Another plate of Ohio State-Alabama will force expansion, but that won’t solve problem
The earliest you can expect college football to alter its format is 2026, and you can thank ESPN for that.
ESPN’s complicated relationship throughout sports is not any more apparent than when it comes to college football.
While its on air talent will often criticize the structure of an eternally flawed postseason system, the network is ultimately at fault for making this all go round and round.
College football has always been dysfunctional, but the main enabler these days is not NBC and Notre Dame, or the college presidents, but a network that helped build the modern day sports machine.
When ESPN signed a 12-year contract to televise the college football playoff, it ensured the system would endure through 2025.
ESPN is the only entity that can change this system, and that’s not happening for years.
College administrators I spoke to for this column expect a change to come for the 2026 season, when the playoff field will be expanded from four to eight, to possibly 12.
By that point, this system will have run its course. If it hasn’t already.
It will not change who wins the national title, but it will create the delusion of hope.
On Monday night, the second most popular sport in America will conclude its season with a finale we have seen so often the intrigue is fading, save for the teams and their parents. And gamblers.
Alabama and Ohio State in the college football national title game. This means between 1966 and 2020, college football will have a total of 21 teams to win a national championship.
That lack of parity at the top is not the fault of ESPN. Only a few teams have ever had a chance to win the national title, and when it comes to college football there is no practical solution to create the type of parity seen in the NFL.
College football has no salary cap.
That gap the playoff era has exposed is not between No. 1 and No. 25, but No. 1 and No. 4.
These playoff games are routinely double digit margins. Adding more playoff teams, like Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina and San Jose State, is not going to change that.
After Notre Dame lost to Alabama in the national semifinal game, the Rose Bowl, on Jan. 1, I asked Irish coach Brian Kelly if college football had a “top end talent” problem.
“There’s certainly a few teams that have a couple more weapons that can be explosive. But you don’t necessarily have to walk around and be the best team every week. You just need to be the best team on that given day,” Kelly said.
He’s right. But you’ll also notice the same teams are at the top.
“And I think there’s more than just two or three teams that can be the best team on that given day. And I think that that opens it up to more than just two or three teams,” he said.
“So I would say that we’re both right. I would say that you’re right in assessing that there’s two or three that have prolific, prolific weapons and more than some. But I think there’s enough balance with this other teams, and Notre Dame would be one of those included, that have enough to beat you on any given day.”
Expanding the playoff field does not solve this issue.
Expanding the playoff field creates more relevant games, and gives teams the hope that they can reach the playoffs. That could keep fans enticed to keep watching, and buying tickets through the end of November.
One of the consequences of the college football playoff, which was a fear among administrators, is it would make the majority of bowl games irrelevant.
That reality has not stopped the expansion of more third-tier bowl games.
What was not foreseen was the number of players not only skipping their team’s bowl game, but also the final games of the regular season once their team has been eliminated from significant postseason opportunities.
Players who aspire to the NFL will continue in with their college careers, provided the game has some heft. They are not as apt to stay to play in the Saskatchewan Bowl, played in Frisco, Texas.
As a result, the regular season now has more irrelevant games, and the fans behave accordingly.
The people who run college football are not concerned about Alabama winning a 10th straight national title, but only if people are watching and filling the stands.
They can’t sell their game if their team is eliminated from anything meaningful by Week 5.
The entire 2020 college season is an outlier, and the goal from the beginning to end was just to get the game in. Who cares who won?
The irony is that despite the presence of a global pandemic, ultimately this season looks like any other.
Alabama and Ohio State are in the national title game.
