by: Martin Fennelly
The College Football Playoff has to go.
Or at least get bigger.
There has to be more to life than Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Notre Dame.
I’m sick of the usual suspects. I’m even taking into account that this is a college football season like no other, so strange and COVID-ridden that it probably shouldn’t have even been played.
Look at all the bowl games cancelled for lack of participants.
Look at the Rose Bowl, part of the CFP, that will be played far from Pasadena, deep in the heart of Texas. Or the fact Ohio State has played just half a season.
But then there are the constants, the usual suspects. Suffice to say, if you don’t have Alabama and Clemson, Uncle Nick, and Cousin Dabo, then you don’t have a playoff season.
Consider that there have been 18 playoff games in the history of the CFP. Only four of them haven’t involved Alabama or Clemson. Only six of them have not been won by Alabama or Clemson, and three of those were in the first year.
This should have been the year to throw all the doors open, to throw caution and maybe rankings to the wins, to let the puppies in the playground, like Coastal Carolina, like Cincinnati, like anyone but the four we got.
Can’t we just go back to the BCS? Or the postseason polls?
This is drop-dead monotonous.
This is unacceptable.
This unusual season has produced a most usual playoff.
Hockey had its tournament. So did basketball and baseball. The NFL has expanded its playoff field. Not college football. It follows the money. It’s led by the blue bloods. There is no getting around them or the hegemony that drags us into utter boredom. Who was the upstart this time, on the outside looking in? Texas A&M. Jimbo Fisher and his zillion-dollar program. Not exactly the little engine that could. Would have been the same if Florida had made it.
It’s a heavyweights-only playoff, unlike the NCAA basketball tournament. Cinderella can’t get a ticket.
Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Notre Dame.
We all lose. Again.