Get Ready for the College Football Explosion

The last Selection Sunday of the four-team College Football Playoff era went down pretty much according to chalk.

Michigan’s inclusion everybody was certain of. Undefeated, ranked No. 1, conqueror of archrival Ohio State. Nobody for a moment doubted their bona fides. Washington, yes, the selection committee had to put them in; they twice defeated the other Pac-12 heavy, Oregon, won a surprisingly tough conference in its swan-song season, and were also undefeated. As for Texas — sure, they lost to rival Oklahoma in a shootout in the Shootout, Red River variety, but they won the rest of their games and took down Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, no less. (READ MORE from Tom Raabe: LeBron James’ Ego Trip)

That takes care of the top three seeds that would make the College Football Playoff. The drama on Selection Sunday was centered on who would fill out the bracket. Undefeated Florida State, 13–0, victor in a couple of uninspiring late-season contests but down, because of injury, to its third-string quarterback, or Alabama, winner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship and conqueror of erstwhile No. 1, twice-defending national champion Georgia?

Much to the chagrin of top-seeded Michigan, who moaned and groaned when learning they were deprived of the opportunity to play a weakened Florida State, the fourth seed went to the Crimson Tide, and the final four-team field for the national football championship was set. On New Year’s Day, No. 1 Michigan will take on No. 4 Alabama in the Rose Bowl, and No. 2 Washington will play No. 3 Texas in the Sugar Bowl. The winners of those games face off on Jan. 8 in Houston.

Drama. Acrimonious dispute. Arguing players. Lobbying coaches. Endless media speculation, often heated. Hour after hour of contentious talk radio content. Hour after hour of futile speculation on the whims and whimsy of … the committee. All are staples in the yearly theatricals surrounding the selection of the four college football playoff participants. And what wonderful staples they are. They are the stuff that makes a college football fan’s world go round.

The College Game Explodes

Or, rather, were the stuff. A large part of those theatricals will go away next year, as the College Football Playoff expands from four teams to 12.

No longer will the first left-out school have cause — Florida State this year — to complain about a selection snub; nor will the sixth, seventh, and eighth place teams — this year, Georgia, Ohio State, and Oregon, respectively — have reason to gripe about exclusion. All would have been included in a 12-team format — they and four other teams as well.

With that playoff expansion, the college game is likely to ride its current wave of popularity to even greater heights. Despite the uncertainty (and attendant problems) generated by name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules and the transfer portal — with schools essentially “buying” star players, and players being permitted to switch schools without penalty — the new features have encouraged parity in the college ranks and pumped excitement and life into the product. Total viewing of college football, charted early this past season, was up about 12 percent over last year, and up 28 percent over the last five years. (READ MORE: USA Cycling Attempts to Justify Men Racing Against Women)

One well-respected pundit explains the attraction of NIL and the transfer portal. Stewart Mandel wrote in October,

Coaches, commissioners, athletic directors and NCAA presidents have spent years warning us of these two supposed bogeymen’s ruinous effects. Instead, they have been a massive boon for those leaders’ most valuable sport, allowing long-stagnant programs to turn themselves into contenders and star players to gravitate to less-established programs.

For example, see the Colorado turnaround spearheaded by Deion Sanders — it captivated, absolutely obsessed, the sport’s media for this past season’s first month. Say what you will about his tactics, Coach Prime, his preferred monicker, grabbed 53 players out of the transfer portal to help him quadruple the Buffs’ win total (albeit from one to four). Or see stellar quarterbacks switching schools and significantly elevating their “brands” on the new team — Caleb Williams at USC, Bo Nix at Oregon, Michael Penix Jr. at Washington.

Mandel quotes the director of the Ole Miss NIL collective, Walker Jones: “You can look across the landscape of college football this year and probably pick some pretty good data points to show where the portal and NIL have helped distribute talent in a more competitive fashion across the country.” So, some are lauding NIL and the transfer portal as significant contributors to the success of the game.

That success will likely increase exponentially next season. The 12-team playoff will add four weeks, 11 more games, of sensational big-boy football to the season, filling the currently fallow month of December with big games every weekend. This will instill the college game with NFL-playoff-level interest and excitement. 

It is also likely to make possible better regular-season matchups. With 12 teams making the playoff instead of four, schools will schedule more courageously, as one or two, even three, losses will not automatically eliminate a team from playoff contention.

Radio talk show host Colin Cowherd opines:

Fundamentally next year, I think you’re going to see going forward, teams scheduling bigger out of conference games, not afraid to lose. You’re going to see more. I’ve always thought college football has one issue: Not enough great games. Every Sunday in that early (NFL) window, there’s three down-to-the-wire finishes, minimum. It’s crazy. In college football, you may get two games a weekend between really competent teams that are great because everybody’s afraid to schedule anybody.

Many of those great games will now be conference games, thanks to the crazy conference-realignment activity of the past few years. Oklahoma and Texas moving to the SEC next year means conference games on the order of Alabama-Oklahoma, Georgia-Texas, LSU-Texas, etc. The West Coast additions to the Big Ten will provide every-week intrigue. Cowherd adds: “We are going to get so many quality games. Michigan against Washington. Oregon, Penn State. USC against Wisconsin. Nebraska, Michigan. I think next year is the start of almost a new sport.” (READ MORE from Tom Raabe: Congress Jumps Into the NIL Debate)

Many have cast shade on the new day in college athletics, including this writer (here and here, among other places). Conference realignment has killed some long-standing rivalries. It has rendered the non-revenue Olympic sports much less convenient for the student-athlete, with ludicrous travel requirements (Stanford and Cal are in the Atlantic Coast Conference now). NIL threatens to turn the big sports — football and basketball — into professional entities. The transfer portal makes roster management far more onerous for a coach. All are legitimate gripes.

But the football itself in the coming years — the football is going to be great!

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