PLAYOFF TIME IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL: WHERE ARE WE?

Only a weekend of conference championship games and the final machinations of the College Football Playoff Committee separate us from knowing the participants and seeding in this year’s playoff. The dye is mostly cast. Barring a couple of monumental upsets, we know the possibilities for raising the trophy on January 13 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

         

LSU, Ohio State, Clemson

The top three teams – LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson – sent messages on the last weekend  of the regular season. LSU destroyed Texas A&M, 50-7, expressing its displeasure with the

committee for elevating Ohio State to the number one spot in the rankings. Meanwhile, despite Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh’s annoyance with post-game

questions about the gap between his program and the Buckeyes, Ohio State’s 56-27 thrashing of the Wolverines for its eighth straight win in the  series showed the size of the gap, whatever the reasons. Clemson, which has been untouchable since a one-point squeaker

September 28 over Mack Brown’s  now bowl eligible North Carolina team, pounded South Carolina, 38-3, despite calling off the dogs early in the fourth quarter. Those three are virtually a lock.  

Even if Georgia beats LSU in the SEC championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (Saturday, 12/7, 3:30 ET, CBS), the Bayou Bengals and their likely Heisman quarterback, Joe Burrow, have a spot.

LSU QB Joe Burrow

Ohio State also probably gets in, even with a stumble against Wisconsin in the Big 10 championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis (Saturday, 12/7, 8:00 ET, Fox). The Buckeyes beat Wisconsin, 38-7, on October 26, so why worry?

                       

Clemson’s situation differs a little. The defending champions and pre-season No. 1 have taken a lot of grief for that close call at North Carolina and for a seemingly weak overall schedule. They face an ordinary opponent in an unranked, 9-3 Virginia team

in the ACC championship game at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte (Saturday, 12/7, 7:30 ET, ABC). Losing probably would kick Clemson out of the playoff, but that’s a very unlikely eventuality (full disclosure: Rob’s daughter is a former Clemson athlete and he is a Clemson season ticket holder). 

No. 4

The most impactful development the last weekend of the regular season was Auburn’s

48-45 win over Alabama in the Iron Bowl, putting the Crimson Tide out of its misery as to the playoff. Alabama’s loss to LSU left Nick Saban’s team ranked number five and generated much speculation about whether it should get in if one of the top four lost, especially after a hip injury sidelined starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Now, none of that matters.

But who gets the fourth spot, assuming LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson claim the first three? Georgia, Utah, and Oklahoma seem best positioned, with Baylor grasping at straws.

Only Georgia controls its destiny. If the Bulldogs upset LSU in the SEC championship

game, Kirby Smart’s talented, if inconsistent, squad gets in (Georgia lost to that South Carolina team Clemson throttled so easily). But, Georgia has problems, because of injuries and undisciplined play in its 52-7 beat down

of rival Georgia Tech on the last weekend of the regular season. Receiver George Pickens was ejected for throwing a punch and faces suspension for the first half of the LSU game. Georgia’s already missing leading receiver Lawrence Cager. The status of running back D’Andre Swift remains uncertain. 

  

Should Georgia lose, Utah has the best chance of stepping in, assuming the once-

beaten Utes handle Oregon in the Pac 12 championship game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California (Friday, 12/6, 8:00 ET, ABC). But for a late season loss to Arizona State, the Ducks could have been in the picture too. Utah has a dynamic, dual threat quarterback in Floridian Tyler Huntley and could give one of the top 3 a tussle, despite the fact most of country knows little about the Utes.

Oklahoma should be undefeated. The Sooners and quarterback Jalen Hurts, who transferred from Alabama, however, saddled themselves with a 48-41 loss to Kansas State

on October 26. The result? Oklahoma needs a second win over Baylor in the Big 12 championship game at AT&T Stadium in Dallas (Saturday, 12/7, 12:00 ET, ABC).The once-beaten Bears had Oklahoma down,28-3 with 11:02 left in the second quarter on November 16, but lost, 34-31.  Baylor ranked ninth in the committee ratings going into the last weekend of the regular season, so everything would have to break perfectly for a hop into the fourth spot, even with a win over Oklahoma.

The Future

Each year’s playoff scramble conjures up thedebate on how many teams the playoff should include. Many want an eight-team

playoff, something leaders of the sport say they may look at when the present television contract expires after the 2025 season.

 

Last year, we suggested an eight-team format giving each champion in the Power Five conferences – ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 12 – an automatic spot, with three at large selections, reserving a preference for a “deserving” Group of Five (leagues like the American Athletic Conference, Sun Belt, Conference USA) team. Nothing we’ve seen this year dissuades us from that idea. We still see this as better than the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) or, heaven forbid, the so-called Mythical Championship when nothing got settled on the field. What we have isn’t perfect, but it’s sure better than that.              

