Hopefully, four playoff teams won’t be enough much longer

It’s pretty well documented by this point: Clemson coach Dabo Swinney doesn’t like having conferences that get to miss out on league title games – especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff.

He didn’t hide that opinion over the summer when he made headlines talking about Notre Dame’s position of only having to play 12 games. And he didn’t back down from his stance after he found out he would be facing Oklahoma out of the title-game-less Big 12 in the Orange Bowl playoff semifinal on Dec. 31 in Miami.

“I don’t think that’s right, but that’s the way it is,” Swinney said Monday. “I don’t sit around and worry about it. It worked out for the Big 12 this year. Who knows moving forward?”

Don’t take his words as any slight toward the Sooners, who went 11-1 and beat Oklahoma State, TCU and Baylor on their route to the College Football Playoff. This is a glitch in the system.

“We’re going to play whoever it is,” Swinney said. “Oklahoma has had a wonderful year, and with the rules that are in place in their league, they’ve earned it. Nobody’s given them anything either. They’ve earned it and they’ve played exceptional all year long.”

So where does Swinney’s belief on this topic come from? Well, you can blame it on 1992. That year, when he was a player at Alabama, the Crimson Tide had to play in the first ever SEC Championship Game. Nobody else in the country had to do anything like that. At that time, it was like science fiction that Alabama was 11-0 but had to face off against Steve Spurrier and the 9-2 Florida Gators.

The game went down as an instant classic, and there’s even a documentary about the contest. However, Crimson Tide coach Gene Stallings was disgruntled, Swinney said, that his team had to play an extra game to get into a national championship bowl game.

“And Miami is just sitting at the house chilling,” Swinney said. “They’re in and they’re 11-0. We were 11-0 and we hadn’t won anything.”

To wrap up this history lesson, Alabama beat the Gators 28-21, which Swinney believes actually helped the Crimson Tide, and then the heavily favored Hurricanes 34-13 in the Sugar Bowl to claim the program’s 12th national title.

Twenty-three years later, he’s trying to do the same thing with the Tigers, who beat North Carolina 45-37 in the Dec. 4 ACC Championship Game. Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s been chilling at the house since Nov. 28, resting up and preparing for Clemson.

Is it fair? Of course not, but this era of college football, this system isn’t designed to be fair.

The powers that be refused to install an eight-team playoff when this was all assembled a year ago, yet the playoff committee heavily favors teams that win conference championships. Well, let’s do the math.

There are five power conferences. There are four spots. There are a host of nonpower five teams that have nearly no shot at making the playoffs.

Inevitably, somebody good is getting left out, right? If Clemson had lost to North Carolina, there’s no guarantee that either ACC team would’ve even made the final four.

Last year it was Baylor and TCU; both had arguments to get into the final four at 11-1, and Baylor was the official Big 12 champ; a league title game would’ve really helped their cases. This year, however, Oklahoma got in without playing an extra week because the Pac-12 champ, Stanford, had two losses. What would’ve happened had the Cardinal had just one loss is anyone’s guess.

But the committee avoided a complex and controversial decision. That means, two years in, there aren’t enough precedents set when it comes to the Big 12’s situation. Had the Sooners been on the outside looking in, would the conference have hastily ushered in two teams so it wouldn’t have been left out again? Maybe, but it wouldn’t have solved the bigger issue: What happens when there are five conference champions all with a legitimate case to get into CFP four?

I don’t necessarily believe that the committee has to mandate conferences to play a title game. That’s not its job. Besides it would rather avoid the situation until eventually there are eight teams playing for this thing, which would do away with this debate and the Big 12 can do whatever it wants. No matter what the powers that be say or how long this four-team contract runs, it’s coming. It won’t always work out for the committee, and when it doesn’t, four will no longer be enough.

And the sooner we get there, the sooner Swinney can finally let that 1992 season go – maybe.