These four - Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State - got here in a way no others have before: By winning in the round before them, and in the case of these teams, the two previous rounds, as seeds 5-8 in the first iteration of the 12 team playoff.
The season will end in a 12 team playoff at least this year and next, a stop-gap as we run out the clock on the first crack at the playoff era, which began with four teams in the 2014 season and remains contracted through 2025-26. The sport's power brokers are currently figuring out what will come next, with a 14 team playoff being among the options on the table.
The current version of the playoff sought to reward the top four conference champions with a bye into four of the established New Year's Six bowls, where they would meet the winners of the 5-12 games, each hosted on the campus of the higher seed. The semifinals will take place in the remaining two major bowls, with the championship game at a pre-determined site - Atlanta's Mercedes Benz Stadium this year. First, it was considered a likely outcome that the top four conference champions would come from the four power conferences, but a Clemson upset in the ACC championship game left room instead for Mountain West champion Boise State, who also outranked Big 12 champion Arizona State as the 3 seed.
The rewarding bye turned out to be more rust than rest, as each top 4 seed fell on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day after a layoff of nearly four weeks. The resulting final four includes two teams that would not have made last year's playoff by ranking; The Committee's #3 Texas and #4 Penn State would have been in under the old system, but #5 Notre Dame and #6 Ohio State would have found themselves on the outside looking in.
There's something else unique about this year's final four: It doesn't contain and programs from the historic SEC footprint.
"Historic SEC footprint" is a phrase surgically crafted to thread a specific geographic needle, but it's one with which I think many would agree. Consider the SEC from the start of the championship game era - when Arkansas and South Carolina joined the league in 1992 - until expansion stretched its boundaries to East Texas and Missouri in 2012, and again deeper into the heart of Texas and to Oklahoma. Such a footprint would exclude Texas, who joined the conference just last year and is now the sole survivor, but includes past playoff participants Florida State and Clemson. At this point the sample size is but one, but with the dominance that region has enjoyed throughout the BCS and four team eras, their absence is notable.
Also notable is the fact that only Sudler Trophy-winning bands remain, with Sudler-winning programs advancing in each round, save for those against one another. We've also got three programs in spats (with white shoes for Texas) to round out the season.
It will be interesting to see how this season informs the playoff going forth. Who will get byes? Who will host on campus playoff games? How will the bowls be involved? This year may not have given us with the seeds garnered, but in not doing so, it may have given some insight into what will best serve the sport in the future.
Comments