It helps a lot to not play anybody during the season. Next year, Alabama fearlessly plays Louisiana-Monroe and Austin Peay at home, while Georgia has the daunting task of taking on Samford and Kent State. Of course they don’t play each other, since one team would get a loss.
No, but the companies offering the contracts can make it quite clear that they are conditional upon the athlete playing for a particular school. Mississippi’s NIL law, which takes precedence over any NCAA rule, says that an athlete cannot sign a contract before actually enrolling at the school, but there is nothing against a company saying that it will provide NIL money if the athlete does.
To be fair, a number of smaller schools are more than willing to be sacrificial lambs to teams like Alabama in exchange for a much-needed paycheck. I like to joke that one of these schools is going to put up a sign at, say, a softball home game: “Today’s game is made possible in part by {insert the name of a big school’s Heisman candidate}'s four touchdowns.”
As opposed to Ohio State, which takes on powerhouses Toledo and Arkansas State? Or Oklahoma, which must also face the juggernaut of Kent State, only a week after going up against mighty UTEP?
The announcers on the Notre Dame game were excellent, whoever they are. Intelligent commentary and insightful analysis, with no bullshit. I wonder why they can’t get announcers like that for NFL games.
Kudos to Oklahoma State, who trailed by 21 points (28-7) with four minutes left in the first half. OSU scored the next 30 points before giving up a touchdown with just over a minute to go in the game.
Utah up on THE OSU 21-7 at this time in the Rose Bowl. A couple of punts to start off with then it’s been touchdown city.
Looked away for a few minutes, now it’s 35-21 Utah. - with 6+ minutes left in the half. I think the over is the safe bet.
Yeah, the system is ridiculous. An SEC Championship game rematch. This whole system was created because many top teams were unable to play each other at the end of the year due to bowl tie ins so they created the BCS and the like. But now, the playoff system just gives us one conference rematches.
It is completely backwards from the original reason for the change.
I remember the crazy year when Florida played Florida State in a rematch. Two different conferences but still a rematch of a rivalry game. That was a weird fluke but now it just seems like it routine
The Fifth Quarter in the French Quarter!
Sugar Bowl 1995.
In 1994, FSU and UF played to a 31-31 tie in the last game of the regular season. FSU scored 28 points in the 4th quarter to tie the game (The Choke at Doak*). There were no ACC Conference Championship games then, so FSU got the ACC’s Sugar Bowl bid. UF beat 'Bama to earn their bid.
FSU won 23-17.
I was at both games.
Oddly enough they would do the same thing in 1996. FSU won the regular season contest (#1 vs. #2), but UF kicked our ass in the Sugar Bowl to win their first National Championship (3 years after FSU did it. 
)
* FSU’s stadium is Doak Campbell Stadium. Now Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium.
This isn’t the argument you think it is. If the committee had its usual way, Cincinnati wouldn’t even be here, 13-0 record or not. That’s what happen to them…just last season! But they didn’t play anybody. This year, they couldn’t ignore that win over Notre Dame.
Yes, the conferences are split into haves and have-nots, but that’s what we, as fans, have decided we want. We might grouse about bodybag games against powderpuff teams, but we’re the ones who incentivized that sort of behavior. Look in a mirror if/when looking for somebody to blame.
Either expand the playoff or limit the participants to conference champions.
There will be a time, soon, when every NFL player will have graduated from an SEC school.
Didn’t Ohio State play Oregon this year, which really screwed them in getting a playoff spot after they lost to UM? Maybe that’s the reason no one else plays anyone big OOC with a 4 team playoff.
Again, using the same example, that cuts both ways. Cincinnati, just like last year, went undefeated. And the win over Notre Dame is a bit part of why they got in this year when they didn’t last year.
There’s honestly no good way of doing a college football championship. There’s a few teams that are de facto professional development teams and a bunch who aren’t. Without just coming out and admitting this, we have this mishmash system where we pretend that the Directional State Universities of the country and the schools that still have some semblance of academic integrity have an ‘equal’ shot at making it with the Alabamas and OSUs.
So instead, we talk about playoff expansion - and I recall not long ago, people claiming 4 teams was more than enough to determine a champion fairly and we wouldn’t need to expand further. Now, it’s 8 or 12 or 16. I can’t imagine it’ll go bigger than that just due to logistics, so I’m just waiting on what the next talking point will be that ignores the giant elephant in the room.
Expansion of the playoffs will be driven by money. There’s billions entering into the game now from gambling / TV rights / NIL boosters. The old bowl structure has already been upended; the few with tie-ins are on the way out.
I’m with this. How can you be National Champion if you aren’t even conference champion???
It’s easy, you win the championship game at the end of the playoffs. It happens in a lot of sports.
Haven’t we had super bowl champions who were only in the playoffs as wild card teams?
I haven’t heard anyone question their legitimacy.
Well, there are College Football teams, and then there are Football Teams at colleges. As long as we accept the trope of everyone being a College Football team, then we are stuck. If we instead had some version of professional minor league Football, with many tiers - rather than conferences, then the all of the big rich NFL feeder teams could be Tier One, etc. Add in something akin to non-US football (soccer) with promotion/demotion based on success. Yada, yada, and yada.