I couldn’t think of anything interesting to write this week, so I decided to write about the upcoming college football playoffs this year.  Here are four thoughts that will make your Sunday reading that much more mediocre.

1.  As of the time I’m writing this, we still don’t know which four teams will be in the playoffs, although we are quite sure about three of them.  Clemson, Oklahoma, and Georgia all have only one loss and all won their conference championships, so they are pretty much locked in.  For that fourth spot, the discussion will center around whether the committee will select Ohio State, the Big Ten conference champion that has two losses, one of which was a really ugly blowout to Iowa, or Alabama, which has only one loss, but didn’t win their conference championship and played a relatively weak schedule.  A few people will argue for Southern Cal, which sports a resume that looks remarkably similar to Ohio State’s (a conference champion with two losses, one of which was really ugly), except that USC’s ugly loss was to a better team (Notre Dame).  The problem with USC is that the “experts” consider the Pac-12 to be a little weaker than the Big Ten this year.  I suspect the experts are wrong, but I am fairly certain that the selection committee won’t be calling me to ask for advice.

ESPN has scheduled a four hour selection show this afternoon in which they will spend at least two hours talking about whether it should be Ohio State or Alabama for that last spot.  I don’t get ESPN anymore, but if I did I’d have to say I’d be looking forward to an in-depth discussion of the nuances of Buckeye and Crimson Tide football in the same way I look forward to having my arm amputated.  I just can’t imagine that two hours on this topic will be more interesting than, say, a PBS fundraiser show featuring Yanni belting out his favorite rap songs.  Of course, understand that these are the words of a hypocrite. I’m writing over 800 words on the same subject.

I suspect that if Alabama and Ohio State played ten times, they’d finish at 5-5 with a couple of overtime games thrown in for good measure.  Nonetheless, I’m about 90% certain the selection committee’s going to take Alabama.  These guys just love Alabama. (Editing note:  Did I call it, or did I call it!  Maybe it’s time to try my luck in Vegas!)

If I were the deciding vote, I’d take USC.  They’re more interesting because they have a good quarterback.

2.  Speaking of quarterbacks, this was supposed to be the Year of the Quarterback in college football.  At the beginning of the season, the experts were listing about six quarterbacks who were expected to take college football by storm and proceed on to the NFL, where they would dominate the League for the next fifteen years.  Almost all of them had disappointing seasons and only one of them, Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma, is going to be in the playoffs (assuming that Sam Darnold and USC don’t get there).  I haven’t watched a bunch of college football this year (remember my exile from ESPN), but I have seen all of the quarterbacks on that preseason list play.  I even saw a little of Josh Allen of Wyoming.  Despite the disappointing seasons, all of them are capable of making it at the next level if everything breaks right and all of them have flaws that might sink them.  None of them look like the next Carson Wentz or Dak Prescott, but we should remember that Dak Prescott didn’t look like Dak Prescott when he came out of college.  You never know.

3.  One big difference between professional sports and college sports is that the pros try to bring at least some semblance of parity to their competition.  College sports, and especially college football, really do everything they can to inhibit parity.  Last year, the college football playoff teams were Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, and Washington.  Sound a little familiar?  The year before, it was Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, and Michigan State.  The year before that, they stunned everyone by adding Oregon and Florida State in with Alabama and Ohio State

The NCAA could easily fix this situation with stricter limits on scholarships and tweaking a few other rules.  They won’t.  They like the current setup.  Whether or not this is a good thing is a subject for another day.

4.  I suppose I’d be remiss if I didn’t make a prediction for the playoffs.  There is just a hair’s width of difference between these teams making this about as equal as any football final four ever.  Usually, you look to who has the best quarterback.  That would have worked out well last year, as DeShaun Watson of Clemson was clearly the best quarterback in the final four and Clemson did win the National Title.  This year, the best quarterback, by a lot, is Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma and it doesn’t matter a bit if Alabama or Ohio State is added to the mix.  But Oklahoma’s defense is pretty average (and quite a bit worse than the other teams in this conversation), and I don’t think you can count on them at this level of competition.  The team with the best balance of offense and defense seems to me to be Georgia, so that’s my pick.