Joel Klatt believes Oregon 'got absolutely hosed' with College Football Playoff format

Joel Klatt didn’t mince words regarding the hand Oregon was dealt by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee as the undefeated, top-seeded team in the nation.

The Ducks’ reward for slaying all comers throughout the regular season was playing arguably the second best team in the country, as the Ohio State Buckeyes were their opponent in the Quarterfinals of the CFP. It certainly didn’t end well for Oregon, but Klatt believes the program deserved better from the decision-makers than their positioning in the first 12-team expanded bracket.

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“This is a team that deserved better,” Klatt said, regarding Oregon and their Playoff fate, via The Joel Klatt Show. “This is a team that had the best regular season of anybody in college football. This is supposed to be a sport that we care about the regular season. We’ve been trying to maintain the importance of the regular season through all of this post-season formatting. And yet, in that effort, we lost it.

“We lost it. We lost the importance of the regular season. And because of that, the Oregon Ducks got absolutely hosed.”

Even though Oregon has received a ton of sympathy from Klatt and other pundits, coach Dan Lanning hasn’t made any excuses pertaining to their schedule. He’s taking it on the chin, and that’s commendable. Klatt made sure to point that out.

“Dan Lanning is not going to say that. And he’s not going to take that excuse. He’s not going to sit there and say, hey, we shouldn’t have had to play Ohio State of all teams, for goodness sake, after going undefeated and winning the Big Ten Championship and being 13-0. He’s not going to take that bait. But guess what? I will say it for him,” Klatt added. “Because what was given to us as a structure was totally flawed. And then with that flawed structure, the committee gave us really poor seeding. … Who did it hurt? Oregon. It hurt Oregon.

“So the one team that deserved the most favorable draw in the Playoff actually got the worst draw in the Playoff, and that’s not right. So the structure in some way is gonna have to be fixed. It’s gonna have to be.”

Perhaps the College Football Playoff Selection Committee can find a way to fix the issue that plagued Oregon in the future. Regardless, the Ducks dream regular season came crashing to an end in an unceremonious fashion, that won’t sit right with Joel Klatt for quite awhile.