truth is it's some combination of best team and best resume. you have to have a comparable resume to be considered, but if there's more than 4, then of those considered, who are the best teams?
best resume is subjective too, btw. i happened to agree undefeated p5 is better, but that doesn't mean it can't be argued. depends on what you value.
This.
This is why the whole thing is fubar as you noted, and always has been, and always will be. I don't care so much about the controversy of who got in and who was left out. The committee had to pick somebody and they were going to be wrong either way. They were also going to be right either way. Because there's a case to be made for both FSU and Alabama. And sometimes they go by "four best teams" and sometimes they go by "four most deserving teams" and there's no rhyme or reason year to year, slot to slot. Literally the logic they use to justify putting one team in will reverse itself to justify putting another in/keeping another out.
The main thing I'd point out about the case for FSU is the broader point for why the whole thing is jacked. "Best team" is essentially the eye test. And here's the thing with the eye test. Nobody knows jack squat. We know what we think will happen in games where teams are in the same ballpark, but we don't. The committee is the same people who were balls deep in Oregon just the other day. Every talking head said Oregon is really better than Washington, even though Oregon lost the regular season game. Said they were more physical. Said they will win the rematch. Lulz. I could go on....there's literally as many games the general consensus gets wrong as it gets right. Amazingly, nobody ever seems to track that or remember it. "FSU would definitely lose to the other teams." GTFOH. We literally don't know, and anybody who argues with me on that, take me up on the challenge to pick big games between top teams and let me track it and show you your ~50% success rate over time.
So "most deserving team" is nothing but an exercise in the futility and hubris of 13 committee members who want to act like they have crystal balls, but don't.
But then get this. If they were to go strictly "best resume," they're still going to run into controversy, unsolvable riddles, and situations where they can't be right. (Or wrong.) Because it's still people discussing competing criteria with no objective answer which data point or points should trump others.
Everybody was mad at the BCS because of all the third teams it left out. And it was generally thought to be the voters' fault. So they went to a 4 team playoff, like that was going to solve everything. Many astute observers *ahem* said from the beginning all that would happen is controversy about the 4th spot and the 5th teams it leaves out. Which is exactly what has happened, multiple times. Now somehow people think a 12 team playoff will fix that, because....I guess because people who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. People like to say "If you aren't one of the 12 best teams you don't deserve to be in and can't whine about it." Those people are clueless. And they won't even notice their folly in the future when the jilted 13th teams who are playing really well are left out and fans think so-and-so got robbed and they definitely would've competed with anybody. Wait til a 9-3 Bama gets left out and everybody just
knows that Alabama is really one of the best teams in the country and should've gotten in.
Lol, jk, Alabama is never gonna not gonna get the benefit of the doubt. But you know what I'm saying.
There is such a rush to NFL-ize everything about this sport, I can't for the life of me figure out why the powers that be can't figure out that committees and voters just need to stop. Do what the NFL does, set out criteria before the season ever starts. There is no subjectivity, no unsolvable riddles, just teams who either hit the mark or they don't. Beauty pageants have nothing to do with it. There are tie-breakers galore to be parsed out
in advance so that teams who otherwise achieve equal criteria can be filtered out, just like the NFL has. The way we do it now will never quell controversy and hard feelings, and that can't be solved with expanding the playoff. Watch and see.
Although....I think the controversy, the hand-wringing, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, is exactly what ESPN wants. Nothing drives views and clicks like controversy and talking heads taking one side or the other.
