The Daily Player 12: Horned Frogs' Head Honcho on Board

OK, so it's not breaking news.

But this is that time in the football season when those on the outside looking in can recycle their sound bites in the midweek search for headlines.

And that's what TCU coach Gary Patterson did: join the chorus of right-thinking parties who know an eight-team playoff is the fairest way to go:

That's been the popular sentiment from the beginning.

And the key word against the current CFP format: opinon.

Why should any conference champion -- who proved it on the field -- need to pray to an ivory tower for puffs of smoke in their team colors? Especially whebudget n it spends all that time and money pompously issuing a decree that can be done on a budget of beer and nachos? (Sorry about that, Gary. Ohio State was fourth last year.)

This is 'Murica, dammit! We rejected royalty! We developed a system of rules-making that accounted for large (Senate) and small (House of Reps) operations alike. Opinions are mitigated by the cold light of harsh reality.

Thus, expanding to eight teams is downright patriotic!

So stop acting like a commie bastard cartel, CFP! Eat a hot dog, drive.a Chevy, watch some baseball, and create a tournament of champions!

With just a couple of furlongs left to go, here's how the selectors are handicapping this race:

1. Clemson	3. Oklahoma
2. Alabama	4. Iowa
5. Michigan State	9. Stanford
6. Notre Dame	10. Michigan
7. Baylor	11. Oklahoma State
8. Ohio State	12. Florida

What this list could use is some wishful thinking, like:

• Notre Dame beating Stanford,
• North Carolina upsetting Clemson in the ACC title game,
• Auburn or Florida derailing Alabama, and/or
• Jim Harbaugh showing up at the next CFP confab with a hammer.

Time to justify the bar bill.

The Daily Player 12 criteria is empirical. No opinions, just data:

• Until a conference title is clinched, division leaders will be considered as first-place teams.
• Power Five scores in non-conference games will be measured on a win-loss basis.
• If an Other Five team made it to Week 9 undefeated in conference and with two or fewer losses overall, it will be considered to have earned Power Five status.
• Head-to-head results will be measured separately on a win-loss basis.
• Bookies are the only evaluators who put their dosh where their conclusions are.
• Bovada championship odds will be factored into the rankings.
• Geeks have an unbiased place in this process; Anderson-Hester computer rankings are easily understandable and will be included.

This system's not that complicated, nor should it be:

• The Big XII has ten teams; no other conference has a division that large, so a first-place team will get 10 points, a second-place team will get 9 points, and so forth. If a team is tied for a position, it will be considered to hold the higher position.
• A conference champion will be awarded 5 bonus points.
• Non-con Power Five wins will be worth 3 points; those losses will be worth 1 point.
• Notre Dame's schedule will be measured against ACC teams.
• If BYU ever becomes a factor, we'll figure it out then.
• Head-to-head conference wins will be worth 3 points; those losses will be worth -1 point.
• Bovada and Geek rankings will be based on a 25-point scale and factored down by a constant of 0.3; thus, a first-place position will be worth (25 x 0.3) = 7.5 points, second place for either will be worth (24 x 0.3) = 7.2 points, and so on. If a team is tied for a position, it will be considered to hold the higher position.

Actually, today's adventure is picking up the tab. If dude can do that, credit for this week's Daily Player 12 is all his:

A few observations:

• A sobering thought for the ACC is that the computers rank it well behind the other Power Fives, including the so-called mediocre Pac-12.
• Bovada has dropped Alabama's futures odds to +150, so that Charleston Southern game must've truly inspired confidence in to come; no odds on Nick Saban-to-Texas have been posted yet, incidentally.
• Les, the grass is always greener somewhere. Chew on that instead of a corn dog.
• And Michigan? Let's just say it's a no-brainer who Deez Nutz will be backing this weekend.