Grip on Sports: Cougars caught up in NCAA hypocrisy

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Headaches are a part of life. They are what keep pain reliever companies in the black. But when they come from trying to determine how a committee decided on such things as playoff contestants or New Year’s Day bowl participants, headaches not only hurt, they are downright anger inducing. Read on.

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• Yes, we have a headache this morning.  It could be from sleeping wrong. Or from too much chocolate last night. But we’re pretty sure it is caused by trying to figure out why Oklahoma is in the four-team college football playoffs and Washington State was left out of the top 12 of the rankings, aced from the top bowls by a trio of three-loss teams that did not win their conference title either.

See, there is a parallel here and it exposes some hypocrisy. And hypocrisy always gives us a headache.

The top three spots in the playoffs were locked in. Undefeated Alabama, Clemson and Notre Dame, 38-0 combined, all in. The only discussion revolved around which of three schools – 12-1 Oklahoma, 12-1 Ohio State and 11-2 Georgia – would finish fourth and be allowed to play for a national title.

The college football playoff committee decided to choose Oklahoma, champions of the Big 12 Conference.

USA Today’s George Schroeder delved into the committee’s reasoning, which makes a lot of sense. Winning just means more.  

George is a great reporter and an even better person. He’s got his pulse on college football and he’s someone who can be trusted. So when he comes up with a reason behind the committee’s choice, you know it is the right one.

The Sooners not only won one more game than Georgia, the choice of a goodly number of college football fans armed either with a slide rule or a slow drawl, it also won its conference championship.

The third member of the triumvirate, Ohio State? It lost to Purdue, which seemingly invalidated its claim weeks ago.

(By the way, what happened to the every-game-matters crowd? The we-can’t-expand-the-playoffs folks who don’t want to devalue the regular season? It seems after the Buckeyes lost to lowly Purdue, the rest of their games were immaterial, but we digress.)

So Oklahoma it is, because winning just means more. It’s no big deal Georgia, by any metric you want to cite, played a tougher schedule. (Let’s take one: Jeff Sagarin’s analytical ratings, which seemingly have been around for more years than Bill Snyder. His metric has Georgia’s schedule ranked sixth in the nation, 25 spots above Oklahoma’s.)

Most of the other analytics the committee supposedly looks at favor the Bulldogs as well. No matter. Winning just means more. The 12-1 Sooners are the committee’s choice over 11-2 Georgia.

But wait, how about the beloved eye test? Oklahoma may have an irresistible offense, but their defense is the definition of movable. Georgia at least can slow someone down by doing more than falling down and hoping the opponent trips.

But, nope, eye test doesn’t count. It’s too fungible.

The committee chair, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, said the schools were so close, the committee followed its guidelines and gave the tiebreaker to the conference champion. Which won one more game.

Now lets move down the ladder a bit, shall we? Numbers 10 through 13, the last few schools that are in the running for the New Year’s Six bowl games, the most prestigious of the postseason battles.

All failed to win their conference championship, so that tiebreaker is out the window. None even won a division of their conference. Three of them were 9-3. One was 10-2.

Winning just means more, right? Well, no. Not here.

The 10-2 team’s schedule wasn’t as tough as any of the 9-3 teams ahead of them, but that wasn’t a factor in picking Oklahoma over Georgia. Remember, according to Sagarin, Georgia’s schedule was 25 spots tougher than Oklahoma’s.

Well, the same rating system has the 10-2 team’s schedule within 16 spots of one 9-3 team ranked ahead of it by the committee and 20 spots of another. Closer than Oklahoma and Georgia, but that shouldn’t matter, right? It didn’t for the fourth spot.

Neither did statistics or analytics or whatever you call numbers that can be quantified.

The one that mattered? Wins. Oklahoma had one more, in its conference title game. Georgia didn’t.

Ten spaces lower, Washington State had one more win than LSU, Florida or Penn State. But different criteria must have been applied. Could it have been the name of the school? Or the conference it plays in?

Possibly. Probably. But we will never know, will we? There is no Price-Waterhouse accounting of the results, no hard-and-fast rules, no oversight, no recourse. It is over.

The Great Oz of college football has spoken. Consistency? That’s for fools and the dead. You want logic, talk with Mr. Spock. This is college football today.

No wonder we all end up with a headache.

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Gonzaga: The Bulldog women welcomed Stanford into the Kennel yesterday afternoon, a homecoming of sorts for the Hull sisters, who led Central Valley High to the State 4A title last season. We said of sorts, because Lexie didn’t play, sidelined by a left leg injury.  Lacie did, however, and scored nine points in 37 minutes (second most time on the court for any Stanford player). It wasn’t enough, however, as Gonzaga led from early on and held off the eight-ranked Cardinal 79-73. Jim Allen was there and has the game story while Libby Kamrowski has the photo report. … Jim Meehan took some time yesterday to look back at GU’s win at Creighton.

WSU: Theo Lawson began his day yesterday keeping track of the college football playoff rankings. He had a story when the Cougars remained 13th and out of the New Year’s Six games. … He then turned his attention to WSU’s destination, which turns out to be San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl, and its opponent, Iowa State. The Cougars are favored. … John Blanchette says Washington State shouldn’t fret, all of its goals are still ahead. … Johnathan Glover has a story on Mike Leach’s bonuses, an aspect of every college coach’s contract I have ever examined, and I have examined hundreds. For example, Paul Wulff would have received an extra $100,000 if his Cougars had ever been ranked No. 1 in the final Associated Press poll.

Elsewhere in the Pac-12, the bowl decisions seemed to put the conference in a bad light. OK, “seemed” is too nice. So is the schedule. … Washington will meet Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, which will pit the Buckeyes’ porous defense against UW’s often stagnant offense. But the Huskies stout defense will also match up with OSU’s explosive offense, so that part should be fun to watch. … Oregon will face Michigan State in the Bay Area. … Utah matches up with Northwestern in San Diego. … California faces TCU in Phoenix. … Stanford is headed to El Paso to play Pitt. … Arizona State and Fresno State will meet in Las Vegas, which is about halfway. … In basketball, UCLA handed Loyola-Marymount its first loss of the season and it wasn’t close. … Arizona won at Connecticut. … Washington held off UC Santa Barbara at home. … Missed this, but Colorado got the best of Colorado State the other night.

EWU: The women’s basketball team lost at home to Fresno State.

Seahawks: I didn’t see much of the Hawks’ 43-16 win over the visiting 49ers. I was attending the Gonzaga women’s basketball game. But I did see the last bit, including Bobby Wagner’s interception return. He deserves a Bloomsday T-shirt for running that far. … So Richard Sherman was pretty much a non-factor, except Doug Baldwin got to trash-talk him some. … There was some injuries, including one key one.

Mariners: With Robinson Cano on the way out, Jean Segura is following, maybe even today to Philadelphia.

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• Dentist appointment today. Kind of wish I had been called in for jury duty, but it wasn’t to be. Probably tomorrow. Until later …