When Western Michigan takes the field Friday for the MAC Championship in Detroit, the Broncos will try to remain one of only two undefeated teams left in college football.
It’s an impressive feat, sure. But there’s no chance. None. Not even a glimmer of hope that the Broncos could land in the four-team College Football Playoff.
There will be debates and plenty of hand-ringing over the next several weeks about which four teams got into the field and whether they deserved to.
None of it will be about WMU. Truthfully, Western Michigan likely doesn’t deserve to be in a four-team field. It would be too large a leap of faith to include them. The No. 13 Broncos (12-0) would likely be a double-digit underdog against any of the top eight teams in the country. Even though they’ve won their last 11 games by at least two touchdowns, they haven’t beaten anybody good enough to prove they’re worthy of a spot.
That doesn’t mean they’re not good enough. There’s no way to tell.
So what if they do belong? What if they are good enough? What if this is the year that a terrific young coach had enough things break right that the Broncos were capable of upsetting one of the heavyweights?
Nobody will every know. They’ll play in the Cotton Bowl as the best Group of Five team and have to be satisfied with it.
College football is the only sport in existence where every team doesn’t start the season with a shot of winning the national championship. Sure, it’s a long shot for Dartmouth or North Florida to win the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, but they at least have a shot.
Western Michigan is a whole lot better at football than the Big Green or Osprey are at hoop. With a four-team playoff, Western Michigan or any other MAC team and most Group of Five schools will never have a shot at reaching the playoff.
Even if Western Michigan had scheduled as aggressively as possible, willing to play Power Five powerhouses on the road, there’s no guarantee it’d get the right foe in the right year.
Most college football series are scheduled many years in advance. If someone scheduled a game against Michigan State or Notre Dame last year, those were great games and potentially great victories.
Beat either one this year and it’s a blah win over a rebuilding team. There’s no crystal ball. A team has to get lucky enough to play its toughest opponents in a year where everything clicks.
That wouldn’t be the case with an eight-team field. But doubling the current postseason does far more than give a long shot a chance.
With eight you could have five automatic bids, one each for the winner of each Power Five conference’s championship game.
The sixth automatic bid would go to the best Group of Five team. The other two bids would be at-large selections determined by a committee similar to the one that chooses the field now.
A 16-team field would be outstanding and a 12-team field (top four get byes) would be better, but progress in college football moves glacially.
An eight-team field would certainly make conference championship games matter more.
Alabama is in regardless of what happens in the SEC championship game against Florida. The Gators are out no matter what.
Neither Big Ten championship participant — Wisconsin and Penn State — is likely headed to the playoff and that league could get two teams in. Ohio State is almost assuredly in and Michigan could get in if there are upsets in either the Pac 12 or ACC.
An eight-team bracket could look something like this:
No. 1 Alabama (SEC auto bid) vs. No. 8 Western Michigan (Group of 5 auto bid)
No. 2 Ohio State (at-large bid) vs. No. 7 Oklahoma (Big 12 auto bid)
No. 3 Clemson (ACC auto bid) vs. No. 6 Penn State (Big 10 auto bid)
No. 4 Washington (Pac 12 auto bid) vs. Michigan (at-large).
Reseed after each round to reward the top teams.
Switching to eight might actually save the Big 12 and limit coaches leaving before they’ve coached their bowl games.
An automatic playoff bid would make staying in the league far more palatable to Texas and Oklahoma when the Big 12’s media rights deals run out after 2024-25.
Would head coach P.J. Fleck leave Western Michigan for Oregon or Purdue or wherever, if his team’s got a chance to compete for a championship?
Plus, and this will be the only thing that really resonates with the people who can make it happen, it will make a whole lot of money.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage