Does College Football's new 4-team playoff change anything?

The fact that it is SEC commissioner Mike Slive that led the college football playoff charge gives me pause. Why? Because the SEC has won the past 6 National Championships. In fact, the SEC was guaranteed a National Championship in 2011 with both LSU and Alabama appearing in the Championship game. The BCS has been very good to the SEC—winning over half of the BCS Championships since its inception in 1998. Why would the SEC lead the way in changing the system from which they have benefited so much?

My guess is that Mike Slive saw the writing on the wall. The public has been clamoring for a playoff for years. in 2004 when Utah busted the BCS and undefeated Auburn was also left without a shot at the title, the playoff movement really began to gain steam. Death to the BCS, the seemingly annual ‘busting’ of the BCS by a non-BCS school, as well as the occasional BCS school feeling slighted has galvanized the movement. With the tide of public opinion going against the system that has been so favorable to your conference, why not be on the front lines of that very movement?

Of the all too-powerful conference commissioners, Mike Slive is the main player. His conference has a hold on the title, the biggest TV contract, and rabid fans willing to poison trees and face jail-time for the cause. He being the face of the playoff is all too convenient. I am not saying that the 4-team playoff will be rigged with Slive as its man-behind-the-curtain. I do think that Slive liked the idea of every year finishing up like 2011, with two SEC teams vying for the championship. He also realized the rarity of such an event. So, if the SEC was able to get two of its members in the now-defunct BCS Championship game, think of how much easier it will be to do that with 4 playoff spots up for grabs. If an SEC team finishes undefeated, and another SEC team finishes with one-loss, two spots will already be filled for the 4-team playoff. The rest of college football will be left to fight over the two remaining spots.

My analysis of this new 4-team playoff is that while there are technically 4 spots up for grabs, two of those spots already belong to the SEC most years (the SEC takes up three spots when the Ohio State Buckeyes manage to fight their way into the playoff) and two for the rest. In sum, it has gotten “easier” for more teams to get a shot at the national title, but only because they will not be competing with the SEC for the two remaining spots.

I want to make it clear that my tone is not meant to be one of a conspiracy theorist. My point is that Slive saw an opportunity. No conference has a greater chance of getting two teams in the 4-team playoff every year than the SEC. The 2011 BCS matchup between undefeated LSU and one-loss Alabama proved that. I am sure the SEC University Presidents will be more than pleased with the knowledge that their respective school no longer necessarily needs to win the conference every year to get a shot at the title. I repeat, a one-loss SEC team is almost guaranteed a spot in the 4-team playoff. With the playoff all but assured (pending University Presidents' approval) Slive becomes the face of change. Complaints lodged at the SEC may lose some of their venom now that the Father of the College Football Playoff is the one running the conference.

Truthfully, I am glad that a playoff is now a part of college football, even if, in practice, it remains the SEC-Invitational. It is not perfect playoff, but it is a playoff nonetheless and a step in the right direction. (That's right: just a step.)

I still think that playoff semi-final games belong on the campus of the higher seed. Think of all the dream matchups that would be born: Ohio State and Urban Meyer's traveling circus hitting the road for their matchup against Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium, USC hosting LSU on New Years Day (with the Rose Bowl being played the same day across town--another Carmegeddon), Oklahoma and Oregon meeting up on a wet day at Autzen Stadium. I fail to see how campuses hosting the games is an undesirable idea.

It will still be so easy for the playoff "committee" to exclude the non-BCS schools. With two spots almost guaranteed to the SEC, those last two will be split between the Pac 12, B1G, ACC and Big XII champions. There's no way they award one of those spots to even an undefeated Boise St. (the Big East is irrelevant at this point). Though BYU has tasted of National Championship glory before (the last team not from a BCS conference to do so) they will be excluded from any reasonable discussion of possible 4-team playoff participants. (Concerning Independents, I can see Notre Dame undeservedly getting in to the playoff once a decade.) As far as the inclusion of everyone, this new playoff frontier has made no progress, and I almost want to say has made the title even more exclusionary.

And so it goes with America's favorite passion. College football is still a mess despite this new way of deciding a champion. There are fundamental issues that need fixing with college football, issues for which a dissertation or thesis would probably be more appropriate rather than a blog and are problems that will require much more work to ameliorate than a playoff. Nevertheless, the pendulum has began to swing. Just five years ago, a college football playoff was a pipe dream, now it is a reality. There could be more reform on the way.


Though not completely related for those with a couple of hours to kill, listen to this debate titled Ban College Football. I trust that you will find it enlightening.

