Paul Finebaum debates reason behind push for BCS model in College Football Playoff

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum debated the reason behind a push for a BCS model in the College Football Playoff moving forward. Where did it come from? Well, arguably, the last two years struck a major chord.

When the CFP expanded from four to 12 teams, it gave more schools an opportunity. But with the SEC seeing three 9-3 teams left out in favor of schools like SMU and Indiana, there was backlash by some in the media. That’s where the strength of schedule argument ran rampant in College Football Playoff discussions.

Finebaum pulled back a little bit in his SEC support, saying the BCS doesn’t necessarily make sense. He claimed it was an overreaction to the committee’s decisions in recent seasons.

“I think there’s been such a negative reaction to last year that there was a major attack by many around here toward what the humans did,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic. “I remember I sat with Hunter Yuracheck a couple weeks ago in Destin, he was defending it, while almost everyone around him inside the building was being critical. 

“Of course, when you’re on a committee call, you tend to stand up for the flag or rally around it, but I think it will stay this way. I think it’s easy to criticize the BCS, although, quite frankly, they were pretty accurate. What’s interesting is these people on the committee, they are using analytics. It’s not like they’re just only going off eye tests, but more than likely, it stays the same.”

Finebaum said it was likely more about the teams that got in the back end of the College Football Playoff last year, rather than the teams that missed out. It’s a moot point as he said, but it’s something worth discussing as far as why the BCS conversation has resumed.

“In principle, it doesn’t make any sense,” Finebaum said, “I think there has been a two year overreaction and more of a one year because, and listen, you sat there every Tuesday night, so you’re far more plugged into this than almost anybody else. But ultimately, I would like someone to show me which of the three SEC schools that didn’t get in should have gotten in. I think it really has much more to do with the ACC sneaking Clemson in. And I say sneaking them and they did win the league, so they really didn’t sneak in, but it was, it was almost them getting in by winning, and then the committee looking at SMU and just saying, You know what? They played a good game. Let’s give them a participation trophy. 

“And I think that’s where the rub came. I think the Indiana conversation has been debated ad nauseum. They probably did better than maybe I thought they did at the time. It doesn’t really matter anymore. We’re sitting here in the middle of June, I think it was the ACC ultimately, that rubbed so many people the wrong way here.”