And so, it goes.
The controversy of the 2025 College Football Playoff selections contains a disclaimer – and an endgame. Both are actually the same.
The disclaimer should be that the CFP teams do not necessarily reflect the views of the millions of college football fans. Instead, the fate of teams left out of the 12-team field was in the hands of 13 individuals who likely are influenced by lobby groups.
In only its second year, I’m ready for the NCAA to ditch the playoff format and go back to the beauty that is the “bowl season.” In their purest form, bowl games celebrate the richness of college football along with the simplicity of good, old-fashioned competition.
But, like I’ve stated in the past, money talks and tradition and integrity walk.
The endgame is simple: let’s pick 12 teams, leave out deserving teams, and conclude that the playoffs must expand to 16 teams.
Case in point: how can Notre Dame be omitted from the field (a team that advanced all the way to the national championship game against Ohio State last year) and include BOTH James Madison and Tulane, two Group of 5 teams.
In the past, I advanced the concept of two separate playoffs: one for Power 5 teams and the other for Group of 5 teams. Why not?
If that scenario played out this season, Notre Dame (and perhaps two-loss Vanderbilt) would be competing along with Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Miami, and Texas A&M.
But the NCAA doesn’t believe in doing the logical thing. They would rather diminish the legitimacy of college football.
On the one hand, it’s a legitimate shame what big-time college football has become. On the other hand, it’s not a surprise. When head coaches make upwards of 8 or 9 million dollars a year, conference commissioners back multi-million-dollar salaries, and the chosen few athletes have become commodities rather than student-athletes, all signs point to self-destruction.
The slippery slope has been gaining momentum ever since conference expansions began in the early 1990s. Then, the Southeastern Conference raided the Big 12 and took
Oklahoma and Texas, while the Big Ten ended the Pacific-12 by reeling in UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington.
All without blinking an eye. No remorse. No regrets.
The toxic blend of sports betting and the scourge of alcohol sales at games makes it worse.
The specter of match fixing and point shaving is not so far-fetched as we might believe. Do you think the 27-yard missed field goal that would have sent the Indiana-Ohio State Big Ten Championship game to overtime was bad luck? Or was it more insidious?
Is anyone else out there eager with anticipation of the game between Tulane and Ole Miss on Dec. 20? Or the rematch between Oklahoma and Alabama (the Sooners beat the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa). Or James Madison at Oregon?
Somehow, the NCAA has reduced something akin to gridiron excellence to sad mediocrity.
It makes me look forward to the “minor” bowl games, like Penn State vs. Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 27. Or Boise State vs. Washington in the Bucked Up LA Bowl on Dec. 13. Or Georgia Tech vs. BYU in the Pop Tarts Bowl (Dec. 27). The Dec. 31 matchup between Michigan and Texas in the Citrus Bowl isn’t too shabby.
