Jeff Long put on his ESPN earpiece last week and made the defense for Stanford being ranked seventh by the College Football Playoff committee, which he chairs. Long noted that Stanford's lone loss (at the time) came at Northwestern, a game that kicked off at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
Long said the committee “would not be doing our due diligence” if it did not take body clocks into consideration.
And thus was ignited the great American tradition of excuse-making. Blame-shifting. Accountability-fleeing.
College football is rife with one-loss teams. Teams that are oh, so close to unbeaten status and the plums that come with it.