughts of expansion to an eight or, heaven forbid, an even larger field anytime soon as the CFP contract continues.
Never mind that regular-season schedules could be reduced to accommodate an expanded playoff without overburdening the players with an NFL-like number of games. Or, that the TV networks would pay handsomely for the rights to show the games.
The NCAA Tournament is about giving the madness of March and opportunity to run its course. The CFP is about preserving order for the hierarchy and protecting the lion’s share of the profits.
So, let’s enjoy the CFP for what it is in January and then look forward to celebrating and appreciating March Madness for all its unpredictability.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
