Today’s the day when we find out the participants for the annual charade that is the College Football Playoff. There are two huge issues facing the CFP committee: 1) Does it let a cheating team participate?; and 2) Will it really banish the SEC from the Final Four? We will know the answers to both questions at 9am PT this morning, but we have some thoughts on both—as well as three different scenarios for what could be.

First, the CFP itself can do whatever it wants, and it would send the right message to college football as a whole if it excluded confirmed cheats from its already corrupt charade. No due process is required when a private organization makes its own business choices, regardless of public involvement, emotional or financial. At some point, somehow, someone needs to begin to care about integrity and legitimacy, right?

Second, the SEC bought this sport after the 2004 Bowl Championship Series excluded, and properly so, the Auburn Tigers from the “championship” game. Ever since then, the SEC has been selected for everything against all rationale and reason, serving a pure financial purpose. When the BCS went too far, it caused the evolution into the CFP era. And now we know the CFP has gone too far as well; excluding the SEC is proper.

So, here is how we see the Final Four being announced today:

  • Michigan
  • Washington
  • Texas
  • Florida State

Here is how the Final Four really should be for the CFP today, though, in our eyes:

  • Washington
  • Texas
  • Alabama
  • Florida State

And this is how the combination of moral honesty and sabermetric purity would see the Final Four:

  • Ohio State
  • Texas
  • Penn State
  • Oregon

Three very different scenarios, of course. We’re betting, philosophically, on the first one, since we’re too smart to ever give this corrupt sport any of our hard-earned money. Either way, we won’t be tuning into the charade on TV this winter at all, so we hope the ratings are the worst ever: no one likes a cheater winning, and history/posterity also won’t be very kind to those involved in such things. Just sayin’ … that’s a fact.