The LeBron Standard

LeBron James is the greatest basketball player in the world. As of June 2012, it's not even close.

Kevin Durant can score as well as (and most likely better than) LeBron, but he cannot match James' ability to create for his teammates nor his defensive intensity.

As Malcom Gladwell put it, Kobe Bryant's ideal teammate is a ball boy. Plus, he is old. (Though I will argue that even in his prime, Kobe was not ever the impactful force that LeBron is.)

Dwayne Wade has lost a lot of stock in my eyes. To me, it feels like Wade has decided that, since he is on the same team as the best player in the world, he can assume the role of the guy who can score, play no defense, and get the ball in the clutch. (His last-shot efforts in the Celtics series were dreadful. Turrible.) I cannot fail to mention his sudden penchant for cheapshots and taking guys out. He has been inconsistent during the playoffs and at times it has felt like the Heat have won in spite of Wade.
(Maybe all of those charges to the basket and trips the foul line have started to wear on Wade and is at least partial explanation for his shortcomings. To say the least, my opinion of him has soured as LeBron has willed the Heat into the Finals.)

I'll stop there as Dirk Nowitzki (old), Carmelo Anthony (don't make me laugh), Dwight Howard (does he even like playing basketball?), Chris Paul (needs a deep playoff run), Blake Griffin (52% free throw shooting this year), et al don't even belong in the discussion.

As the greatest player in the world, James is rightfully held to a different standard. We expect him to be great, and he has not disappointed. Look at the stats. Otherworldly. His per 48 minute Win Share of .233 essentially means that he has been responsible for one-quarter of his teams wins since he started playing in the NBA.

As the player who guaranteed a fistful of championships when he joined up with Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, he is held to even a completely different standard. In my opinion, the "Imperial March" through the NBA during the 2010-2011 season that culminated in a Finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks was enough of a penance for LeBron. He disappeared in many of the 4th quarters during that Finals and he felt the wrath of the media and fans alike. As the greatest player in the world, there was a lot of deserved criticism thrown James' way.

When a player fails, he is the first to know it. When a last second shot leaves the finger tips, the best players in the world can likely tell if that shot is going to go or not. The greatest player is hard on himself and constantly trying to improve. The greatest player understands that there will be criticism. The elite can move on from mistakes. When the Celtics and Lakers met up in '84, it was Magic Johnson's inability to get over a crunch-time mistake (combined with Kevin McHale leveling Kurt Rambis in Game 4) that turned the tide of that series. Magic learned to move on and his clutch "junior junior" hook in the Celtics/Lakers Finals of 1987 is the lasting memory from that Lakers' triumph.

It is very possible that LeBron James has learned his lesson. (First off, I need to say that the whole idea of the necessity of a the elite teams posessing a "closer" is one of the more overblown and annoying fads currently infecting the NBA. It probably will never go away.) With that said, LeBron has dominated this postseason. Based on his league best 30.8 points-per-game during the playoffs, you could argue that, coupled with Dwayne Wade's inconsistent play and the abdominal injury to Chris Bosh early in the Indiana series, that LeBron has carried the Heat into the finals. And I thought he left Cleveland because he no longer wanted to do that.

Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals was an all-time performance. The series was over once LeBron had scored 30 points in the first half. At that point, I just got the feeling that Boston had landed their last punch in Game 5--they would not recover from LeBron's first-half domination. Though they made it interesting for 3 quarters in Game 7, the writing was on the wall: the Heat would be back in the Finals. LeBron and the Heat put the series, and likely the Big Three/Four in Boston, away for good during that Game 7 fourth quarter.

Few players are able to cite a performance during their career to match what LeBron did in Game 6. He put Boston away. He didn't need 4th quarter theatrics, he only needed two quarters to say enough was enough. That's impressive. While I love a dramatic fourth quarter as much as any fan, nothing is more humbling as a fan as to watch one player on the other team put the team you cheer for away before the first half had even wrapped up. Though it will likely be forgotten due to the Lebron Standard, James' performance in Game 6 was one of the greatest individual performances in playoff history.

As it stands now, the Heat are up 2-1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals. Through 3 games, James has been on fire. He has gone to the free throw line 217 times, which is a little over 10 times a game. Clearly, he hasn't been settling for jumpers. He has played like a man on a mission. In his post-game interview with Doris Burke following Game 3, LeBron spoke like a player who had just played a hard 43 minutes. Winning it all could temper the criticism for an offseason, but unfortunately for LeBron, anything short of winning it all next year will be just the crack in the door the critics need to start all over again.