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Wasson: Killing good nonconference games is a dumb idea
By David Wasson
Published:
It is a tale as old as time, the histrionics that come out of whoever’s yaps that miss out on postseason opportunities. We have heard it now for generations from basketball coaches when the Popcorn State Fightin’ Kernels are snubbed from the NCAA Tournament … and they get their 15 minutes of gripe in about KenPom rankings or offensive rebounding dominance or second-half turnover ratio.
If there is an ax to grind, you better believe Team No. 65 (in the former 64-team tournament) or Team No. 69 is gonna grind it. Same is true with college football, which has attempted to evolve itself so much in the past quarter-century that the neon-hued sportscoats of the bowl games are relics compared to Rece Davis breathlessly telling us who will play for the Big Enchilada.
What was once the bowl system turned into the BCS, which morphed into a 4-team College Football Playoff – which was great until the SEC started gobbling up 2 spots. That, plus instances like Central Florida going unbeaten and crowning itself a national champion, caused the sport to expand to 12 teams starting this season.
Problem is, just like in 2012 with griping about 2 teams from 1 division making it in and like in 2023 with unbeaten Florida State being left out in the cold, some team somewhere is gonna gripe that they were left without a seat in college football’s musical chairs.
This time around, in fitting irony, it is Alabama.
Now, we have already discussed that the Crimson Tide didn’t exactly show up or show out in the multiple chances it had to lock down a spot this season. You can’t sell LANK shirts online and then let your results define that as acronym as “Lost At Nashville/Norman and Knoxville.”
Alabama’s predictable gripe is that the Crimson Tide feel like they weren’t credited with a confectionary-free nonconference schedule. Athletic director Greg Byrne vowed to review its strategy on future nonconference games, and 1st-year coach Kalen DeBoer added that Alabama’s strong schedule wasn’t rewarded by CFP selection committee.
What Byrne and DeBoer are conveniently leaving out is that Alabama played … checks notes … Western Kentucky and FCS lightweight Mercer this season as part of a 3-game noncon slate that did include a trip to Wisconsin. But here’s the real fly in the nonconference ointment: More often than not a tangy nonconference slate is a better look to the decision-makers than just running it up in paycheck games against the Troys and Montana States of the world.
Had Alabama replaced that that Sept. 14 trip to Madison with, say, Chattanooga, the Tide’s record still would have been 9-3 with a pair of unpalatable losses. In 2024’s case, Alabama could have lost for the first time in 40 years to Vanderbilt or dropped a stink bomb to Oklahoma … but the Tide simply couldn’t do both when there’s also a road loss at Tennessee mixed in.
That’s where the rubber met the road with the Playoff committee, though again every season is so drastically different. An overreaction worthy of SDS’ weekend staple would be to yank your entire inventory of future marquee nonconference games and start dialing with dollars to directional schools and the entire Sun Belt Conference.
Instead, and this is something fanbases are not very good at, the more discerning play would be to take a hard look in the mirror — simply realize that losing more games than the Power 4 teams you’re compared against is the culprit. DeBoer, Byrne and Alabama have no one to blame but themselves for being assigned the ReliaQuest Bowl against Michigan on New Year’s Eve instead of a Playoff spot amid the Lucky 12.
Does that mean we think SMU would be able to take down the Tide? Of course not. Neither, incidentally, do we think Boise State or Arizona State would be able to hang with Alabama – even during a relative off year like the one put forth in Tuscaloosa this year.
But the parameters of the College Football Playoff isn’t to just whittle to the top 12 teams in the country. If you believe that, you probably also have outgoing mail addressed to the North Pole as well. Instead, the real mission here is to identify from the FBS universe composed of wildly varying strengths of schedule and the newfangled “strength of record” data points 12 teams for a month-long series of television shows worthy of millions of dollars of advertising revenue.
This year, but likely not next year, that meant the “wins in conference” and “made Power 4 conference championship game entertaining” data points that SMU proffered were more valuable than the “strength of schedule” data points from Alabama. Simply put, there is absolutely no guarantee those will be the pivot points anytime in the future, so why overreact and purchase yourself 77-0 laughers in between conference alley brawls?
An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
