What’s the point in having rules if we’re not going to follow them? On Wednesday the Big Ten overturned its six-game minimum requirement to play in the conference title game held in Indianapolis on December 19. Now No.4 Ohio State (5-0) will face No.14 Northwestern for the league title.
Before the season started the Big Ten announced that in order for a team to be eligible to play in the title game they had to play a minimum of six games. Well…due to games being cancelled on Ohio State’s schedule because of issues with COVID-19 they’ve only been able to play five. Michigan was the latest to have to cancel on the Buckeyes due to positive tests in their program this week.
According to the original rule set forth by the league Ohio State would have been ineligible to play in the title game and No.12 Indiana would have taken their place simply because they would have been the next man up even though the Buckeyes beat them earlier this season.
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! Ohio State is clearly the class of the Big Ten and the conference not only wants but NEEDS them to hold the Big Ten down. They’ll clearly win the Big Ten but most importantly, the conference needs a representative in the College Football Playoff. I get it. It’s all about the money and recognition as a powerful conference. Having Indiana and Northwestern playing in the Big Ten title game isn’t what America wants to see and neither one of them will get into the College Football Playoffs even if they won by 100 points.
Therefore, Ohio State had to play in the title game to position the Big Ten in the Top 4 for national title implications. I completely get it. However, my problem is with duns sitting around the table changing the rules to accommodate the Buckeyes when you didn’t have to have a rule in the first place.
What was the point of having a rule going into the season stating a minimum when we all knew that Ohio State was getting in regardless. It’s foul to the rest of the conference to make exceptions for the Buckeyes that they wouldn’t make for, let’s say, Indiana had this situation been reversed.
If the Hoosiers were 5-0 we all know that nationally they wouldn’t be ranked in the Top 4 if you know anything about how college football works. Rankings are based on tradition and what a team did the previous years and not what’s happening right now. You literally get ranked at the beginning of the season off of reputation. That’s why Penn State was ranked No.8 to start the season even though they were terrible. Tradition and brand ranked them that high. The same goes with LSU.
At best IU would be ranked 6th or 7th because they would have started either unranked or way back at No.25 not at No.6 because of traditional expectations. The traditional powers get ranked high regardless of how good or bad they are because they get the benefit of the doubt. So the national title isn’t won because you won all of your games this year. It’s won several years in advance by being good enough to get ranked high to start the season because of your reputation.
Therefore, if someone like No.1 Alabama losses a game during the season they’ll never fall out of the Top 4. So they always get to play for a national title. However, if let’s say, a team like Oregon loses a ball game their national title hopes go out of the window with that loss because they weren’t ranked high enough to start the season to absorb that one loss.
College football is a hustle of the rich get richer and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. There’s only so many teams that will ever win a national title because the powers that be have always set things in motion for it to happen that way.
The same 14 schools will always win the national title or even have an opportunity to play for it. They are Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Florida, Auburn, Florida State, Miami, USC, Clemson, Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas and Notre Dame. There may be one or two more that I’m missing but that’s it playa. However, there are 128 teams in the FBS division of college football and they are all playing for conference titles and that’s about it.
That’s why the Big Ten changed the rules for Ohio State to play in the conference title game so that they can keep the conference’s name relevant in the national title discussion. The rich get richer all of the time. Stop me when I start lyin’!
