Forget conference championship games this weekend. The biggest storyline surrounding the College Football Playoff is the No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed. Tennessee and Ohio State are almost certainly locked into those spots, and neither is playing in their league title games this weekend.
So the question is this: Who gets the home game?
The Vols and Buckeyes have nearly identical resumes. Both teams lost to the favorites to win their respective conferences on the road, Tennessee to the Georgia Bulldogs and OSU to the Oregon Ducks. They also both suffered upset losses to teams that finished the year 6-6, Tennessee at the Arkansas Razorbacks and OSU at home to the Michigan Wolverines.
On paper, Ohio State should get the home game. Sure, Tennessee’s worst loss is better since it was on the road by one score, the Vols benefit from recency bias since OSU just had their bad loss, and UT has a higher ranked strength of record in the ESPN FPI by one spot.
Ohio State, though, has a slightly higher ranked strength of schedule by every metric, they have beaten more bowl eligible teams, their “good” loss is by one to the No. 1 team in the nation while UT’s is by 14 to the No. 5 team, and most importantly they have two quality wins to UT’s one. Both their quality wins are more highly rated than what the Vols have.
It won’t matter.
Ryan Day is headed to Neyland Stadium for one simple reason: Politics. The College Football Playoff is held by ESPN, which has locked in the SEC for a 10-year deal at a steal. Remember, the SEC asked for dramatically less money than it should have, only $300 million a year, while the Big Ten is getting $1 billion a year and on a seven-year deal across three networks.
Simply put, the SEC is giving ESPN a major steal given the contract comparisons, and Greg Sankey and co. are going to expect some politicking in their favor in return. Part of that will be getting as many SEC teams in the CFP as possible. The other part will be guaranteeing that league home games when possible.
If you want a lesser reason, Tennessee actually brings in more revenue than Ohio State. Although OSU’s stadium has 805 more seats, the Vols are more profitable. Last year, despite Ohio State being a CFP contending team, Tennessee sold 14,000 more season tickets while its football program generated $12 million more in revenue and $20 million more in profits.
Taking all this into account, Tennessee is just a more valuable program at the current moment, albeit ever so slightly. Add in the fact that Ohio State fans are openly turning against Ryan Day while Vol fans are fully behind Josh Heupel, and you have to think the CFP will take into account which atmosphere will be better.
You can scream all day into the microphone that the committee doesn’t take those things into account. They do.
There’s no anti-Tennessee or anti-SEC bias, despite what many in the region like to believe. Quite the contrary, this expanded playoff is going to give direct bias towards that league, and it’s going to reveal itself Tuesday. Tennessee will be ahead of Ohio State despite a slightly worse resume. Book it.
One Response
“Book it”? Like booking aTm over TX? (I respect Caleb a lot, but I just had to get that jab in). The argument that ESPN will bear more weight than CBS, Fox and NBC doesn’t hold water. Those 3 networks collectively, having spent $1B to ESPN’s $300K, will have more to say about it than ESPN.