Ducks and Buckeyes

 

By: Connor Lenahan

Yesterday was a long time coming. As a college football fan and someone who was largely against the BCS in every year I have cared about the sport yesterday was a victory. Yesterday was the first time that college football would use a playoff system to determine its champion as opposed to a computer generated matchup. This logic seems clear; Why let a computer decide who the best two teams are when every other sport uses some form of equal chance playoff. That’s what got us to where we are now.

In many ways the four teams that made the playoff didn’t matter to me. This was going to be a good move regardless of competitor – you know, unless the committee created to pick those teams decided to make the final four East Carolina, Western Kentucky, Memphis, and UAB or something. But they didn’t. No, instead they gave us Oregon vs. Florida State and Alabama vs. Ohio State. It’s tough to hate on these choices.

Oregon is a blur and regularly destroys teams. Alabama is one of the best teams in the country every year and went 12-1 with the loss coming to a strong Ole Miss team in Mississippi. Florida State hadn’t lost a game dating back to the beginning of last season and was the reigning national champion. Ohio State was knocked down to their third string quarterback by the end of the year and came one Virginia Tech upset from going undefeated. Cases cold have been made for TCU and Baylor, but the point here is larger. Yes there were two teams that didn’t get a shot at the title, but in years past that number would have been double what it is now. The playoff has immediately improved postseason football in this way.

Then you get to what happened last night. Had the previous BCS system been in place then the national title game would have been Alabama, the #1 team in the country, and Florida State, the only undefeated playoff team. What happened you ask?

Oregon used their hyper-quick offense and genuine skill to decimate the Seminoles. Decimate might be an understatement. The Ducks won 59-20 in amazing fashion. I stopped watching when the Ducks went up by two scores to write yesterday’s article only to come back to find that the quackers were in victory formation.

Last night’s Alabama-Ohio State game was a classic. It’s tough for me to write about. This is because Alabama and Ohio State are 1a. and 1b. on my list of most despised college football teams. But in all honesty I loved this game. It was back and forth. It came down to the final throws by Bama QB Blake Sims. It featured huge plays from Hoio State, including an acrobatic catch by wideout Michael Thomas and an 85-yard run by back Ezekiel Elliott that sealed the game for the Buckeyes. Watching Nick Saban lose is never not awesome.

So now we get to watch the two teams that would have been on the outside looking in play for the national title in a few days. You know what this means? We got it right. We finally fixed the system. Well, mostly. Maybe we will go to eight teams in the future. But for now let’s just be happy with what we have: Anything but the BCS.