Tuesday, Technician published a sports commentary in which the author cited evidence against claims which have persisted since its inception — that being that the College Football Playoff should expand to allow more teams access to collegiate gridiron superiority.

In the fifth paragraph, the author says that “neither team truly deserved to make the playoff, but one of them had to be chosen” in reference to Ohio State and Alabama, which is contrary to the belief that both Alabama and Ohio State deserved to be included in the illustrious group. Alabama proved Monday that they were the best team in the nation, and Ohio State handily won their bowl game, after a season of domination minus a miscue against Iowa.

However, this isn’t to debate the team that deserved to be in more so than another, but rather to contradict the idea that having debate about which team should enter the playoff is bad for the entire system.

“They have it [debate] every year in the NCAA tournament, but nobody complains about expanding that. If you expand to eight teams, why don’t you just expand to 16? 32? Where do you draw the line?” 

The line was drawn, and it allows for 68 of the eligible 351 Division I institutions, meaning that almost 20 percent of college basketball teams have an opportunity at the Big Dance. Contrary to this, 129 FBS schools compete for four slots, meaning that three percent can soak in at least one game of illustrious glory, and since its inception four years ago, only nine teams have had an opportunity to play.

Which isn’t to say that the playoff has produced bad results. Some of the games, such as this year’s Rose Bowl have been instant classics, and the author recognizes it in the final paragraph, but this contradicts a claim made earlier that the “best part of the playoff is the regular season.”

There have been a share of duds since the playoff was birthed. Oregon beat Florida State 59-20 in 2015. Alabama beat Michigan State 38-0 in 2016. Clemson beat Ohio State 31-0 to 2017. And, just last week, Clemson was only able to muster an abysmal six points against Alabama, the team at the center of a debate on whether their inclusion was warranted.

50 percent of the semifinal games so far have been second-rate football.

There will undoubtedly be bad games, as is the case with … you know … sports in general, but there are teams such as Ohio State who deserved a chance this season to contend against the likes of Clemson. And of course, you can’t forget poor UCF, the true national champion who mustered a perfect season just two years removed from an imperfect season of 0-12.

It should be a reasonable expectation that a team should have a chance to compete in the playoff if you do what you’re supposed to do, and winning 13, including beating an Auburn team who beat both Alabama and Georgia, should solidify UCF’s claim.

The commentary says that there should not be three- or four-loss teams competing against the best teams in the country, since the resulting games won’t be entertaining, ignoring the fact that there has been a bad semifinal ever single year since the playoff was birthed.

This isn’t some slippery slope that will result in 16 or 32 teams being added to the playoff. Since the debate began, the near-unanimous solution has been the Power Five conference champions, plus three at-large bids. The guesswork comes out of it, and teams such as UCF and Wisconsin would have the ability to decide the winners and losers on the field instead of Twitter.

And yes, the debate will continue about which team should be the eighth team in, but hey, that’s all part of the fun.

Luke Perrin is a third-year studying political science, a  former member of Technician’s editorial board and former member of the Student Senate.