When the figurative dust settled at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland on December 13th, Navy had survived a tough fight from the Black Knights of West Point to win major college football's final non-bowl game of 2014 by the score of 17-10. The only playoff ramification of the game was that Ohio State's resume was minutely strengthened due to an opening-week victory over Navy. The traditional Army-Navy contest was the culmination of another thrilling, big-time college football regular-season, which many are attempting to sabotage by advocating the institution of a large, standard playoff system.

Regarding this point, there was much commotion and propaganda about 2014 being a historic year for FBS college football, but in reality, the only changes were that a two-team standard playoff system was replaced with a four-team standard playoff system and the bracket was filled by a 12-person committee instead of a larger group of human pollsters. (Anyone who thinks that computers had anything to do with selecting the combatants for the BCS title games played during the years 2005-2014 did not pay careful enough attention.) The assertion that major college football was at long last going to have its first playoff and consequent first undisputed national champion was inaccurate and even laughable.

Standard playoff systems frequently produce titlists that ignore what has already been determined on the field of play and make a mockery of the meaning of the word champion. In fact, the top level of college football is the last realm of popular American sports that has not capitulated to the consensus, yet unfounded notion that the regular-season is merely an audition for roles in the actual season called: THE PLAYOFFS. To the masses, expunging the regular-season is not even slightly bothersome even if a 10-6 team has to sit at home and watch a 7-9 team (that it dominated only a few weeks prior) star as host of a playoff game.

The common argument for the standard methodology is that championships must be decided on the field and not by voters. I heartily agree with this sentiment but its usual promulgators are mostly disingenuous and/or irrational. They generally will argue that teams that did not win their conference championships should still be eligible to be national champions. Since conferences are subsets of a division, if a team does not master its own conference, it is a natural contradiction to pronounce it the ruler of the entire division. Rebutters of this argument use anecdotal evidence, insisting that since there have been examples of wild cards claiming national titles by winning championship tournaments, this vindicates their inclusion. As any good scientist or logician knows, empirical data proves nothing.

Upsets routinely occur in the world of sports, so it is not surprising that undeserving teams have won championships when given the opportunity. Contrary to popular opinion; after a certain point, the number of teams in a playoff field is inversely related to the probability that the most deserving team wins the championship. If the goal of constructing a playoff field is to include every team that could win the championship, then mathematically speaking, no team can be excluded. However, most concur even if their arguments betray them, that a playoff bracket should only consist of teams that have earned the right to play for the championship.

Specifically then, for the year 2014, which teams deserved a shot at the national title? If we begin by eliminating all teams that played in a conference and did not win its crown, this narrows the field to eleven conference champions or co-champions and four independents. Using the historical record as a guide, we can also eliminate all teams with more than two losses and reduce the number of pre-qualified teams to nine: Alabama, Baylor, Boise State, Florida State, Marshall, Northern Illinois, Ohio State, Oregon, and TCU. To objectively eliminate any remaining, undeserving teams we must first look at the relative strength of each conference.

The rating for each conference is an estimate of the number of wins a typical member of that conference would earn playing an average schedule.

The table above illustrates the fact that the top five conferences (Power 5) dominated college football as indicated by their 100-15 (.870) record versus the rest of the FBS.

Although the data above brings into question the real success of Mountain West Conference champ Boise State (11-2), Conference USA champ Marshall (12-1), and Mid-American Conference champ Northern Illinois (11-2), it is not sufficient justification to immediately dismiss them. The table below allows us to compare the nine remaining teams individually now that we have analyzed the context in which these teams achieved their supremacy.

RW (Rated Wins): For Team A, it is the number of victories Team A earned against FBS schools.

UWP (Unadjusted Win Points): For Team A, it is the sum of the number of rated wins accumulated by the rated teams that Team A defeated.

ULP (Unadjusted Loss Points): For Team A, it is the sum of the number of losses accumulated by the teams that defeated Team A.

UEW (Unadjusted Earned Wins) = (UWP-ULP)/11 + 6.

EW (Earned Wins): For Team A, it is an estimate of the number of Team A's actual wins (prorated for a 12-game season) that were earned relative to the strength of its schedule. By definition, this number cannot exceed the number of Team A's actual wins.

EW2 (Secondary Earned Wins) = the result of extrapolating Earned Wins beyond the domain restriction imposed by actual wins.

SOS (Strength of Schedule): For Team A, it is the average number of Secondary Earned Wins of Team A's opponents.

Completing the Playoff Field

A team is considered Absolutely Qualified if either the difference between the maximum EW (12.000) and its EW is less than one or the difference between the maximum EW2 (13.621) and its EW2 is less than one. Absolutely Qualified teams are eligible to be part of the final four playoff teams without participating in any play-in games. Florida State, Alabama, Oregon, and Ohio State meet this criteria and are safely in the playoff field.

All two-loss teams that are not Absolutely Qualified are automatically disqualified. This reduces the field to seven by cutting Boise State and Northern Illinois.

Next, we will eliminate any one-loss team such that the difference between the maximum EW and its EW is more than three AND the difference between the maximum EW2 and its EW2 is more than three. This drops Marshall from consideration and decreases the number of contenders to six.

All remaining teams are considered Conditionally Qualified and must win at least one play-in game to earn a spot in the final playoff bracket. Baylor and TCU not only fall into this category by definition but because they are from the same conference, a tiebreaker play-in game is unavoidable.

Baylor vs TCU

The hotly contested debate about whether Baylor or TCU was the team more deserving of a playoff spot may be reduced to the following two-headed argument:

The Baylor argument emphasizes conference results. Both teams played the same conference schedule and finished that slate at 8-1. Baylor won the head-to-head match-up and therefore should be the official champion of the Big XII and consequently the more worthy choice for a position in the playoffs.

The TCU argument emphasizes the results of all games played during the season. Both teams played SMU and an FCS opponent so that the ONLY difference in their schedules was that Baylor played Buffalo and TCU played Minnesota. Considering the fact that Baylor and TCU finished with identical records and Minnesota was clearly a tougher foe than Buffalo, the Horned Frogs were the more worthy team to fill the playoff bracket.

The Perfect Playoff Field

The truth is that under the constraints of a standard four-team playoff, neither Baylor nor TCU deserved a ticket to play in the first College Football Playoff. This is at least in part due to not having a conference championship game, since it caused the SOS of both teams to be significantly weaker than the other four candidates.

However under a perfect playoff system, Baylor would have traveled to TCU on December 13th for a rematch and the winner of this tiebreaker would have been the final player in a five-team playoff. The #4 and #5 seeds would have battled at the home stadium of the #4 seed on December 20th leaving ample time to prepare for the Sugar Bowl. With only two extra games, the greatest playoff scheme in existence would have been virtually controversy-free.

Despite near perfection in the first edition of the CFP, the chorus keeps getting louder to expand the playoff to eight teams. Had such a format been in effect this year, Baylor, TCU, Mississippi State, and Michigan State would have rounded out the playoff field. The latter two teams failed to win their conferences and their inclusion would have obliterated the significance of at least three regular-season games. So much for deciding it on the field!