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Changes needed for CFP format

Notes and observations after the conclusion of the college bowl season and inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff tournament:

n The new 12-team format brought added excitement and intrigue to this season’s postseason tournament, and eliminated much of the controversy that surrounded teams that were put in, and left out, of the College Football Playoffs, under the previous too-narrow four-team format.

However, this year’s expanded postseason didn’t go off without question marks.

The postseason seedings, mandating that conference champions from each of the Power Five Conferences — regardless of the strength of schedule that they faced during the regular season — be accorded top seeds and first-round byes, was at the forefront of debates.

Boise State, champion of the Mountain West Conference, was seeded a very high third despite facing only one formidable opponent of note — Big Ten Conference champion Oregon — during the regular season. Despite the fact that the Broncos fought tooth-and-nail in their only regular-season loss — a 37-34 setback to the Ducks in one of the toughest road venues in the country, Auzten Stadium in Eugene, Ore. — such a high seed for Boise State in the CFP was very questionable.

Boise was beaten handily by sixth-seeded Penn State in a quarterfinal-round game, and then the Nittany Lions were defeated by a very good seventh-seeded Notre Dame team in the semifinals.

Both Penn State and Notre Dame deserved to be seeded above Boise, and Georgia — despite losing two regular-season games before dropping a quarterfinal-round game to Notre Dame — was a questionable second seed.

Oregon won the Big Ten Conference championship game over Penn State, but the Nittany Lions got a much better draw than the Ducks in the CFP. Penn State beat 11th-seeded SMU at home in a first-round game before beating Boise in the quarterfinals, while Oregon drew eventual national champion Ohio State — which was one of the pre-tourney favorites — in a quarterfinal-round matchup at the Rose Bowl that Ohio State won handily. But the Buckeyes had been saddled with an eighth seed after being stunned at home by archrival Michigan in their regular-season finale.

Arizona State was ranked 12th in the country but seeded fourth in the CFP, and accorded a first-round bye, after winning the Big 12 Conference championship.

Future adjustments to the CFP seeding process are necessary, but may not take place in the near future, with an agreement of all the commissioners from the conferences that are involved one of the sticking points. Not giving all conference champions a first-round bye would greatly diminish the importance of some conference championship games.

There won’t be any easy answer, or one that suits everybody, but any future CFP seeding adjustments will no doubt be focused on regular-season strength of schedules, which was put on the backburner in the initial CFP seeding process.

n I’m not an Ohio State fan, or a fan of any particular college football program, for that matter. Nonetheless, it was still great to see embattled Buckeyes coach Ryan Day — who had received unconscionable threats on his life following the Michigan loss from what acclaimed television football analyst Kirk Herbstreit described as the “lunatic fringe” segment of Ohio State’s “fan” base — silence the detractors and win the national championship Monday.

n It was a poor season for the usually powerful Southeastern Conference, whose top teams either disqualified themselves from CFP consideration with mediocre regular seasons, or laid eggs once they reached the postseason.

Perennial national title contender Alabama muted its argument for a postseason berth with an ugly three-touchdown, late-season road loss to a mediocre Oklahoma team — its third regular-season defeat, after the Crimson Tide had also been upended in early October at Vanderbilt. Alabama’s loss to a mediocre Michigan team in the Dec. 31 ReliaQuest Bowl was another dagger that proved that the Crimson Tide’s exclusion from CFP consideration this year was the right decision.

Another SEC team, Tennessee, was boat-raced in its first-round CFP game by Ohio State in Columbus, a disappointing outcome for the Vols in a matchup that was widely expected to be much more competitive.

SEC newcomer Texas put up a spirited fight against Ohio State in the semifinals, but the Longhorns failed to execute offensively and cash in on an optimal potential game-tying opportunity late in the game, then committed a brutal fumble that resulted in a back-breaking scoop and length-of-the-field scoring run by Buckeyes’ defensive end Jack Sawyer that sealed the deal for Ohio State.

n Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers turned down a reported $8 million NIL transfer deal from another school and has announced his decision to declare for this spring’s NFL Draft, and there has been at least some speculation that Ewers would be a great fit for the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose quarterback situation is currently in flux.

n At least initially, quarterback Carson Beck’s decision to enter the transfer portal and leave Georgia may have come as a surprise to many.

But upon further review (pun intended), and after connecting all the dots, it may not have been all that stunning. After suffering a season-ending elbow injury in the Southeastern Conference championship game against Texas, Beck was replaced by native Georgian Gunner Stockton, who showed moxie and swagger in leading the Bulldogs to a conference championship victory. It became apparent that Stockton had won over his teammates and his coaching staff, and that Beck would be taking a back seat.

Beck then sought treatment for his injury in California, and was only marginally involved with the Bulldogs through their time in the College Football Playoffs, which ended with a quarterfinal-round loss to Notre Dame after a first-round bye.

Beck was tied to quarterback openings at Ohio State and Texas Tech, but ultimately chose to transfer to the University of Miami — where his girlfriend, Haley Cavinder, is a star on the Hurricanes’ women’s basketball team.

The Hurricanes’ senior quarterback, and Heisman Trophy candidate Cam Ward, also declared for the NFL draft, leaving the door wide open for Beck to take over at quarterback for Miami in 2025. So all signs pointed to Beck leaving Georgia, and that’s what he did.

n Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame and Texas were all ranked in the preseason Top 25 by the Associated Press this season, and each of the four programs lived up to the billing, at least reaching the CFP semifinals, and in the case of the Buckeyes and the Fighting Irish, the national championship game. Conversely, the biggest flops, and their preseason rankings, were: Michigan (9th), Florida State (10th), Oklahoma (16th), Miami (19th), Arizona (21st), USC (23rd), and North Carolina State (24th).

Michigan went 5-5 in its first 10 games before rallying to win its last three, including the monumental road upset of Ohio State. Florida State was the worst of the worst, crashing to a 2-10 record, while Oklahoma wrapped up a 6-7 season with a loss to Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl. Miami carried an undefeated record through its first nine games, but proved to be a pretender rather than a contender while losing three of its final four, and winding up with a loss to Iowa State in the Pop Tarts Bowl. Arizona (4-8) wasn’t bowl eligible, while USC (7-6) beat Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl and North Carolina State (6-7) lost to East Carolina in the Military Bowl.

John Hartsock can be reached at jhartsock@altoonamirror.com.

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