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A flawed system

Commentary

It wasn't too shocking to see the SIU football team playing Delaware in nationally televised playoff game.

In fact, I said more than a month ago that the Salukis would likely end up facing off against a top team from the Atlantic 10 Conference.

But I figured it would be in the semifinals, or perhaps even the national championship game.

What in the heck was SIU doing traveling to Newark, Del., in the first round, for God's sake?

These were the same Salukis that finished the regular season 10-1 with a share of the Gateway Conference title and were ranked No. 1 in the final Gridiron Power Index rankings.

Granted, they didn't prove it Saturday afternoon against Delaware, but the Dawgs were considered a viable threat to run the table and snag the national title, just like they did 20 years ago.

What kind of logic was the selection committee using when it decided to send SIU all the way out to the East Coast to take on a Delaware team that should have been playing a lesser squad, such as Lehigh?

Oh, wait. The committee didn't give the Mountain Hawks a spot in the 16-team field. It decided instead to bestow that honor upon Western Kentucky, which was considered by most experts to have practically no shot at making it into the playoffs.

The committee's task should have been a pretty easy and sane process, but it turned into quite a debacle, the likes of which have not been seen since the last presidential election.

Montana State didn't help matters as the undeserving Bobcats beat Montana on the last day of the regular season to earn the Big Sky Conference's automatic bid to the postseason. Their presence in the field should have eliminated any chance of Western Kentucky reaching the postseason.

Instead, the Hilltoppers not only made it in, but the committee awarded them a home game in the first round.

What? This is the same WKU team that chose to schedule two Division II patsies and finished the year 6-3 against D-I opponents. Hardly the resume of a postseason lock.

What Western did have on its side was politics. The selection committee caught a great deal of flak after excluding Wofford from the postseason last year. There had been an unwritten rule that said no more than three teams can come from one conference.

The committee reversed its mistake from last season by allowing the Hilltoppers to join the fray, along with Gateway cohorts Western Illinois, Northern Iowa and SIU.

The fact that WKU is the defending national champion didn't hurt either. The Toppers were ranked sixth in the final GPI rankings, one spot ahead of Western Illinois.

In the eyes of the committee, WKU's positives outweighed the negatives, so it gave it a spot in the field. It also strayed from the norm by letting in independent Florida Atlantic. There hadn't been an independent team in the field since Youngstown State was winning titles in the mid-1990s.

While both Western Kentucky and Florida Atlantic are certainly among the top 16 teams in I-AA, their inclusion forced out a Lehigh squad that seemed more deserving.

Of course, as long as there are committees selecting teams for the postseason, there will be critics complaining about the whole process.

While there were some questionable calls made by the selection committee, the biggest scam had to have been the formation of the brackets.

I realize Colgate was the only undefeated team in the playoffs, but the Raiders did not deserve a No. 4 seed over Northern Iowa. The Panthers, who lost only two games to Iowa State and Western Illinois, played one of the toughest schedules in the nation and finished second in the GPI.

By giving Colgate a top-four seed, the committee effectively did away with its geographic format. Having the Raiders and Delaware among the top four basically did away with the Central region.

Had Western Illinois not upset Montana, the Grizzlies would be facing Colgate in the quarterfinals. Last time I checked, Montana and Colgate weren't even in adjacent time zones, let alone the same region.

Colgate ended up playing Massachusetts, which, at 10-2, should have been facing a much weaker team, such as Bethune-Cookman or North Carolina A&T.

The committee not only screwed over SIU and UMass, it also didn't do any favors for Delaware or Colgate. All four teams did well enough in the regular season that they should not have had such tough match-ups in the first round.

All of the complaints about this year's playoff brackets can be attributed to the manner in which they are constructed. Money played far too large a role in the process as schools willing to shell out the cash were rewarded with home games.

Such important aspects as home-field advantage should be meted out through on-field performance, not off-field bidding.

It seems as though the committee allowed financial concerns to get in the way of its prime objective - to formulate the best possible playoff field.

Of course, it wasn't just money that got in the way. The committee itself needs to rethink the way it sets up the brackets. Whether it means seeding all 16 teams instead of just four or keeping it as regionally based as possible, the committee needs to set up clearer guidelines for the whole process.

Rather than having a maximum loss criterion, there should be a minimum win regulation, which only includes wins against Division I opponents. That would certainly cut down on teams playing weak D-II and NAIA schools the way Gateway teams have a tendency of doing.

Correcting glitches in the system would go a long way ridding us of such playoff scenarios as SIU traveling to Delaware and Western Kentucky snagging a home game against Jacksonville State.

Most experts on the subject agree that the I-AA playoff bracketing process has its flaws, but then again, they would rather deal with them than have to clean up the mess that is the BCS system in I-A.

Who knows, maybe the powers-that-be in I-A will someday cave in and go to a playoff format.

Now that would be shocking.