College Football Postscript

Now that the 2020 college football playoff is well in our rear view mirror, I wanted to address three separate topics that made headlines in the last month.

1) Clemson/Ohio State Officiating:

Many people complained that the officiating may have enabled Clemson to sneak by Ohio State in the college football playoff semi-final. While I agree that Clemson was the beneficiary of two very large 50/50 flags, nothing has been written about Ohio State basically mugging Clemson receivers on virtually every play the entire game and benefitting from a plethora of non-calls. The Buckeyes came out determined to be physical and to re-route Tiger receivers. As play after play ensued with no calls, Ohio State ramped up the contact even more. The overall officiating, in my mind, was a wash.

Clemson beat a superior Ohio State team because the Clemson coordinators out-coached the Buckeye staff. Clemson had some brilliant play sequencing and timing of calls on offense. The Tiger staff won the game, not the officials.


2) Mark Dantonio:

Much was made of the presumably classy, low-key retirement of Mark Dantonio at Michigan State. I've been a Dantonio fan a long time. What's not to like about a hard-nosed, conservative defense, solid special teams, and the overuse of quality tailbacks? Michigan State under Dantonio has been the closest thing to Vince Dooley's old Georgia squads reincarnated. But let's acknowledge the reality here.

The 2019 Spartans were a hot football mess. This was a team with 17 returning starters, including the entire offensive line, which turned out to be the weakest part of the squad. Realistically, just two teams on the Michigan State schedule, namely Michigan and Ohio State, figured to be clearly better. And not only were the Spartans underdeveloped underachievers, but they failed tactically during games. They flat-out blew two games, Arizona State and Illinois, that they physically dominated.

Yes, the athletic department was an imploding black hole of distraction, but the football team simply failed on many levels. If Dantonio hadn't resigned, he probably should have been fired. Michigan State knows damned well that the 2019 edition was the best collection of experienced talent that MSU is likely to have for a long, long time. That 7-6 team may have contained more firepower vis-à-vis the rest of the Big 10 than they'll have for the next decade. The 2019 Spartans were a failed opportunity, and this was undoubtedly Dantonio's worst season as a head coach.


3) The Boise State Near Disaster:

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about. The Broncos had a great year. Their only regular season loss was a banger versus BYU with Boise's starting QB sidelined due to injury. Why do I think 2019 Boise State was a near disaster?

Well, I didn't say it was a near disaster for Boise State. Rather, it was a near disaster for the alleged "Power" conferences and the college football playoff. If Boise wins that BYU game, they finish the regular season undefeated. It would have been a very indelicate maneuver, for two reasons, to freeze them out of the playoff while inviting Oklahoma. First, everybody remembers the 43-42 Boise win versus the Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, considered one of the greatest college football games of all time. Second, if you shoehorn Oklahoma into the playoff with that four seed, and they get annihilated by LSU, which obviously is exactly what happened, how do you justify freezing out the unbeaten Broncos? The playoff committee would look like idiots with a serious case of "Power" conference greed.

So it's a good thing that the Boise QB was out for that 25-28 BYU game, or the playoff committee would have had to make a really tough call. They hate writing checks to non-power conferences.

The playoff committee basically survived a near flyby from a major asteroid. What were the consequences? Well, first of all, we now hear a bit of a buzz about inviting Boise to be a member of one of the "Power" conferences. The idea has certain obvious precedents. Both Louisville and TCU were non-power-conference powerhouses in the recent past. Louisville had a monster team in 2004, with their only loss a brutal 38-41 at Miami (FL). In 2006, Louisville lost 25-28 at a ranked Rutgers squad, but won all of their other games. And in 2013, their only loss was 35-38  to UCF. These were all spectacular teams, a combined nine points from being undefeated. TCU, meanwhile, had tremendous squads in 2009 and 2010. The 2009 edition went unbeaten, then lost to Boise State in a bowl. The 2010 TCU team was likely the best in college football, but their non-power-conference status resulted in their being frozen out of the playoff, which featured Oregon versus Auburn.

Both Louisville and TCU were routinely blackballed from big-paying bowls and forced to take sub-million dollar payoffs despite stellar, consistent records, tremendous personnel, and great coaching. Eventually they were both invited to join "Power" conferences. Allow my cynicism to raise its ugly head here. I don't really believe that the "Power" conferences and the NCAA invited Louisville to the ACC and TCU to the Big 12 because they felt it was the fair thing to do. I happen to think that the NCAA was cornered with the possibility of structure-gutting lawsuits and had to cut backroom deals with both schools.

So now Boise State has inherited the red-headed stepchild mantle and the chance to be grateful for joining the brand-name glee club. We'll see what transpires in the months ahead.


March 5, 2020
Bob Dietz