For the ghouls and Herbies who run college football, Jordan Travis' terrible injury was the happiest moment of the year

It gave them the flexibility to meet their actual priorities, including automatic bids for the mediocre SEC and lousy Big 10. Don't fall for the "best" v. "deserving" drivel - and fake sympathy.

“No way the SEC champ’s left out,” Herbstreit said. “No way. No way.”

— Kirk Herbstreit, Nov. 18, hours before a dirty tackle wrecked Jordan Travis’ leg. This is the only time Herbie has not shamelessly lied for the last month.

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As they filled out their “secret ballots” to choose the College Football Playoff teams on Sunday morning, the selection “Committee” members were operating under four actual, real-world criteria from the people who pay the bills and salaries and NIL associated with college football.

1. Deliver automatic bids to the SEC and Big 10 champs, the most important and lucrative long-term business partners of college football networks. This was the #1 CFP priority by a mile, despite the face that both conferences were terrible this year and that Michigan, who actively cheated, arguably looked like the worst team in the playoff over its last few games with its first string QB. For whatever reason, the Committee’s rulers were afraid to just say: the dudes to whom we write the biggest checks both get automatic bids. The rest of you fight for two.

2. Line up semifinals that will rate nationally on their face.

3. Create games that will keep the eyeballs by being competitive/entertaining as most CFP games have not been.

4. Create, as a giant bonus, a fake third semifinal Orange Bowl involving the SEC, charged with emotion and revenge, etc. That’s what the Alabama win over unhealthy Georgia made possible — and what I wish FSU and Georgia would publicly sabotage.

Jordan Travis’ terrible injury was the strategic business asset that made it possible for the CFP to pick a field that delivers on all four criteria. He ought to get a commission for his involuntary opt-out.

That’s why Herbie and crew were discreetly high-fiving behind the fake, somber expressions of their sadness on the GameDay the night of the North Alabama game — because the people who pay them were high-fiving.

Travis’ injury provided the perfect insurance/excuse for any one-loss SEC or Big 10 champ getting into the playoff. They had been seeding the narratives to dump FSU and protect SEC/Big 10 automatic bids long before Travis got hurt. So they were dancing when a dirty tackle let them end FSU’s season and probably Travis’ career with a fake hint of regret.

And the networks needed that excuse because the other SEC/Big 10 insurance went down in flames when Washington defied Vegas on the field again by beating Oregon again to win the PAC 12.

I am on Team Huskie in the playoff, if you care. And yes, I’ll probably watch. But I’ll be rooting for blowouts. Indeed, rooting for blowouts and sabotaging the Orange Bowl is about all anyone can do in protest.

“Best team” + “most deserving team” - “only good team we can get rid of with gruesome injury” = success!!

The key to everything this year: there are no “great” teams. No team this year, including healthy Georgia, can even sniff healthy Georgia last year. And Georgia was not healthy against Alabama, with key injuries limiting Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey.

I’d go further and say no team is as good as Michigan or Ohio State with C.J. Stroud were last year. (And Harbaugh still managed to get beat by TCU). Only a healthy Georgia comes close.

Faced with that reality — and 6 teams with a case, plus a mandate for two automatic conference bids — the powers-that-be and their “Committee” fell back on the four criteria I cited above.

No other criteria makes any sense for what they chose. They judged the teams on the “deserving vs. best” meter only in relation to whether networks wanted that team in the playoff — not relative to each other.

Come see what I mean. Here’s how I would have picked the playoffs in the best vs. deserving dynamic:

“Best” Four/Eye Test

• Georgia

• Texas

• Alabama or Washigton or Michigan or FSU

The Michigan team that finished with Maryland, Ohio State, and Iowa was unimpressive at best. The Big 10 is terrible; and Michigan can’t stay on the field with healthy versions of Georgia or Texas and probably not Alabama in my eye test. Only the Big 10 automatic bid gave Michigan immunity. If Michigan and FSU swapped conferences; we’d be talking about the Michigan screw-job. As it is, the Big 10 automatic bid really screwed Georgia.

In fact, I think nobody can stay on the field with a Georgia that has a healthy Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey. FSU probably won’t in the fake third semifinal Orange Bowl. But FSU could have won a semifinal — and certainly been competitive — with anybody else in that six. FSU’s defense in the “eye test” is better than any other team’s defense. Washington struggled to beat a lot of bad teams. And Alabama barely beat an unhealthy Georgia after needing a miracle to beat bad Auburn. The SEC title game is the only time Alabama looked remotely like Alabama all year except in the second half against Tennessee.

