What Playoff Debates Teach Us About Human Decision-Making

Just over a week ago, when the college football playoff pairings were announced, we saw something on full display: human bias in all its passion.

Sports fans are a funny breed, especially college football fans. Scarcity plays a big role. Unlike college basketball, where 64 teams make the NCAA tournament, college football has only a dozen playoff spots for 136 Division I teams. With limited availability, emotions run high and biases surface quickly.

While biases impact all of us, fans offer one of the clearest windows into how easily we justify what we already believe.

How We Judge “Them”

Listen to a fan talk about another team and you’ll hear things like:

“They didn’t play anyone tough.”
“You can’t be that good if you lost to that team.”
“They never win the big games.”
“They didn’t beat their rival.”
“They didn’t win their conference.”

Everything becomes evidence confirming what the fan already wants to believe.

How We Justify “Us”

Now listen when the same fan talks about their own team:

“Sure, we lost three games, but our schedule was brutal.”
“Our conference is the toughest—every week is a bloodbath.”
“We had key players out for that loss.”
“Look what we did despite not having the same level of talent.”

Same facts. Different teams. Completely different interpretation.

This is confirmation bias—and it’s a perfect example of what I tell people all the time: Humans are justifying machines.

Growing up in Central Ohio, I often tell people, “If you live here, you’ll either love Ohio State or hate them because it’s in your face 24x7x365.” I learned to love the Buckeyes early, which has made at least 10 or 11 weekends a year much more enjoyable.

But that’s the point: bias feels good. It reinforces our identity. It creates a sense of unity. And it helps us remain consistent with the views we’ve already expressed.

Why Sports Bias Isn’t Completely Harmless

I used to think biased thinking in sports was harmless because, after all, it’s “just a game.” I don’t think that way anymore. College football is big business—tens of millions of dollars are at stake. Football revenues often fund the majority of other sports on campus. When the stakes rise, so does the impact of our biases.

If bias plays such a big role in something as seemingly trivial as ranking football teams, imagine how much more it shapes our real, everyday decisions.

Bias in Everyday Life

Bias affects:

Who we hire
How we lead
Whom we promote
Where we choose to live
Which opportunities we pursue or ignore

We can’t remove bias completely (it’s wired into us), but we can create guardrails to minimize its impact. These guardrails help us ensure our decisions are guided by clarity—not just comfort.

Here are three that have served me well:

Surround Yourself with People Who See the World Differently

I meet regularly with people from different ethnic backgrounds, belief systems, and life experiences. They help me see things I’d naturally miss. The principle of unity can expand when we intentionally build relationships beyond our “in-group.”

Stay Close to People Who Will Tell You the Truth

We all need people who will speak honestly, even when it stings. This ties directly to liking—the more we value a relationship, the more open we are to hearing hard truths from that person.

Go to Multiple Sources for Information

When I watch the news, I intentionally flip between Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC. No single source offers the full picture. By broadening our information stream, we combat confirmation bias and make better, more balanced decisions.

We Don’t See the World as It Is

One of the most important reminders we can give ourselves is this: None of us sees the world as it truly is. We see it as we are, through our experiences, emotions, loyalties, and assumptions.

That doesn’t make us bad or irrational. It makes us human. But if we want to ethically influence people, and make better decisions, we have to recognize how easily bias creeps in. We have to be willing to install the guardrails that keep us honest and help us see the world more accurately.

College football gives us a fun, high-stakes, emotionally charged example of how bias works. But the real opportunity is learning to spot these patterns in ourselves long before the playoff rankings come out.

P.S. Call me bias but despite their loss to Indiana, I still believe Ohio State is the best college football team and will win the National Championship… again.

Edited with ChatGPT

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE and a faculty member at the Cialdini Institute. An author, TEDx presenter, international speaker, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. Persuasive Selling and Influenced from Above were Amazon new release bestsellers. The Influencer, is a business parable designed to teach you how to use influence in everyday situations.

Brian’s LinkedIn courses on persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by over 800,000 people around the world and his TEDx Talk on pre-suasion has more than a million views!