Oregon dominated all of college football this season. In the Ducks’ first year in the Big Ten, not only did they win the conference, but they also finished as the No. 1 team in all of college football.
And their reward for that? A first round bye in the largest College Football Playoff since its inception in 2014. But it could be a reward that haunts them if they don’t play for a national title. Because instead of having one of the easiest roads to the national championship, which most top-ranked teams typically have in the playoffs, they have one of the hardest.
Joel Klatt of FOX Sports, even thinks Oregon is getting the short end of the stick.
Oregon’s playoff run could be one of the most dominant championship runs in the CFP era
If Oregon wants to be crowned the best team in college football this season, they’ll have the longest journey and the hardest of any team to ever win a championship. They’d have to either beat Ohio State again or Tennessee, possibly Texas and possibly Georgia.
Meaning there’s a chance they play the three best teams in the SEC, two of them before the title game, if they want a national championship. So much for being the most dominant team in college football this season.
The College Football Playoff bracket format was overshadowed by the obnoxious and entitled SEC teams begging to get invited to the CFP. Because that is what it became more about than earning your way in.
But the real conversation should be less about who “deserves” to be in and more about why teams like Oregon have the hardest path to a national championship. The CFP selection committee should have spent more time finding reasonable seedings than arguing about three-loss SEC teams.
Oregon beat Penn State for a Big Ten championship, yet the Nittany Lions have an easier path — on paper anyway. They have SMU and potentially Boise State before possibly seeing Georgia.
While Penn State is known to not show up in big games, it doesn’t take away from the fact that a Group of 5 school and the loser of the ACC title game are more formidable than two Power 5 opponents.
It’s just another issue the expanded CFP field has brought. The 12-team playoff format was supposed to eliminate all the problems of determining a true champion. Instead, it’s created more chaos on who gets in and the path you could have.
A team that loses a conference championship shouldn’t be given an easier path to winning a championship. Just like the No. 1 team in the bracket shouldn’t have the hardest.
I guess the silver lining in it all is if the Ducks manage to win a national championship, it would prove the SEC wasn’t as strong as they claimed to be and they really did earn it.