In these pandemic times that have proved dauntingly strange, one certainty remains— the participants in the College Football Playoffs, particularly finalists Ohio State and Alabama. They bump into each other Monday night at 8 in Miami on ESPN.
Given that 22 of the 28 playoff spots since the CFP’s four-team format began on January 1, 2015, have gone to just five teams, Alabama and Ohio State’s presence are about as surprising as the sun rising in the South and setting in the Midwest. (Oops, wrong directions, but those who have always worn their protective headgear might guess why I chose them.) For lo these seven Playoff seasons since the CFP replaced the even less inclusive two-team Bowl Championship Subdivision format, five teams from the South and Midwest have dominated the semifinals invitations: Alabama (6), Clemson (6), Ohio State (4), Oklahoma (4), and Notre Dame (2).
Only two teams west of Oklahoma—Oregon and Washington—have been chosen by the CFP selection committee. The dominance of the few and the mighty and the frequent exclusion—five of seven years—of one Power Five conference, the Pac-12, has exposed the inherent flaw of a four-team format for five unequal leagues. If that is not enough to provoke discussion of expanding the Playoffs, then the total shutout of Group of Five teams provides sufficient and fresh evidence that schools competing in such conferences as the American Athletic (Cincinnati) and Sun Belt (Coastal Carolina) have no chance of an invitation even when they go unbeaten in the regular season. The Mid-American Conference’s Akron and Kent State cannot even hallucinate such a thing.
From my perspective, the reason Ohio State and Alabama will be meeting in the championship game after soundly defeating Clemson and Notre Dame, respectively, has as much to do with human nature as with the flawed four-team format. Those who run the College Football Playoffs can acknowledge their mistake and expand to eight teams, with one of the extra invitations going to the highest-ranked Group of Five teams, but they cannot fix what makes it impossible to compete with OSU and ’Bama.
The best young players have their eyes and hearts set on competing for a National Championship and a future in the National Football League. More and more they gravitate to those schools that have proved they are most likely to be able to provide the opportunity to fulfill these dreams. That’s Alabama and Ohio State and Clemson, and, if you happen to play quarterback, perhaps Oklahoma, where Coach Lincoln Riley has become the pied piper of passers and Wizard of Oz all rolled into one. His past three quarterbacks—Baker Mayfield (Cleveland Browns), Kyler Murray (Arizona Cardinals), and Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles)—now quarterback NFL teams, and Spencer
Rattler is a talent-in-residence in Norman, Oklahoma, soon to be joined by the No. 1 prospect, Caleb Williams, from 2021 recruiting cycle. In Rivals and 247Sports rankings Alabama and Ohio State are Nos. 1 and 2, respectively. The rich just get richer.
Alabama, coached by former Kent State defensive back and Browns defensive coordinator Nick Saban, a guy who is beginning to look as if he will die with his coach’s whistle around his neck, has the No. 1-ranked recruiting 2021 recruiting class. Since he returned to college coaching after a less-than-successful fling (15-17) as coach of the Miami Dolphins, he has not forgotten what he learned. “As if turns out,” Saban once explained, “what I learned from that experience, in hindsight, was it was a huge mistake to leave college football. …But I left (Louisiana State) because I wanted to be a pro coach, or thought I wanted to be a pro coach. If there was one thing professionally that I would do over again, it would have been not to leave LSU.” In which case, he might never have had the chance to restore Alabama to its Bear Bryant-glory days.
As well as he has done after cutting his coaching teeth at Kent State, first as a graduate assistant and then as linebacker coach, Saban and Alabama’s presence in the College Football Playoffs year after year has had a downside for the CFP. “It has gotten stale,” Mike Aresco, American Athletic Conference commissioner, told ESPN’s Heather Dinich for her story examining “The Future of the College Football Playoff: Expansion, complaints and what comes next.” “It’s the same teams over and over.”
Unless it is your team how many times can a person enjoy Alabama playing Ohio State or Clemson for the championship? I grew up on Bud Wilkinson and Oklahoma football, covered Barry Switzer’s remarkable national championship teams as a columnist at the Tulsa Tribune, and still follow the Sooners like a birddog on point. I would like to see Lincoln Riley win the College Football Playoffs, but in four semifinals the Sooners have lost badly twice—to Clemson in 2016 and to LSU in 2020. It would hardly qualify as a Cinderella story if OU won the title, something they haven’t done since Bob Stoops’ 2000 team defeated Florida, 13-2, in a BCS championship game for Oklahoma’s seventh national title but the only one won on the field. (Others were in polls.)
I’m an old curmudgeon and perhaps more than a little cynical, but I agree with some ESPN staffers who shared their ideas of what is wrong with the Playoffs and how to improve them. Andrea Adelson, for one, argues for expanding the playoff field as a way to level the field for recruiting the caliber of players who can compete in such an environment. “More spots means the ability to sell the playoff in recruiting . . . allowing more than just a handful of programs to get the best recruits. More spots generates more television money, which allows more schools to try to keep up with the amount Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State pour into their programs. The greatest thing about the NCAA basketball tournament is the Cinderella story. … The playoff, as currently constructed, leaves no room for that. As a result, the sport is suffering.”
Don’t expect immediate change. The current bowl and television contract does not expire until after the 2025 season, but something needs to change. Otherwise, a team like Coastal Carolina, the closest thing to a Cinderella story this season, will never be able to get its glass slipper, much less cleats, in the door. Forget the main event, with a perfect regular season Coastal Carolina could not even get a New Year’s Six Bowl. And do not point out that the Chanticleers lost to Liberty in overtime in the Cure Bowl. Can you blame them if they had a letdown? Iowa State, a good team but one with three losses, went to a New Year’s Six Bowl (Fiesta), where it at least it had the decency to beat Oregon. And Coastal Carolina? The Cure Bowl? What’s the cure for that?
