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Tied 28 all late in the third quarter . . . but:


Fans know Big Ten championship game lacks relevance

Dec 3, 2016 at 5:21p ET

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- It's right there, in bold type, on the College Football Playoff website.

"Every Game Counts." Well, and sorry if this seems a little weird, truth is that maybe not quite every game. Maybe the game that does not count is a conference championship game, like Saturday night's Big Ten matchup of Penn State and Wisconsin, and try to explain that one.

Because, in the very next paragraph, the playoff website's criteria go on to proclaim, "The selection committee ranks the teams based on conference championships won . . ."

In other words, a conference championship is the key factor.

Except when it isn't.

Critics used to mock the people who run the college football bowl games because they paraded around looking like peacocks in all those brightly colored blazers with their oversize logos, spending fall weekends wining and dining athletic directors.

Well, those guys look like Einstein compared to the clowns now in charge of the college playoff.

They played the Big Ten championship game Saturday night at the dome in Indianapolis, and as game time approached, tickets could be had for less than $10, which should give you some idea of what the public thought of it.

And about a dozen hours after the end of the game, Ohio State, which failed even to qualify for the conference title game, is expected to be chosen one of the four teams for the college playoff.

The Big Ten champion will finish the season with a high place in the national rankings and a boost in its recruiting. It just will not be given a chance to play for the national championship, not be allowed a Cinderella champion like Texas Western in 1966 or a Villanova in 1985 in the NCAA basketball tournament.

The consolation prize will be a trip to the Rose Bowl.

That's not bad.

And, an argument can be made that Ohio State was the best team in the Big Ten this year, anyway, and maybe it was, although it lost to Penn State and beat Michigan only because of a few dunderhead plays by the Wolverines in critical spots. But the point is the Buckeyes did not even win their conference championship and they are going to get a chance to play for the national championship and the team(s) that finished ahead of them in the conference are not.

You have to wonder what the geniuses who dreamed up the college playoff were thinking when, by design, they guaranteed a degree of controversy by setting up a four-team playoff among five power conferences. In other words, you know you are starting out by leaving out one of the conference champions. Period.

It's a small step from there to leaving out another.

The playoff, of course, was supposedly designed to eliminate the controversy that occurred in the past when the national champion was decided by a vote instead of, oh, say, an actual game. Which is how an undefeated Nebraska was selected over an undefeated Penn State in 1994 or several years when two groups of voters selected different teams as national champions, giving a little for everybody.

A word, "supposedly," appears in the previous paragraph because it would never pass a lie detector test. Let's face it, the playoff was set up to give a small group power and a bigger group money, because nothing much happens in college sports that does not really involve power and money.

The five major conferences brought six bowls into their playoff orbit and only under pressure allowed one of the dozen spots to go to a school not a member of their cartel. But they certainly did not want one of the outliers getting super rich on the playoff, which is why they limited the playoff field to four teams and put the rest into a so-called "Group of 6" bowl lineup which they controlled - and, of course, sold for a huge sum to television.

One interesting sidelight is that the people who run this sham championship arrangement, try as they might, could not fool everybody. You'd think, ordinarily, the championship game of the richest conference would be a huge magnet for fans, but since the fans realized it had so little to do with the national championship they smelled it for what it is.

On Stubhub earlier in the week, there were more than 15,000 tickets available for the Penn State-Wisconsin matchup. As late as Saturday morning, more than 5,000 were still available, with sideline seats going for as little as, get this, $9.71.

You can be sure that would not have been the case were the winner assured of going on to play for a bigger prize, but as it was, even Penn State and Wisconsin fans kept their wallets in their pockets because, since the meaning of the game was diminished, they'd prefer to save for, say, a trip to Pasadena instead of Indianapolis.

Going into the game, the coaches, of course, tried to downplay the bigger picture by simply talking about the import of a conference championship -- "huge," said Penn State's James Franklin -- and deferring any questions about the playoff possibilities.

But it didn't take a deep reading of Franklin's comments to know how he felt.

"You could make a really good argument that the Big Ten, specifically the Big Ten East, may be the best conference in all of college football right now," Franklin said.

He is probably right. The Big Ten is probably the best conference in college football right now, just a couple years after people were writing obituaries about the league's weakness. It's just not a good enough conference, apparently, to allow its champion to play for the national title.

It's a game to determine 3rd place. Michigan beat both of them already this season.

But they didn't beat the team they needed to in order to be playing tonight did they.

Excellent game.

Helluva come back, great game!

Yes, it was a great game and the best team on the field tonight won. I am a Badger fan but they got outplayed tonight. Penn State won this year when they had to and deserve to be Big 10 Champs.

Doesn't matter. OSU is probably the #2 team in the CFP. Clemson won -they're in, so did Wash so they're probably in too. Obviously 'Bama is in, so there's your playoff field. Penn will have to represent in the Rose Bowl. And there's a good chance that Michigan is still #5 going to the Orange Bowl.

Love to see the CFP expand to 8 teams. These kinds of arguments would be moot.

No they wouldn't.

1. Alabama
2. Washington
3. Penn St.
4. Oklahoma

Clemson nearly got beat.

I agree!

There are 10-15 teams that realistically have a chance to make a 4 team playoff. That's out of the 128 FBS teams. For the 110+ teams that don't stand a chance, conferences and conference championships serve a useful purpose. First, the group teams together in groups of *roughly* the same level of skill. Secondly, they give the teams not in the national championship running an achievable and worthwhile goal. That's all very well.

However, conference titles skew things when they are used as a factor in the national title because they only count games played against conference opponents. This results in scenarios such as the one we have with the Big 10. Penn State is a two loss team. While they have played well and certainly deserve the trip to the Rose Bowl they are going to get, there is no rational reason why they should be placed in the national playoff ahead of a ONE LOSS team, Ohio State. Had Ohio State lost their one game to a worthy non-conference team, say LSU or USC, nobody would have a problem with them being in the playoff. But because their one loss happened to be to a team that was also a member of an artificial and, from the national perspective, irrelevant construct - the conference - some think it's somehow unfair that a team with a better record should go to the playoff.

It's not. The fact that a two loss team won the conference doesn't make up for the fact that they are a two loss team and like the rest of the many fine two loss teams out there won't be going to the playoffs.

The system is designed to pick the 4 best teams, not the 4 best conference winners.

If you can't even win your conference division much less your conference, then you have no business playing for the national championship. NONE.

That jackass herbstreit was already pimping that the Big 10 Championship winner is headed to the Rose Bowl - and his homo buddy fowler was agreeing.

I'd go with:

Alabama
Clemson
Washington
Penn St

and send the suckeyes to the Rose Bowl and have their ass handed to them by USC. But I digress . . .

Your final four is a good choice IMHO. All conference champs.

The system is designed to generate the best television revenue. If it wasn't it would be like any other playoff system in sports.

If the team or teams that won the conference is passed over in favor of a team or teams that they beat and did not qualify for the conference championship game, then the team or teams that did not got it done on the field of play is subjective as to "best" and makes all games meaningless.

The best revenue generator would be Alabama-OhioState rematch. College football is to big a business to let a championship decided totally by play on the field.

Alabama
Clemson
Ohio State
Washington

That is a real problem and makes the whole process a shame.

also a sham