Does Bama want a rematch with a healthy Georgia? Nope.

So I honestly wouldn’t know how to justify a pick of “the best” out of Washington, Michigan, Alabama, and FSU. The Committee didn’t know either, which is why the excuse of Jordan Travis’ leg was such a godsend to them. Notice how none of them have even bothered to make a case for Michigan. The automatic Big 10 bid is just taken for granted.

Most “deserving”

• Michigan

• Washington

• FSU

• Texas

Three undefeated conference champs, plus the 1-loss conference champ that beat the other 1-loss conference champ. Simple and clean and fair — which is why it was rejected.

Most “honest” four

Now imagine everybody actually knew openly that SEC and Big 10 champs get automatic bids. Texas doesn’t have to get elevated if it’s the SEC automatic bid — rather than Bama — getting rewarded. Texas has the worst loss of any contender; and it could be rightly punished for it.

So the honest four would be:

Big 10 Champ — Michigan

SEC Champ — Bama

At-large — Georgia and Washington

I would have a harder time arguing against that CFP than the one we got.

Root for blowouts

What we actually got was a hilariously indefensible jumble of big money cynicism.

The field picked makes no sense based on “best” or “most deserving.” They pretended to use whatever standard worked to deliver what fit the four real criteria above. See what I mean below:

• Michigan (Most deserving)

• Washington (Most deserving)

• Texas (Most deserving + Best team)

• Alabama (Best team, kind of, who had a good upset of. a hurt team)

“Best” v. “most deserving” aren’t evaluation criteria; they’re political/financial talking points employed to mask reality.

You could see even the “best team” commentators — other than Herbstreit and maybe Joey Galloway — actually struggle viscerally with the incoherence. I still don’t know what Greg McElroy actually thinks about the playoff field. It looked like he was in a show trial or hostage video after Herbie gave everybody their marching orders. He appeared to take every position on the big FSU snub and little Georgia snub in the few minutes I watched. He seemed quite pained about it.

Herbie, by contrast, has been a suit long enough to be more polished in his cynicism — so sorry for Jordan and FSU, but it’s the right choice. Thoughts and prayers. Now look at my dog.

You have to be real piece of garbage, Herbie, to conjure fake sympathy for a real young man’s pain because you don’t want to say openly that the SEC and Big 10 have automatic bids that aren’t written down in the bylaws anywhere.

All assets, no humans

Indeed, it’s important to remember that none of this is remotely important — in any real sense. Entertainment is not important. But college football outrage is much more enjoyable to indulge and write about than some of the other terrible things afoot on our planet at the moment. It’s a small tragedy.

The only real human stakes here are injuries to young men — many of whom lack access to capital — that may cost them a chance at life-altering windfalls.

The transfer portal and NIL have lowered those stakes a little; but these young men are depreciating capital assets, not young men, to the powers that run college football. In this case, a terrible injury itself was the asset.

The only thing real in this discussion are Jordan Travis’s shattered bones. (I can empathize to a point. I too once broke a leg (femur) as a high school quarterback that ended my unpromising career before it really started. I assure you that broken bones suck.)

Jordan Travis’ career was worth much more dead than alive to the dudes who pay the Herbies of the world. You can see Jordan Travis himself almost recognize the value of his injury to men in suits.

I suspect either Herbie or McElroy will do the fake third semifinal Orange Bowl broadcast. It’s gonna rate huge. And the villain energy in stadium for Herbstreit or McElroy as color guy will be a magnet for attention. All part of the business plan.

I hope one or both of them interviews Travis pre-game — and he at least gets to tell them to their faces.

Ya’ll were pretty happy I snapped my leg on a tackle that should be outlawed. I gave ya’ll a narrative with my agony that solved a lot of business problems for the guys who pay you, didn’t I? Come on, you can say it. Be men. Don’t tell me how sorry you feel for me and my team; thank me. Be honest for once in your lives.

However, the same people relieved by Travis’ shattered leg are the same people who helped him get big NIL paydays as consolation. Top college QBs are supposedly getting $750K - $1M per year. That’s progress, I guess. (Funny how threatening to unionize can get you paid.)

So the networks and the bettings apps and old rich guys and their Herbies have insurance all over the place against ever needing to be honest in this grossest, most insincere, and most compelling of sports.