A four-team College Football Playoff would have omitted the nation’s best team from the bracket. The bigger playoff saved this Ohio State vs. Notre Dame matchup.
Try now, after what we’ve seen, to imagine a playoff without Ohio State or Notre Dame in the field. Sounds pretty bland.
No matter which team wins national championship game, it will have earned the glory with four consecutive victories.
The 12-team College Football Playoff format saved Ohio State and Notre Dame. Good for them. Good for us, too, that the boredom of the four-team playoff became relegated to the past, and the expanded playoff afforded these teams a path to the grand stage.
This four-round bonanza instituted this year supplied a national championship matchup worthy of this most dramatic season, and, after four consecutive playoff victories, no one should debate whether the victor earned the crown.
Neither Ohio State nor Notre Dame would have made a four-team playoff based on the final College Football Playoff committee rankings. The Irish ranked No. 5, and the Buckeyes were No. 6, but try now, after what we’ve seen, to imagine a playoff without Ohio State or Notre Dame. Sounds pretty unfulfilling after how these teams have performed in the postseason.
NIL era calls for College Football Playoff of more than four teams
College football didn’t really require a playoff of this size when super squads like 2019 LSU or 2020 Alabama ran roughshod over opponents from September through January. That landscape of college football evolved, though, after the introduction of NIL and transfer freedom. We’re left with fewer juggernauts and more championship contenders.
Consider what the pairings would have been in a four-team playoff. Based on the final playoff rankings, the semifinals would have featured Oregon against Penn State and Georgia against Texas.
In other words, rematches of conference championship games. Pretty lame, right?
In reality, I suspect the playoff committee would have sprinkled in a dose of hocus-pocus to avoid those rematches. Maybe, Texas and Penn State would have flipped in the rankings to create a pair of Big Ten vs. SEC semifinals, or, perhaps, Notre Dame would have wedged its way into a four-team field.
Any way you slice it, though, a four-team playoff would not have included two-loss Ohio State.
And, as the Buckeyes proved these past few weeks, any playoff that didn’t include Ohio State would not be a showcasing of the nation’s elite.
The playoff tripling in size from four to 12 teams sparked some concern among fans and media types that this broader bracket would increase the chance of an undeserving national champion emerging.
Multiply the playoff from two rounds to four rounds, and you up the opportunity for fluky results, shenanigans or injuries that could bounce a deserving front-runner while an underdog finds a glass slipper.
That’s not what happened in this playoff, though. Ohio State and Notre Dame are no Cinderella. They’re well-resourced blue bloods steeped in talent, playing their best ball at the season’s close.
The committee underseeded Ohio State at No. 8, when it had built the résumé for a No. 5 seed, awarded to the playoff’s top at-large team. They Buckeyes didn’t reach this stage through shocking upsets or repeated hijinks. They flat whipped their first two opponents, Tennessee and Oregon, before showing more fourth-quarter mettle than Texas in the semifinals.
They’re here because they’re really stinkin’ good, and because a late-November loss in a rivalry game no longer dooms a really stinkin’ good team.
The Buckeyes, throughout three playoff games, demonstrated they’re the nation’s most talented team, playing to form after a couple of regular-season hiccups.
“Very, very grateful” for this playoff format, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said. “I do think the new format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season, and as much as losses hurt, they really allow us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and get them addressed.”
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman should feel gratitude, too.
The Fighting Irish improved throughout the season. They recovered from an inexplicable Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois. That stunning result might have eliminated the Irish from a four-team playoff. It certainly would have restricted the Irish from national championship contention in the Bowl Championship Series era.
Ohio State or Notre Dame would be deserving national champion
The committee, in the four-team playoff era, used to say it aimed to select the four best teams, but you could spot that hogwash from a country mile away last season, when the committee omitted Georgia after the uber-talented Bulldogs lost one time, to Alabama, in the SEC championship game.
Would Georgia’s playoff inclusion have altered the outcome of Michigan winning the national championship? Not sure about that, but after watching Michigan pick clean Washington and leave the Huskies for bones in the title game, I came away thinking we got robbed of the playoff matchup we deserved, Michigan vs. Georgia.
If the four-team playoff persisted into this season, the national championship could have pitted Oregon against Georgia. Might have been a decent game, too, but that game wouldn’t have included the nation’s best team.
So, yeah, increasing the playoff field from four to 12 meant squabbling over whether SMU or a three-loss SEC team “deserved” the final bid, and when the Mustangs got smacked in a first-round CFP loss, the bellyaching reached a fever pitch.
The downside of a 12-team playoff showed its face: The résumé of those final at-large teams can be a bit squishy. The upside, though, is that a top team that suffers a puzzling loss (see Ohio State’s loss to Michigan or Notre Dame’s loss to Northern Illinois) doesn’t become persona non grata from the playoff.
Now, we’re left with two teams that proved their qualifications for this national championship game. A worthy champion will emerge Monday in Atlanta, and we won’t be left to wonder whether the committee omitted the nation’s best team from the bracket.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.