Recency bias, much?
The big problem with the College Football Playoff committee and why it's a good thing its going away after this season
College football is broken. In more ways than one.
However, the most noticeable indictment is the College Football Playoff committee’s final four teams it chose for this season’s post-season opportunity to play for a national championship.
I’m not a psychologist, but I studied it in college, and one of the terms I learned about was called recency bias.
Recency bias, as defined by Scribbr is, “the tendency to overemphasize the importance of recent experiences or the latest information we possess when estimating future events.” It goes on to explain, “Recency bias often misleads us to believe that recent events can give us an indication of how the future will unfold.”
On Sunday morning, the CFP committee unleashed the latest and most blatant example of recency bias on the good people of college football, most notably fans of Florida State and Georgia.
Both those teams entered the weekend undefeated and playing for their respective conference championships. Georgia, mind you, is also the two-time defending national champion.
Georgia fell 27-24 to Alabama in what was a very good football game between maybe two of the best teams in the country. Period.
Georgia, which was ranked No. 1 for nearly the entirety of the regular season, survived a schedule unscathed while taking every team’s best shot, including Tennessee, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Kentucky.
However, losing by 3 points to Alabama, somehow made the Bulldogs the fifth or sixth best team in the country!
Florida State defeated every team they faced this season. That included Clemson, Duke, and two SEC teams: LSU and Florida (in the Swamp!). In fact, the ACC had a winning record (6-4) against the SEC this season.
Last night, the Seminoles defeated the No. 14 Louisville Cardinals 16-6 with a stifling defense and their third-string quarterback, and capped an undefeated 13-0 season with an ACC championship. The ACC, we are told to believe, is a Power 5 conference.
Florida State was rewarded by being ranked fifth or sixth, and rendered shocked as an undefeated conference champion was surpassed by not one, but two one-loss teams.
There’s a lot of discussion about what exactly is the College Football Playoff. Is it the four best teams? Is it the four best teams after the regular season and conference championship games have been played? Is it the four teams playing the best football at this point? Is it the four most deserving teams based on the entirety of the season? Is it the four teams ESPN wants to play to draw the biggest television audience?
What, exactly, the hell is it? Florida State athletic director Michael Alford is wondering the same thing.
"The consequences of giving in to a narrative of the moment are destructive, far reaching, and permanent. Not just for Florida State, but college football as a whole," Alford said in an official statement from the school. "The argument of whether a team is the 'most deserving OR best' is a false equivalence. It renders the season up to yesterday irrelevant and significantly damages the legitimacy of the College Football Playoff.”
The match-ups that were announced are: No. 1 Michigan (13-0) v. No. 4 Alabama (12-1) and No. 2 Washington (13-0) v. No. 3 Texas (12-1).
The argument you will hear most is, Texas looked dominant (which it did) defeating Oklahoma State in the Big XII championship on Saturday. The fact they beat Alabama early in the season means they have to be in the playoff before Alabama. Alabama, by winning the SEC championship, means they are in as the conference champion, because what is a college football playoff without at least one SEC team?
Forget what Georgia’s done for nearly three seasons. Forget what Florida State did all season, including with a back-up and third-string quarterback.
Forget that Michigan played one competitive opponent all season, and defeated Iowa in the B1G championship thanks to a long punt-return and questionable official’s ruling on a fumble near Iowa’s own goal line.
Also, disregard the fact Washington looked pedestrian the second half of its season, barely surviving against Pac-12 teams that appeared to play flag football on defense, and survived beating Oregon twice by a total of 6 points.
If you’ve watched enough college football the last 20 years or so, you can almost predict that Bama will run Michigan out of the Rose Bowl, showing again that the B1G is always over-matched in the college playoff, and that Texas will handle Washington with ease.
Afterward, everyone will be asking, “Remind me, why didn’t Florida State or Georgia make it?”
It’s hard to take the CFP committee seriously, when all it appears that matters is the last thing they see, much like a 5-year-old, they’re tantalized by the new, shiny item in the window.
Luckily for players, coaches and fans, next season’s champion will be decided on the field, not in a catered conference room filled with suits.
Next year can’t come soon enough for Georgia, Florida State, and me.