MIAMI – If the horse isn’t dead yet, he has surely been beaten senseless, but facts are facts: Most people want a college football playoff. Most people have leapt past outrage, past fury, to where they are simply incredulous about all of it. This is how things are. This is how things are supposed to be.
To quote noted philosopher Bill Belichick: It is what it is.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t dream, and it doesn’t mean we can’t speculate, especially in this newest season of football discontent. You really can’t even call the issue of a college football playoff a debate any longer because where, exactly, is the debate? Who, exactly, doesn’t want one?
It’s just that this particular time, in this particular game, as we gather in South Florida to coronate either a gaggle of Gators or a surfeit of Sooners, there is an even more extensive sense of melancholy than usual. Maybe that is because in our heart of hearts, we know this is like getting excited for a really, really good regional championship in an NCAA tournament bracket. And not a final.
It’s hard to feel any other way, isn’t it? If you watched Utah kneecap Alabama and wipe that smug smirk off Nick Saban’s face, how can you feel differently? If you saw Texas simply refuse to lose to Ohio State two nights ago, despite the Buckeyes’ heroic attempt to counteract their own recent history, how can you feel differently? If you saw USC soar against Penn State last week, if you saw how mighty the Trojans looked against the Nittany Lions, how built for a beastly playoff run they seem, how can you feel any differently?
“There’s a lot of good college football teams,” Oklahama’s Bob Stoops said the other day. “And I think we’ve all seen that in the bowl games.”
Added Florida’s Urban Meyer: “I’m glad we’re the ones playing here. I think we’ve earned our place here.”
He’s right. And Stoops is right. They have earned their place. But their place at what? To hold up the fancy glass trophy and declare themselves the best of the one-loss teams? Says who? Texas has one loss. USC has one loss. And Utah, as you may have heard, has one fewer loss than that.
You know what that would be?
That would be one hell of a Final Four, with tonight’s winner.
Look, the fact is we don’t always get a college season like this one, even if we always manage to make the annual clamor for a playoff as much a part of the holiday season as mall traffic and Andy Williams. Last year, we actually had a champion crowned with two losses. Some years, there is one clear-cut beast. The arguing almost seems petty in those years.
Just not this year.
This should be the crowning qualifier, the way Duke-Kentucky was in the ’92 NCAAs, the way George Mason-UConn was a few years ago. This year, we should have gotten more. And so this year, the arguments should rage even longer, and louder. Even if it is what it is.