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TCU and Baylor Weren’t Robbed Like 2004 Auburn Tigers

By Nicholas Ian Allen

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As I write, there is one hour until the College Football Playoff committee will announce the top four teams for the very first playoff. Under the current system, there are two deserving teams that will be left out, but as Stewart Mandel pointed out on Twitter this morning, “no one’s getting ‘robbed.’ These teams are not ’04 Auburn. They all messed up somewhere.”

He’s exactly right.

The 2004 Auburn football team was a perfect 12-0 and won the SEC Championship Game 38-28 over a 15th ranked Tennessee Volunteers squad. It wasn’t 59-0, but it didn’t have to be – the win gave the Tigers a perfect 12-0 record. It just so happened that USC and Oklahoma were also 12-0.

The only 12-0 team in 2014 is the Florida State Seminoles. They are the only team to beat every opponent on their schedule, regardless of whether or not it was the toughest in the nation and whether or not they were undefeated and National Champions in 2013. Because they won all of their games, if they aren’t part of the committee’s final four, the Noles will have been robbed.

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Alabama and Oregon are likely to make it in as well, but even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have been robbed. The Crimson Tide failed to take care of business against Ole Miss earlier this year and the Ducks lost to Arizona. Oregon had an opportunity for a rematch, which helped their cause and likely sealed a spot in the top four, but other teams weren’t so lucky.

Ohio State won’t be robbed. They had a chance to win all their games and failed to do so. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was, but the Buckeyes lost 35-21 to Virginia Tech.

Neither will Baylor. Sure, they beat TCU, but they also lost 41-27 to West Virginia.

TCU won’t be robbed. They allowed Baylor to come back and beat them on October 11. It may be the “best” loss of the group, but a loss is a loss.

Auburn was robbed in 2004 because the system in place at the time was set up for two teams instead of four. The Tigers couldn’t jump USC or Oklahoma because they overachieved over the course of the season after being ranked 17th at the beginning of the year and because the Trojans and Sooners started higher and didn’t lose either.

Now, thanks in part to the 2004 Auburn Tigers, that problem has been corrected. That season, and the fact that there were three teams truly deserving of playing for a national championship, helped lead the way to our current College Football Playoff format.

There is now a new system in place that should reward teams that do exactly what they are supposed to do: win all the games on their schedule.

The committee doesn’t care about pre-season rankings and will choose the four best teams for the inaugural College Football Playoff. Had Ohio State, Baylor or TCU won all their games and been left out, they would be robbed.

But they didn’t. So they aren’t.

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