Author @TheCoachBart
Well, we’re only one week away from DOOM one way or another. The CFB Playoff committee seems to just be pulling things out of the hat, so for the sake of being decent people, why not help those 12 people along and let them know which semifinal playoff matchups we (you?) would probably most like to see.
That way, they can just close up shop, head to the watering hole early, and laugh about how it’s funny that people think stuff like actual head to head results should matter. Which is what they’re going to do anyway.
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1. Oregon vs. Alabama: This one would take some finagling, which basically would be a close Alabama loss to Mizzou that would drop the Tide to number four. However, Nick Saban loves that hyper-speed no-huddle offense the way people who actually listen to music like Nickelback, so it’d be fun to see him try to wrangle with the Czars of the speed offense in Oregon.
On the Oregon flip side, even though this isn’t your BCS brother’s Alabama defense, no one prepares quite as well for these sorts of games as Saban, so it’s not like the Ducks will be able to close up shop by halftime against the Tide.
2. Florida State vs. Ohio State: You’d have one coach trying to go for two straight championships against one who already won two titles. Obviously, this has more juice to it if we know that Ohio State’s offense wouldn’t skip a beat, but you can’t help but wonder what two teams that just seem to have a penchant for finding their way to wins would do against one another.
3. Florida State vs. Alabama: Alabama represents the best scoring defense potentially in the playoffs, so why not toss Jameis Winston against the most pro-style schemes he’ll have seen? I’d prefer this to come down to one drive on offense by FSU to win the game… as was the case against a different Alabama-based team last season.
4. Arizona vs. Ohio State: I don’t know, part of me holds some morbid curiosity as to what it would look like if Michigan had held on to Rich Rodriguez and this was basically The Game every season.
5. Baylor vs. Oregon: In a game with the pace that suggests it can be done in an hour, it’d probably take about five, what with all of those point things going up on the board. Perhaps no team has taken a lot of what Oregon popularized in the Chip Kelly era and applied it better to itself than Baylor, which has been a different program since Art Briles was hired and this thing went at warp speed. In my youth, Baylor was unwatchable. Now? Not so much.
6. Alabama vs. Ohio State: Oh, come on, do I even need to explain why?
7. TCU vs. Missouri: Again, you’re looking at basically some witchcraft to help make this matchup happen, but why not have a battle between the Big 12’s old flame — that went looking first at the Big Ten and then the SEC because it wanted out of the relationship so badly — against the conference’s new hot flame? It’s like a Desperate Housewives scene, preferably one with that Longoria gal.
8. TCU vs. Baylor: Oh, damn, that’s right … we’ve already seen this. Well, why not again? Then maybe the playoff committee can watch it this time around, too!
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