Examples Of Bias In College Football

Bias In The College Football Playoffs History: Looking Into How And Why College Football Teams Get Snubbed By The Playoff Committee, And How The Committee Justifies Its Actions.

Abstract

The College Football Playoff committee, the committee in charge of directing the college football playoffs in the Division 1 American College Football league, has received lots of backlash in the last ten years due to the process that teams go through in order to advance to the playoffs. The purpose of the research was to determine why certain schools get snubbed by the playoff committee, which means they did not go to the playoffs when they deserved to, and to examine if there was a pattern or characteristic shared by the schools that got snubbed. The results

Similar to Harmon (2020)’s argument that large companies and organizations take advantage of the CFP and take its money, Goodman (2021) asserts that underdogs will help reduce corruption. According to Harmon, a team in a power 5 conference has an increased chance of making it into the playoffs. This is because if a team who is not in a power 5 conference gets selected over the team who is, the major companies and organizations who support the power 5 conferences will scare the CFP committee by threatening to not give them money to fund for the playoffs. These companies support the power 5 conferences because of their fame and the significantly large amount of viewers they get on national television. Goodman provides a plan that is simple, yet difficult to execute. If more teams not in a power 5 conference start to outshine the majority of good teams in the power 5 conferences, the committee will have no choice but to select the “underdogs” to advance to the playoffs. If this scenario continues to play out for the next few years, the committee will see the shift of national viewers and college football culture adapt to a fairer playoff selection mindset. This will force the playoff committee to change how

Because the CFP advancement selections are not solely determined by computers, choosing teams to advance by only looking at the teams’ performance statistics is impossible. Therefore, schools with a “big-name” had much more leeway and easier entry into the playoffs because of their popularity and pedigree, which led to the CFP making excuses as to why other teams did not advance to the playoffs. This also occurred because large companies that supported “big-name” colleges put more pressure on the CFP to present these teams on a higher stage. In summary, “big-name” schools were treated better than schools with less pedigree by the College Football Playoff committee because of their status and public support, which gave bigger schools a better chance of advancing to the CFPs. As stated in the literature review, many large corporations and organizations support “big-name” schools and the CFP committee, paving an even smoother pathway for these schools to go to the playoffs. Additionally, schools of different levels of pedigree can influence the playoff committee’s advancement decisions. Although it is completely fair for schools that have built a name for themselves to have a large voice in the CFP committee’s decisions, sometimes, these schools can influence the committee to make decisions that only help “big-name” schools, leaving out yet another chance for