JOHN WALKER (1937-2019): A FIGHTER WE KNEW

As Thanksgiving approaches, we step back and honor the life and work of John Walker, the Arkansas civil rights lawyer and state representative who died October 28 at age 82. Walker's work had national implications. All three of us knew him in some way. We mourn his loss for different reasons. 

John Walker grew up in Rob's hometown of Hope, AR where he lived until 1952 when he left for Texas and high school graduation in Houston. He returned to Arkansas for an undergraduate degree from Woodson's AM&N College. After graduate school at New York University, he earned his law degree in 1964 at Henry's Yale University.   

Walker opened a Little Rock law practice in 1965. He won a seat in the Arkansas legislature in 2010, serving until his death. We remember him for the years between starting that practice and his death. 

Henry's Memories 

It was an audacious idea hardly anyone would have believed if I'd made it up. Ten years after John Walker told me, then a wet-behind-the-ears freshman at Yale, he planned on starting a civil rights law firm in Arkansas and I should attend law school and join him, I found myself doing just that. John and his wife invited me to dinner one spring night in 1964 when he made that seemingly ridiculous suggestion. He was only graduating from Yale himself that semester.

While practicing with him, first at Walker, Kaplan, and Mays, then at Walker, Hollingsworth, and Jones, I witnessed and played a small part in changing life for minorities and women in Arkansas and elsewhere in America. John, his partners, and associates made a difference still not fully calculated. Thousands of lives improved because of the work those lawyers did under John's leadership. 

He possessed a brilliant legal mind, thought faster on his feet, and more effectively organized large volumes of information than

any lawyer I observed during my years of clerking in the federal courts or in practice. He used his skills in carrying out his mission of wringing justice and fairness from a flawed system. He was my friend and I am grateful for the opportunity he gave me to participate in a cause I hold dear. Little did I know his outlandish suggestion in 1964 was just another of his bold, but accurate, predictions.
  

Woodson Cried

I cried when I learned of John's death. Though I am grateful for what he did for me, that's not why I cried. I cried for what racism robbed him of.

  

After he hired me in August 1976 we toured downtown Little Rock in his powder-blue

1974 Lincoln Continental for a private conversation. He was 40. I was 26. He sought to boost my self-confidence by telling me he believed my having graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School meant that I was one of the smartest lawyers in Little Rock. I was not convinced, though I appreciated the gesture. 

  

Soon, I assisted him in a murder trial in Conway, where I witnessed one of his signature trial tactics. On the morning of the trial he made a plethora of oral motions to the utter consternation of the judge and prosecutor. The prosecutor wilted under the pressure and offered John's indigent black client a deal, allowing him to plead to a lesser offense and receive probation. The defendant

later became a millionaire businessman. John introduced me to employment discrimination law when he dispatched me to Crossett in the spring of 1977 to interview class members for weeks in the Georgia Pacific case. The case eventually settled.

I cried because living in a racist society had cheated John, as it had my own father, of the opportunity to be whatever he wanted to be, as opposed to what he felt compelled to be. My father wanted to become a millionaire farmer. It was not to be. He was restricted to being a farmer in the hills of Conway County because the alluvial farmlands in the county were reserved for white farmers. In the same way, John

became a civil rights lawyer because becoming a business tycoon, law professor in a major university, or federal judge were not realistic opportunities for him. When others celebrate him as a civil rights advocate, I fight feelings of anger that because of racism he did not feel the freedom to do something else.

Will the day ever come when there will no longer be a need to celebrate fighters against racism? Not knowing the answer to that question is why I cried.  

Rob's Recollections 

Even though we hailed from the same town, I knew John Walker less well than my colleagues. We never worked together; indeed, I wasn't a lawyer when I lived in Little Rock and watched him from afar. That didn't keep me from admiring his work or appreciating that America requires people like him.  

John Walker took on powerful forces, using the tool those forces couldn't control - our national dedication to the rule of law. By fighting segregated schools, employment discrimination, and wrongs in criminal justice,

John Walker made Arkansas better. In his sliver of the world, he used the law in holding the system accountable.  

Ironically, I saw Walker up close in one of his losing battles. In 1977, he took on the Arkansas Razorback football establishment.

In those days, the team won a lot and enjoyed sacred cow status. Walker challenged coach Lou Holtz's suspension of three black players over a dormitory incident involving a white woman. As a sportscaster at a Little Rock television station, I covered the story closely.  The players remained suspended, a threatened boycott by other black players fizzled, and Walker lost his court challenge. Still, the fact Walker took on the case inspired respect I hold until this day.