We’re up to three power conferences underway. The SEC’s opening weekend, with the notable exception of LSU doing what we kind of suspected they might do but didn’t think they’d do this quickly or this strikingly, has gone as expected, and that conference is, as is often the case, closer to two playoff bids than one. The Big 12’s opening weekend, though…
Yikes.
The Big 12 was already in trouble. Dropping three games to Sun Belt teams on its first day of competition was, indeed, a bad thing for the league, even if its beleaguered porter of legitimacy still held the flag aloft. Yesterday, it got worse. That porter collapsed. Oklahoma lost. There is no legitimacy.
This sounds dramatic and overreactive, and it may turn out to be dramatic and overreactive. Oklahoma lost to Kansas State last year as well, and they still found themselves in the playoff at year’s end. But years of College Football Playoff failures are mounting in public opinion, and we’ve yet to see the committee buck consensus too strongly. This time, it was a home loss, and home losses are worse than road ones. And this year specifically, there are unique factors that make the happening much worse.
For one thing, the most expectation-worthy compadre to the Sooners struggled mightily in Lubbock. Texas’s defense, if such a thing exists, yielded 21 more points than even Houston Baptist had allowed the Red Raiders to score. Some FCS teams don’t get enough credit. Houston Baptist is not one of those teams.
For another, again—the Sun Belt stomped the Big 12 two weeks ago. No, nobody was putting any weight on Kansas’s performance. But Iowa State was a popular third-place pick. And Kansas State just beat Oklahoma.
But worst still, the Pac-12 has a hugely better shot at presenting an undefeated champion than ever before. It just isn’t playing very many games. There are more viable paths. There are fewer opportunities for something to go horribly wrong.
Would the committee accept such a Pac-12 champion? That, of course, remains to be seen, and it depends on a variety of factors. Will the Big 12 have an undefeated champion of its own, somehow? How clear-cut will the divide be presented in the media? How much trouble will the Pac-12 victor have against its in-league brethren? What will happen in the other three power conferences? Will Cincinnati play like a powerhouse?
We don’t know yet how seven wins and zero losses would compare to ten wins and one loss. We don’t know if such a comparison will even be one that occurs. But if you’re worried some are writing off the Big 12 too soon, don’t be. The league’s playoff chance isn’t quite dead. But it’s getting there.
