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The Oregon Ducks entered the College Football Playoff as the No. 1 overall seed, earning them a first-round bye and, supposedly, the best-possible matchup in the quarterfinals. Except, that’s not what happened. 

Instead, they faced the Ohio State Buckeyes who, despite being the No. 8 seed, were favored to win the Rose Bowl over Oregon. Ohio State, of course, smacked Oregon in that game and are now the favorites to win the College Football Playoff National Championship. 

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban thinks Oregon got a raw deal. He told ESPN’s Pat McAfee that Oregon fans deserve to be angry about their draw in the inaugural 12-team CFP. 

“If I was an Oregon fan… this kind of bothers me. You’re the 13-0, number-one seed and you gotta play Ohio State in the first round,” Saban said. “I’m not an Internet guy, but if I was an Oregon fan I’d be on the Internet screaming about that.” 

Look, there’s never going to be a perfect system. Certainly, Oregon fans had to hate the draw when they saw the CFP bracket released. 

Especially when you look at a school like Penn State, which lost to Oregon in the Big 10 Championship and got the No. 6 seed in the CFP. Penn State has played two games, and they’ve been favored by more than a touchdown in both

In fact, Oregon arguably had the hardest quarterfinal opponent of all the teams that received byes. Georgia, the No. 2 seed, probably has the second-toughest matchup going against Notre Dame. 

Saban has a point, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. Ohio State was better than the 8th-best team in the country, but the Buckeyes lost two games, including an indefensible loss against Michigan that knocked them out of the Big 10 Championship. 

The Committee has to take the results into account, otherwise what’s the point of even playing the games? If we’re just going to rank teams based on how good we THINK they are, instead of how they perform on the field, let’s have the 12-best programs every year compete in the College Football Playoff and call it a season. 

That sounds silly, but that’s the implication. Is Alabama better than SMU? Almost certainly. But Alabama lost three games, including one against Vanderbilt. That has to matter. 

It sucks for Oregon that it got a poor draw in the College Football Playoff. That being said, the Ducks lost to Ohio State by 20 points. So Oregon wasn’t good enough to win the National Championship anyway, right?