INDIANAPOLIS — Top seeded Alabama will play third seeded Georgia for the national college football playoff championship in Indianapolis this Monday night.
If it sounds like a broken record, it is.
The SEC controls college football in what is already a regional sport. SEC teams have played in the title game seven of the eight years of its existence and 15 of the last 16 years.
Alabama has won three CFP championships and is going for a fourth. Nick Saban’s Goliath has participated in seven of eight playoffs. LSU won in 2020. Clemson, another Southern team which is a member of the ACC, has won the other two.
A lot has been made of playoff expansion after unbeaten Cincinnati from the American and the Group of 5 and Michigan from the Big Ten made their first appearances in the playoff. But Alabama popped Cincinnati’s bubble, 27-6, in one semi-final and Georgia took apart Michigan, 3d4-11, in the other.
This was the second straight season both semi-final matchups were double figure outcomes. The average margin of victory in the 14 national semi-final matchups has been 21 points and only four games have been decided by less than 14 points.
The number of teams capable of winning a national championship has always been limited. Ohio State won in 2014, but since then, no one has really come close Until the rest of the country, other than Oho State or Clemson, can produce a legitimate heavyweight contender to the SEC it is hard to imagine a 12- team playoff changing the dynamics other than allowing for participation trophies Saban has seen enough to know how wide the gap is.
“I don’t know that expanding—if this is the best four teams and they played each other, I didn’t see the logic in it if we had more teams there would be better games. I don’t know how that adds up.
“The more we expand the playoffs, the more we minimize bowl games, the importance of bowl games, which I said when we went to four. So, I don’t think that’s changed. And I think it’s also come to fruition.’’
The College Football Playoff board of managers, anxious to include all members of the Power 5, approved a proposal of four to 12 teams earlier this summer. The concept would include the top six conference champions, according to the CFP rankings, and six more at large teams determined by rankings. But that proposal has since been put on hold for now after a massive round of realignment triggered by the move of Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 to the SEC.
Saban isn’t ready to tell the powers that be what to do. “There’s a lot of other good teams, whether it was their consistency in performance or whatever happened to them in championship games or whatever, that may have had the opportunity to get to get into the playoffs that didn’t But, look, I’m not one that needs to be deciding what the playoff needs.’’
There is no parity. Just the same usual suspects. And when they have down years, we wind up with a third all SEC title game I1 years.
And the problem does not have solution You can talk about reduction of scholarships to give more teams a chance to sign the best players but until teams in the West Coast East and Midwest get better, nothing will change the SEC and the Southeast region in general has the best coaches, best recruits, best players, most money. Consider this: The 11 state SEC footprint has produced 197 five-star prospects since 2011. The other 39 states produced 134. Until the rest of the country decides to be competitive with the SEC in terms of armed races for training facilities, coaches’ salaries, and bigger staffs, we can expect the same results.
There has been a suggestion that making an expanded playoff could give the teams involved increased recruiting clout. But look at Cincinnati. The Bearcats were 13-0, finally cracking the glass ceiling that existed for Group of 5 teams. But their recruiting class was ranked 37th.
And even with an expanded playoff that offers first round byes to the highest seeds and first round home field advantage of teams seeded 5 through 8, the best teams are likely to win.
Accept it.
