The inaugural College Football Playoff has sparked significant debate regarding the rankings and structure of the tournament. Despite being favored, the top-seeded teams were unexpectedly eliminated in the quarterfinals, leading host Darin Hayes to question whether the rankings accurately reflected the best teams in college football. As the playoffs progress, Hayes discusses the intriguing matchups between Penn State and Notre Dame, as well as Texas and Ohio State, emphasizing the exceptional talent and performance of the quarterbacks involved. He argues that the current system may need re-evaluation, suggesting that automatic seeding based on conference championships may not always yield the fairest results. With a mix of excitement and analysis, Hayes invites listeners to consider how the selection process could improve in the future while celebrating the thrilling nature of college football playoffs.

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We're in a whole new era of college football in a post season as we have entered the first year of the college football playoffs.

While the semifinals are coming up in just a couple days and let's go to take this time to review what's happened so far and where the teams are left and how they were ranked.

Some changes maybe that could be made.

This and more coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

Your host Darrin Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

So as we come out of the tunnel of the Sports History Network, let's take the field and go no huddle through the portal of positive gridiron history with pigskindispatch.com.

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Hello my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history and welcome to the College Football Playoff format.

We have seen two rounds go by.

Now we've gone from 12 teams, we're down to four.

The semifinals are coming up starting Thursday, January 9th, where the number six Penn State Nittany Lions will take on the number seven Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Orange Bowl.

And on Friday the next day, the number five Texas Longhorns will try their best against the number eight Ohio State Buckeyes in the Cotton Bowl.

Two very intriguing matchups, but there is a lot of complaining going on in the college football world and a lot of it has to do with how the players college football playoffs are structured.

I don't know that I totally agree with that premise.

How they were structured.

I think how they were ranked is more of the issue.

Now let's take a step back a little bit here.

We had 12 teams going in and they were giving the top four seeds to big five, sorry, the big conference college champions.

So the SEC, the Big Ten, they naturally got their winners.

The Mountain west with Boise State got its winner and I'm sorry, Oregon was the Big Ten winner and Georgia was the SEC winner of the championship game.

So they all got bys.

Well in our Queen quarterfinal round, every single one of the teams that got a buy the favorites for this bracket were eliminated by the underdog Notre Dame at number seven beat number two, Georgia.

Number six, Penn State beat number three, Boise State.

The Texas Longhorns, ranked number five, beat number four, Arizona State.

And the Ohio State Buckeyes demolished the Oregon Ducks, a team that beat them just a few weeks earlier, beat them by large score.

So it was number eight versus number one there.

So all those, those top four to the rankings are gone.

Well, maybe the problem is not the rankings.

Maybe the problems is not using the AP and the coaches rankings are done during the year, which a little bit more accurate.

People have complained about them for years, but I think they're a little bit more accurate than having a conference champion going in and getting an automatic seeding in a tournament.

I don't think that's quite right.

And if you look, you know, the lessons of the NCAA basketball tournament, they don't necessarily do that.

They take the best teams and give them the top seeds and rank from there.

And it's not a perfect science by any means.

Every year there's gripings, complainings, bubble.

Teams don't make it.

This guy, this team shouldn't be ranked number one.

Yada, yada, yada, you're going to have that no matter what.

But I think maybe this College Football Playoff, this inaugural one, is a lesson to be learned, that that's not the best four teams in the country necessarily.

Perhaps the best four teams in the country are the ones that are playing in the semifinals now, except with the exception of Oregon not being in there.

Yeah.

Everybody can have their bias.

The SEC can.

You know, they're crying a river of tears saying Georgia was.

Was cheated in somehow, which I don't understand.

They were totally outplayed by Notre Dame offensively and defensively and special teams.

Their quarterback couldn't play.

Well, that's a big factor.

But maybe that means that they shouldn't have been ranked where they were.

You know, they, they had, you know, they end up suffering some losses during the season, and maybe, you know, that that's where they shouldn't have been.

Maybe Boise State, were they really one of the top four teams in the country?

