There was a TON of talk defending the College Football Playoff blowouts by comparing them to the NFL Playoffs. No.

This will be short because it’s Christmas and I have food to ruin.

I kept hearing from college football apologists like Joel Klatt and ESPN cronies how there are blowouts in the NFL and no one complains and so on and so forth. Well, Joel, here is the biggest difference. NFL postseason berths are earned. Like, ACTUALLY earned. There’s no subjective, vague or confusing criteria to qualify for mid January football. You just win. You win enough games to finish with more victories than the teams behind you. There is no committee you need to convince to let you in. Blowouts do not matter. Losses to bad teams do not matter. The schedule is irrelevant. Finish with enough wins to put you among the conference’s best and you. are. in. It’s earned. THAT’S why we do not complain (all that much) when a team gets blownout in the NFL Playoffs. They fought their way in. Who are we to argue some other team should have been in that didn’t earn it enough as the aforementioned loser.

That’s not the case in college football. We had teams that many believed were unworthy in the CFP getting trounced by multiple scores and punting down three scores with ten minutes remaining in the game. We have first round winners going on to meet higher seeded 2nd round opponents as double digit favorites. The College Football Playoff is 40% earned, 40% how well you can manipulate your schedule and 20% conference/brand appeal. When you have a dozen or so business men telling us who deserves to be in the playoff and who doesn’t of course we are going to complain when the games are absolute cheeks. And guess what? That’s fine. It’s part of the fun.

There is no perfect fix. College football is a beautiful disaster. Always has been. Always will be. We will never fix it because there are too many teams. With that many teams comes imbalance. There will never be a perfect means to measure teams when selecting the playoff field. So please, stop defending the blowouts because you think you’re the protector of college football. Just shut up, let our righteous anger burn, shrug your shoulders and say what has been the truth for the last quarter century; This is the system we have right now. And most of all; stop comparing it to the NFL.

*****

Christmas Day Picks; Chiefs -2       Ravens -6.5

*****

Thursday Night Pick; Seahawks -3.5