I am only going to touch on this subject once and then refer back here for the rest of the season, because it is highly unlikely that it will be relevant towards the end of the year. Still, though, this is a matter that needs to at least be referenced because it is a potential talking point over the next few weeks.
BYU’s College Football Playoff Chances
In the preseason, I said what it would take for a non-power conference team to even get a chance at the College Football Playoff. And those things really haven’t changed. A team needs to have a few years of success to build off of along with no great alternatives from the power conferences. No team outside the power conferences will get the benefit of the doubt unless they schedule like a power conference team (i.e. Notre Dame). Everyone else will need to force the committee to take notice. And the only way to do that is perfection.
We have finished two weeks of the season (and have seen two games in week 3) and we are already down to only one team from the former non-AQ conferences who can challenge for a CFP slot. They don’t quite meet all of the requirements I stated, but they are close enough–and more importantly good enough–to make the committee take notice.
The BYU Cougars are already ranked in the top 25 and are, by any measure, a very good football team. They have one of the most talented dual-threat quarterbacks in the country (more on that later) and solid talent on both sides of the ball. Nothing about them overwhelms you but when they play they just seem to make better plays, even if you can’t quite understand how.
BYU, though, is not your typical non-power conference team. First of all, they have won a national title in their team’s history. They have name recognition; and while that’s not supposed to matter, it does, even if only subconsciously. There’s a lot less “what the heck” factor involved in putting BYU in the CFP than including, say, Central Michigan.
Still, BYU has to fight the fact that they have a very unimpressive schedule. They do have three power conference teams on the slate, but two of those are expected to be towards the bottom of their conferences and their demolition of Texas has made many lose faith in the Longhorns. On some level, beating Texas so badly actually hurt BYU.
Boise State and UCF (and to a lesser extent Utah State and Nevada) are solid mid-majors, but that won’t move the needle too much with the committee. And the fact is, five of BYU’s opponents are probably going to be dismal this year without any exemplary opponents to counteract that. They need their big opponents to impress in power-conference play. Expecting Virginia and California to be quality opponents might be a bit of a pipe dream, but if Texas can win 7 games in Big XII play and upset either Oklahoma or Baylor, BYU’s evisceration of Texas will weigh heavily on the committee’s mind.
BYU, like any mid-major in the BCS era, just will not have the resume to prove they belong with the big boys. That is why they need to create a better “eye test” resume to say they are a top 4 team. They need to completely blow out the bad teams they play. They cannot give the committee an excuse to say, “Well, if they had played a tougher schedule they would have lost a game or two.”
This is why Thursday night’s game against Houston was bad for BYU. BYU outplayed Houston for the entire game, that much is clear. But Houston forced opportunistic turnovers (a deflection and one of the best defensive plays you’ll see all year were the two interceptions), got a hail mary at halftime, and kept this game close.
Let’s be clear, Houston is a bad team this year. BYU is a very good team this year. BYU outplayed Houston. But in a game of inches, weird things can keep it so much closer. Unfortunately for BYU, they can’t afford closer. I won’t say that one non-blowout will automatically knock BYU out of the CFP race, but their already short leash just got shorter.
BYU does have one thing going for them, though. Taysom Hill is an absolute beast and could definitely be high in the Heisman discussion late in the season. Part of the challenge against the non-power schools is that they are seen as irrelevant. But when you have a Heisman contender, you are always relevant. Two of the biggest things for BYU fans to root for are for all of their opponents to do well (have to help that SOS) and for Hill to put up absolutely monster stats, week after week.
It is always important to remember that no team earns or loses a CFP spot in a vacuum. It all depends on what the entire country does. Even if BYU is the perfect mid-major and meets every criteria, they will be left out in favor of undefeated power conference teams. And an undefeated BYU will be ahead of any 3-loss power conference team (except for maybe an SEC Champion with two in-division losses in the SEC West). If they want the benefit of the doubt over 2-loss power conference teams, though, they just cannot afford outings like they had against Houston. They need to show the college football world that they would be better than a 2-loss team in a power conference. They did that against Texas last week. They didn’t against Houston Thursday night.
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