Good.

Good ball club.

Probably part of the 12.

And I'm not saying any of these teams shouldn't be part of the 12.

And there's those that argue that perhaps, you know, maybe Clemson shouldn't have got in it, but they, you know, they definitely did what they had to do at the end of the season to make the tournament and, you know, take them in favor of who Alabama would get to nod over them.

You know, that's the kind of things that come up in these things.

But I think all the teams that were in there deserve to be the top 12.

I just don't think that they were seated correctly in the playoff bracket to get the results that would be expected.

You'd expect your top four teams to be the chalk, not the teams that won the conferences.

And I think that's sort of where the tournament directors went wrong with this first college football playoff.

Perhaps something, maybe they can look at a better in the future.

They'll get some pushback from the conference chairman, I'm sure, in the conferences, especially the SEC in the Big Ten.

And this could have gone the other way.

You could have had, you know, a couple of SEC teams in the the bracket in one Big Ten team or maybe no Big Ten teams.

You could have all ACC teams in there.

It doesn't matter.

Every year it's cyclical, and these teams and the balance of powers in the country, they sway to and fray.

But it shouldn't punish an independent team like Notre Dame to not get a buy.

They were definitely deserving of being maybe one of those top four.

Did they?

You know, I think they had a little bit stiffer competition in Boise State.

Yes, they lost a game.

They shouldn't have lost.

A team that wasn't even in their same competitive level, you know, beat them and, you know, that basically dominated them.

Not maybe so much on the scoreboard, but Northern Illinois did a great job of stifling and frustrating Notre Dame when they played him that week three, I believe.

But it doesn't mean that they weren't one of the top teams because every single team in these brackets had a loss under schedule.

So I think it's kind of interesting that, you know, we look back and say, you know, cry foul and this was messed up.

Yeah, it's messed up, but I don't think the teams are messed up.

I just think the order that they recede in a tournament.

Tell me what you think about that.

Pigskindispatchmail.com and hopefully we get things right.

And tell me who.

Who do you think is going to win this?

You know, these are some interesting matchups of Penn State and Notre Dame.

Man, that is just an intriguing matchup.

You have two quarterbacks that are really playing about as well as you could expect.

Riley Leonard, and the gentleman from Penn State is just.

He's been on fire.

And they both use their legs and their Arms, which kind of make it evenly matched.

And the defensives on both sides and the offensive lines are.

These are like two mirror images of each other, so be kind of fun to watch.

And Texas and Ohio State.

Oh, boy, this could really be some phenomenal play.

You have two premier programs just going at it with great coaching on Circassian and Day.

These guys are top of their games and they have some real talent here.

Of two very proud football states playing each other, you know, who do you think is going to win?

Odds on favorite.

You know, people are saying it's going to be Ohio State and Penn State rematch for the national championship game.

You know, others say, well, maybe the quarterback play for Texas and maybe their defensive woes will get straightened around here against Ohio State and maybe they can knock off Ohio State.

Maybe they can.

You know, I'm not really sure.

I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the football.

And I have two teams that are in it, unfortunately, they're playing each other.

My favorite team is Notre Dame and they're playing my home state, Penn State.

So what do you do?

I'm going to root for the Golden Domers, I think.

But I won't be sad if Penn State's in the national championship.

Be sad that Notre Dame loses, but sad that they are in there.

Ohio State, that's, you know, Columbus is not that far from my home, actually.

I have family from Columbus.

My mother grew up there and my mother later on in life moved to Texas.

So we have connections to those schools as well.

So it's going to be fun for my family, fun for me to watch these games, but just the enjoyment of football playoffs and, you know, with all these teams vying for that national championship on this great level, it's a great format.

Don't change the format.

Change how you bring the teams in through.

Be ranked conference champions shouldn't be the ones getting the bye necessarily, unless they're the top teams in the country.

Listen to the polls and you'll do so much better.

College Football Playoff committee, till next time.

Everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock the time's running down we're gonna go into victory formation Take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow for the next podcast.

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