I've mellowed out over the years. I think that's true of a lot of people around my (middle) age and my SSRIs. The stark difference between my own kumbaya-ness and other people's white hot ball of constant rage is pronounced in a number of ways with respect to sports, but this column will just focus on one: the college football playoff rankings.
Boy, are people mad at that. Granted, people are always mad at whomever is making up whatever this year's version of a playoff is, but my distaste for the anger only grows.
Again, I'm going to focus on just one specific aspect that has a lot of people mad, but there are soooo many to choose from; I don't mean to pick on (in this case) Miami or its fans.
Indeed, I lowkey like the 'Canes, and I've never liked, and never will like, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Nonetheless, I must defend Notre Dame being ranked higher than Miami in the college football playoff polls.
The case for Miami, and their fury that this case is not the reality, is simple and intuitive: Miami beat Notre Dame. They both have two losses. Ergo, ND has no business being ranked higher than Notre Dame, not to mention a shoo-in for the playoffs (assuming they beat lowly Stanford) while Miami is very much not.
Let's set aside the merits of that argument and instead look at the typical actions of the CFP committee and its previous iterations. For as long as I can remember, they have always prioritized the metric of "if you did lose, how good were the teams that beat you?" Notre Dame lost to Texas A&M and Notre Dame, and Miami lost to SMU and Louisville.
SMU and Louisville are no bottom-feeders, but hopefully it's not necessary for me to make the case that neither of them are likely as good as Notre Dame or Texas A&M. I think it's fairly obvious.
And that is something the committee has always weighted just ridiculously high. They care, more than anything else, about how "bad" your losses were. In pitting two comparable teams against each other, they will almost always give the nod to the team whose losses look better. Yes, even over head-to-head. That may be wrong, but it is easy to see coming. You can, and should, expect that.
Another surefire committee tendency is recency bias. So it works against Miami that their losses came later than Notre Dame's.
I'm not defending either of these arguments, I'm just pointing out it can be anticipated rather than an outrageous shock.
What I will defend is this idea: head-to-head is not necessarily the best barometer in comparing two teams. If it was, then Northern Illinois was more worthy of a playoff berth last year than Notre Dame was.
Sure, you might say, "That's not a fair comparison. Miami is 100% worthy of being in the playoff conversation, and Northern Illinois last year was not; their subsequent results demonstrated that their win over Notre Dame was a fluke."
You would be right about that, but you would be also proving the point I'm trying to make here, which is: you have to draw the line somewhere, and where we draw that line is very subjective and open to debate.
We can probably agree that Miami's cause, even in beating Notre Dame, would be seriously hurt if one of their losses came to, say, UMass. But they didn't. They lost to two good teams, just not as good as Notre Dame's.
... but close enough that their head-to-head win over Notre Dame has to take precedence, right? Maybe, but again we have to ask ourselves how bad their other losses would need to be to negate that win. Cal? North Carolina? Boston College?
And this isn't even getting into things like how good your wins are, and where we draw the line between a great win, a good win, an okay win, and so on. This is all so very, very, very subjective and you can make plausible arguments for pretty much anything you want.
So not only does Notre-Dame-over-Miami have tons of historical precedence, but it's not egregiously wrong, either. The committee is not insane, and I further don't believe (this will qualify as a hot take for some) they are corrupt, either.
What has happened hers is that (some) Miami fans have not noticed, have not remembered, or didn't care when other teams were in the predicament they are in now. Which is another gripe I have with the average, angry sports fan: they expect everyone else to have the same deep knowledge, understanding, and mercy (yes, we lost to Alaska A&M, but our top two quarterbacks were both hurt!) that they absolutely do not grant other teams.
They don't do that out of malice or even hypocrisy, they just don't have the curiosity or time to devote to other teams besides the ones they root for, so to save time they just uncritically buy into the prevailing wisdom the pundit class puts forth about those teams.
And spare me any, "Sure, I don't pay a lot of attention to the ACC as a devoted fan of a Big 12 team, but I sure would if I was an CFP committee member!" takes. You are underestimating how hard it is to really understand dozens and dozens of teams in a meaningful way. There are only so many hours in a day.
I really am sorry, Miami fans. I sincerely would rather see you in the playoffs than Notre Dame, but it's not looking good. So instead of giving yourself an aneurysm, start getting into the Heat or the Panthers or any number of 'Canes winter sports teams. Kumbaya.
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