With all the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding, college football’s first-ever playoff four will be unveiled tonight.

Let the great debate begin.

Some are almost demanding that there be three SEC West teams included in the four. Others want no more than one.

A group of 12 will ultimately decide which college football teams are to be anointed as the best.

You kind of expect something like a knighting ceremony to take place.

Maybe Bobby Bowden, the legendary former Florida State head coach who is on the “non-bias” committee, can do the honors of tapping the chosen ones on the shoulder pads with the spear of Seminole mascot Osceola, which the warrior rams into the ground before each game.

As far as I’m concerned, you can stick a fork in all the committee’s work to begin with.

Calling all of these people on the committee unbiased is like calling one of our politicians bipartisan. It’s great in theory, but in the end you are going to vote where your heart leads you.

I know, they say people will step out of the room at the right time when it comes to talking about their schools or conferences, but let’s face it their presence will remain. You can’t help but like and dislike others on the committee when you are arguing college football.

Think about the brawls you and your buddies have over which team is better at the local watering hole. And there is nothing at stake in those discussions.

A college football season, millions of dollars and even coaching jobs will be on the line when this dozen start to their dirty work.

What is even more strange is that they are going to release their picks now, as if they really matter. The only vote that counts, and it really shouldn’t when you think about how every other sport on every other level decides its playoff teams, is the last one.

Fans from Tallahassee to Eugene and Tucson to Morgantown are going to get caught up in what these folks decide. We may even see a couch or two burned.

There will be screaming, whining and down right anger coming from more than one campus that feels it has been robbed. There will be so much to do about nothing you will think you were watching Congress on CSPAN.

And all this will mean nothing in the morning.

This first grouping will be released with all the importance of a politician’s promise. It will end up leaving everyone empty in the end.

The reason for this is simple, there are a bunch of games to be played before any of this really matters.

I expect Mississippi State will be in the group — and Alabama. Committee members will have long forgotten the Tide’s loss at Ole Miss and near loss at Arkansas by the time the voting takes place.

Yet those two teams still play each other so it is hard to picture them both making the final grouping. And Auburn still has Georgia and Alabama.

See, the losses are going to start mounting for some of these teams.

The same will take place in the West as well as other parts of the country.

Yet in our rush to make news out of nothing, the committee’s first release will be treated like it is the Declaration of Independence. In reality they will be more like a shopping list, subject to change on the whim or hunger of those who write it.

Seems like there should be an easier way to pick teams worthy of such an important position, like having them win a conference championship or something. It would only take adding one more round to make that happen. Even then you would still be able to vote three more teams into the party.

But why make earning your spot in the playoffs so important when we can just have a group decide for all of college football?

See, winning isn’t everything. Sometimes it’s who you know on a committee that really counts.

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Jim Gazzolo is managing sports editor. Email him at jgazzolo@americanpress.com(MGNonline)