The first weekend of December has become a bore in the
College Football Playoff era. That needs to change.
This week, there have been a plethora of articles
decrying college football’s “championship weekend” and how the entire act
reeks of greed. Do we really need 10 conference championship games this
weekend? Of course we don’t. In fact, I’d love to see them replaced by a full-blown
playoff. But that isn’t happening next year, or in the next decade.
However, it is interesting to see the momentum building
against conference championship games this week because the
first weekend of December has started to suck.
For all the good the college football playoff has
brought to the sport – namely, we have a true
national champion every year for the first time – it has severely and completely
decimated the conference championship games.
Since the playoff started in 2014, we have had five years of
favorites winning conference title games and advancing to the playoff. Heck, in
the past three years, we’ve seen one team make the playoff without even playing
on this weekend. Sure, there have been some fun pseudo-quarterfinal games like
Michigan State/Iowa in 2015 and Alabama/Georgia last year, but something has
been missing.
The Glorious Chaos of the BCS
The first year of the BCS in 1998 coincided with the first true
“Championship
Saturday” thanks in large part to a hurricane. That first December Saturday,
21 years ago, featured three undefeated teams entering the day battling for two
spots in the title game. Chaos loomed, just not the chaos we expected. UCLA
inexplicably forgot how
to play defense in a rescheduled game vs Miami, while Kansas State inexplicably blew a huge lead
to Texas A&M.
From then on, upsets were expected in early
December as the norm. You can probably rattle them off from memory if you’re
of a certain age. Colorado over Texas and LSU over Tennessee in 2001. Kansas
State over Oklahoma in 2003. UCLA over USC in 2006. Pitt over West Virginia in
2007. None of these made sense, yet they made college football an even more
exciting sport to follow.
It's no surprise that the last Earth-shattering conference
title game upset came during the BCS swan song, when Michigan State took down
undefeated Ohio State in 2013 and Urban
Meyer ate some cold pizza. It was so perfect.
Since then? Nothing. Clemson, for example, has won the past
two ACC title games by a combined score of 80-13. The newly revived Big 12
title games has provided us with two relatively easy wins for Oklahoma. In the playoff
era, the SEC title game has been in doubt in the fourth quarter a grand total
of once.
Hope Springs Eternal in 2019
It is no surprise that every playoff prediction for 2019
begins with the assumption that the top 3 teams – LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson –
will all win this weekend. And why wouldn’t they? In the five-year history of
the playoff, only one Top 3 team has lost this weekend. That team was Auburn, which
lost to #6 Georgia in what was essentially a quarterfinal. Not much of an
upset.
As we sit on the precipice of another December weekend of
conference championship games, I am hopeful this is the year that all changes.
Maybe the upsets were just waiting to pile up together? For the first time,
every Power 5 conference title game will mean something for
the playoff. And for the first time, there are no obvious “quarterfinal”
games in the mix, so there is a fly in the ointment in every game.
Oregon can knock Utah out. Virginia can knock Clemson out.
Wisconsin or Georgia winning would cause mass hysteria. Baylor beating Oklahoma
causes more for headaches than the inverse.
Heck, even the
Group of Five bid could be heading toward chaos if Cincinnati defeats
Memphis, and the Cotton Bowl berth comes down to a 2-loss AAC champion versus
Boise State or, if Hawaii wins, even Appalachian State.
The fun is out there to be had, so let’s have it. Go Oregon,
and go Virginia. On Wisconsin, and Sic ‘em Bears.
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