All is right in my world when I get to wake up on New Year’s Day and watch Oregon and Ohio State go head-to-head in the Rose Bowl as if the Pac-12 still exists.
The only problem is, that result is the one good thing to come out of this disaster of a 12-team College Football Playoff that has made winning a national championship feel as insignificant as ever.
As the blowouts continued one-by-one in the first four games — Notre Dame beating Indiana by 10 after being up 24 in the fourth quarter was never in doubt — it was shocking to see the reaction from the pro 12-team playoff crowd.
Did anyone actually think there were ever 12 teams worthy of getting a shot to win a national championship at the end of a grueling football season?
We killed the importance of regular season games in November. What exactly did Michigan beating Ohio State in that train-wreck of a game mean after all?
We killed the reason for any Big Ten or SEC team to schedule a quality nonconference opponent in August or September.
And what’s the point of winning the Big Ten or SEC conference at the end of the season? Georgia beat Texas and Oregon beat Penn State in championship games and yet here we are seeing the Longhorns and Nittany Lions play again despite losing at the end of November. Tennessee and Ohio State, teams that didn’t even qualify for their conference championship? Yup, they are in as well.
All of this for the noble idea of throwing out participation trophies to allow 12 schools into a tournament in which eight of them had already lost twice this season.
Good job, everyone.
My 2024 began with a plane ticket to Houston to see Washington play Michigan for the national title. There wasn’t a 12-team playoff last year, but the Huskies had been in a playoff for two months in the final year of the Pac-12 Conference.
Washington was undefeated until losing to the Wolverines with one head coach halfway to the NFL and the other with one foot in Tuscaloosa already, but that’s for another day.
The point is, the Huskies had to be undefeated just to get there, and it made the entire month of November as fun as the championship game itself.
Michael Penix Jr., now the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, had to outduel Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams to start the month in a 52-42 win with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit on the call giving it the feel of a BCS bowl game in November.
That eliminated then-No. 20 USC from the national conversation.
Seven days later, the Huskies had to pitch a second-half shutout to beat No. 13 Utah and end the Utes’ national title hopes.
Fowler and Herbstreit were back in the booth for a chilly night a week later in Corvallis, Ore., when in the freezing rain, UW had to swat down a fourth-down pass to edge the 10th-ranked Beavers 22-20, and end their national title hopes as well.
Three West Region teams in three weeks losing must-win games in November to have a shot at the national championship. That sounds like “playoffs” to me.
Then came the one team that didn’t have national title dreams UW played the entire month — its cross-state rival. The 115th Apple Cup nearly became the most devastating in UW history when former Hawaii receiver Lincoln Victor caught a TD pass for Wazzu with six minutes remaining to tie the game, only to see UW win it on a field goal as time expired.
That ended up being the last end-of-season battle between the two rivals. Thanks to conference realignment, the Apple Cup this year was played in September, which felt as important as Notre Dame’s loss to Northern Illinois a week earlier.
The journey has always been as fun as the destination in college football. It is no longer the case. Under this 12-team format, Washington could have lost twice in its last five games and still made the playoff. Last season, just one loss in ANY of those games would have eliminated the Huskies and put undefeated Florida State into the final four.
Just because ESPN didn’t label them as “playoff” games doesn’t mean UW wasn’t in one for an entire month, and that’s BEFORE the must-win Pac-12 final in Vegas against Oregon in early December.
Every Saturday mattered and that’s what we’ve now lost.
We’ve killed the importance of the regular season. In some cases, conference championship games will become an opportunity for teams to rest players.
All of that to turn the first round of the playoffs into four different versions of the 2008 Sugar Bowl.
Sure, Hawaii fans will never forget that trip to New Orleans, and while Boise, Idaho, and Tempe, Ariz., are undoubtedly excited for their New Year’s holiday, the rest of the country not involved in those games is probably a little less sad when told to turn off the TV for a holiday meal.
Twelve teams was never the answer, but like everything else in college football, we have opened Pandora’s box, and it is too late to turn back now.
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Reach Billy Hull at bhull@staradvertiser.com.
