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Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin swallowed his keyboard shortly after 8 ET Saturday night.
That was about the time Ohio State started boat racing Tennessee in the last of four blowouts in the first round of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
That, thankfully, was the beginning of the end of Kiffin’s rants against the machine. The coach of a three-loss SEC team that lost at home to Kentucky couldn’t help himself in criticizing the non-competitive nature of the first round.
He wasn’t alone, of course, but never has so much outrage been expended regarding higher seeds winning at home, basically doing exactly what they were supposed to do. That’s basically what occurred this weekend.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Lane, but what happened over the weekend has been going on for 10 years. The CFP’s previous 20 first-round (semifinal) games were decided by an average of three scores (17.85 points). The four first-round games this year were won by an average of 19.25 points. Only seven of the 24 have been decided by single digits.
That’s football, dude. We can talk about byes and seeding another time.
Indiana deserved to be in the CFP as much as SMU as much as Tennessee. Clemson at least won the ACC, which suddenly is out the competition after both its teams were eliminated.
Meanwhile, the SEC is down to two representatives — Georgia and Texas — although both are salty as hell at this point. In that sense, it might just mean less. The last time the SEC missed the championship game in consecutive seasons was 2004 and 2005.
The top-heavy Big Ten in the regular season is making the final eight top-heavy, too, with Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon left in the field. At most, two can advance to the semifinals. Just like the…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-playoffs-first-round-was-a-predictable-dud-but-quarterfinals-feature-compelling-matchups/
Author : Dennis Dodd
Publish date : 2024-12-22 19:43:00
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