A peek into the college football selection process backfires

It made for good drama and television ratings and water-cooler debate.

We know why the college football playoff selection committee released its rankings on a weekly basis beginning in late October.

Never accuse ESPN of not capitalizing on any conceivable way to draw attention to itself.

But for those who said allowing the country a peek into the process for over a month would backfire in terms of trust and perception, we offer Sunday’s final rankings as sound support to that theory.

The first playoff bracket is set and includes New Year’s Day games between No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl and No. 2 Oregon against No. 3 Florida State in the Rose Bowl.

The winners play Jan. 12 in Dallas for the national title.

Who you won’t find as part of the playoff is anyone from the Big 12 Conference, as co-champions Texas Christian and Baylor were left out.

The same TCU that five days ago was ranked third by this selection committee.

The same TCU that blasted Iowa State 55-3 on Saturday.

And not 24 hours later, the same TCU that dropped to a No. 6 ranking, jumped by both Ohio State (a 59-0 winner against Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship) and Baylor (a 38-27 winner against Kansas State).

“With TCU, once we saw the body of work, it was more about Ohio State’s impressive performance on the field that made the difference,” selection committee chairman Jeff Long said. “It was more about Ohio State than TCU.

“We don’t deal in hypotheticals. The (Big 12) doesn’t have a (conference championship) game, but Ohio State’s performance in a 13th game that gave them a quality win against a highly ranked opponent allowed them to get that fourth spot.”

Conspiracy theories abound …

Would these rankings be the same if TCU was named Texas or Oklahoma?

How much did the role of potentially huge television ratings — Alabama coach Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer of Ohio State and Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston vs. Marcus Mariota of Oregon — play in the room when teams were being discussed?

Was the influence of a few former coaches/committee members (Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin and Tom Osborne of Nebraska) as overwhelming as many have reported and did it sway enough votes in Ohio State’s direction, given where those gentlemen built their legacies?

One thing is much clearer: Bob Bowlsby, a most unpopular Big 12 Commissioner in Texas towns like Waco and Fort Worth right now, probably shouldn’t answer his phone for a few days.

Long didn’t say it, but he said it. A conference championship game holds immense weight in this process, and the Big 12 would be smart to consider expanding, splitting into two divisions and assuring itself of a marquee game on the same day other Big 5 conferences are staging theirs.

In five days, a team ranked third and in the college playoff won a game by 52 points and dropped to sixth and out of it.

Huh?

“It was decisive for Ohio State to move into that fourth spot,” Long said. “We were faced with co-champions (from the Big 12), that’s what was given to us by the conference. We weighed that and evaluated that.

“We were focused on the four best teams and when we had the full bodies of work, Ohio State earned that spot. It wasn’t about doing what was easiest for the committee. That’s the last thing we were thinking about.”

Nah. It’s just how most across the country not named Kirk Herbstreit will perceive it.

Suggestion: Don’t have the weekly rankings show next year.

You might actually save some face that way.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.