The 2005 12-Team Playoff Night Thread (12/19)

Pretty non-controversial! In real life, undefeated1I’m sorry, I mean “0-0” USC, mustn’t forget NCAA sanctions, Reggie Bush got a limo ride to the Heisman ceremony, the horror USC took on undefeated Texas in an instant classic. No one else had even a faint claim, not even a plucky upstart mid-major. Instead, this season’s drama came from some pretty significant conference realignment. The ACC continued its pillage of the Big East, adding Boston College to get to 12 members so they could begin hosting a conference championship game. The Big East responded by kicking out Temple, who were truly horrific during their stay in the Big East.2They didn’t win a conference game until their 5th season in the league! They averaged just 1 conference win a year! Their best ever conference record was 3-4! They never went bowling, not once! Listen, a healthy big time conference has a few schools it keeps around entirely to be free wins for the real programs, but you have to at least pretend to try! Vanderbilt beat #1 Alabama this year, that’s gonna cover for so many future dogshit campaigns for them. They also responded by raiding Conference USA, adding Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida. C-USA also lost TCU to the Mountain West, and Army to independence, and stemmed their bleeding by adding a whopping 6 schools (Marshall and UCF from the MAC, and Rice, SMU, Tulsa, and UTEP from the WAC), which then prompted the WAC to take three schools (Idaho, New Mexico State, Utah State) from the Sun Belt, which caused the Sun Belt to add Florida Atlantic and Florida International from I-AA3Today known as “FCS”. Shit really rolls downhill, with poaching at the top causing a chain reaction all the way down into the next division.

Back to the playoff, Penn State at #3 is similarly obvious, as the only 1 loss major conference champ.4That one loss was, famously, to an unranked Michigan team, which in real life denied them a potential national title shot. Go Blue! Georgia comes in at #4, champions of the SEC. In our “How did Mark Richt fuck it up this year?” we note losses to middling Florida and Auburn squads keeping the Dawgs out of any real contention in the BCS. But once again, our world gives the perennial bridesmaid a chance to make right.

Big 10 co-champs Ohio State come in at #5, out of the byes thanks to a head-to-head loss against the Nittany Lions, but at least hosting a warm weather team. (We’ll get back to them in a minute) #6 is Oregon, Pac-10 runners up with only a loss to USC marring their record. In real life Oregon fell all the way to the Holiday Bowl, kept out of the BCS by our #7 team, Notre Dame. (In fairness to the Irish, in the AP poll they ranked one spot ahead of the Ducks, #5 vs #6). Notre Dame promptly did what they always do in a major bowl game and lost, 34-20 to the Buckeyes. In our world maybe they get a chance; not sure if 1st round playoff games count as major bowls or not. I guess tomorrow’s clash against Indiana will tell us that!5Seriously, Notre Dame hasn’t won a major bowl game since the 1994 Cotton Bowl! I wasn’t even 2 years old!

Miami makes it at #8, runners up in the newly coined ACC Coastal division. Their inclusion is, I think, maybe the most questionable choice. They lost the division to Virginia Tech, who finished the regular season 10-2 after an upset in the conference championship game that Miami couldn’t qualify for. This loss kept Virginia Tech out of our 12-team field entirely. But, the Canes do have a head-to-head win over the Hokies, so I guess we can say that’s what justifies their inclusion. Our final at-large are #9 Auburn, SEC West runners-up who have a similar relationship with LSU, who won their division but miss the playoff after an upset to Georgia in the SEC championship. But, like Miami and Virginia Tech, Auburn can claim a head-to-head over LSU as justification for their placement.

Part of why such strong at-large teams get left out this year is because of some fairly weak conference champs rounding things out. West Virginia just sneaks into the BCS top 12, champions of the restructured Big East. But their inclusion will be wholly noncontroversial after their inevitable upset of Notre Dame in South Bend.6Slander aside, you really gonna tell me you would have trusted Charlie Weiss to win a playoff game? Come now, be reasonable. TCU win their inaugural season in the Mountain West, jumping slightly into the playoff from BCS #14. But the true beneficiary of our 7 champ requirement, the rule meant to help out the little guy, is of course 8-4 Florida State, a butt booty team that bumbled their way to the ACC Atlantic crown before upsetting Virginia Tech in the very first ACC championship game. CCGs bring in a lot of money, but sometimes they’re more trouble than they’re worth, as the ACC goes from a likely first round bye with 1-loss champ Virginia Tech to being lucky to make the field at all with 4-loss Florida State. The conference consolidation that lead to the ACC title game existing at all wound up saving their ass here, as 9-2 Louisville ranked ahead of FSU in the BCS, and likely would have claimed this last champ spot if they were still in Conference USA, rather than the Big East runners-up.