In a couple weeks, barring another Michigan shocker over Ohio State, we're likely to see a showdown of No. 1 vs. No. 2 and undefeated teams in the Big Ten Championship Game on December 6 between Ohio State and Indiana.
But I don't think the game will actually matter much. Of course, each team will talk about how important a conference championship and a No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff is, but the national championship tournament is far more important. If the game is 12-0 vs. 12-0, each team will probably have locked up a bye in the playoff.
Given the supernova run the Buckeyes went on after missing the Big Ten title game last year, you could make a strong argument that this game is actually a disadvantage to their repeat dream. I could also be sold on each coaching staff approaching the game in Indianapolis more conservatively, with the biggest risks to be made in a CFP rematch.
Before 2014 (and possibly during the four-team CFP era, too), this game would have defined a season. Now, it could be seen as an inconvenience.
I'm certainly not advocating going back to the BCS era. But it's now unassailable that with a larger CFP, the conference championship games at the top of the sport in the Big Ten and SEC aren't as important.
Conversely, in the ACC, Big 12, and Group of 5 leagues that have teams with playoff chances, conference championships have never been more important. At first glance, that sounds great, with regular season accomplishments meeting a college basketball-esque "play your way in" moment.
And I'm not sure that this is a net positive for college football, either. Let me explain.
In the ACC, with 17 football members, eight conference games, and scheduling arrangements with Notre Dame in the non-conference, schedules vary wildly. Accordingly, there are five teams with decent-to-likely chances of playing for a conference title and playoff spot. Only one team, Georgia Tech, unambiguously controls its own destiny, but still has a brutal rivalry game with Georgia on deck.
Another of those five teams is Virginia, who is the next-closest team to being win-and-in for Charlotte. The Cavaliers somehow have two losses to ACC teams, but one conference loss.
Pitt is another member of the quintet, and its head coach, Pat Narduzzi, said that a November home game against Notre Dame that hosted College Gameday was "absolutely not" a must-win and that the Panthers could give up 100 points and still make the playoff since the Notre Dame games don't count for ACC play. It was somehow both tone-deaf and 100% accurate.
Meanwhile, Miami is the conference's best chance at an at-large bid after eating two conference losses, but possessing non-conference wins against Notre Dame and South Florida. It's probably better for their playoff chances to miss out on Charlotte at 10-2 and finish in third in the conference than risk a third loss.
With all due respect to James Madison, it looks like the G5 playoff spot will go to whichever of Tulane, Navy, or North Texas runs the table (including the conference championship game) in the American.
As I mentioned in my most recent SC article, North Texas is my alma mater and I've been following the conference closely all season. Three-loss East Carolina, who almost certainly can't make the playoff, somehow snuck up on me with a favorable conference schedule and is now tied for the conference lead. I don't know much about their team because the Pirates aren't on UNT's schedule this year.
Schedule luck in the supersized conference era feels like it has such an outsized impact on the sport across the country, but especially outside of the SEC and Big Ten. In the other seven conferences, it's likely that an upper echelon of a handful of teams forms, and one or two teams can feast on the bottom half of the league and get in contention for the conference championship games.
It sounds insane to put in words, but I'm not sure proclaiming a conference champion like this actually determines the best team to compete in the playoff.
Knowing that we can't go back to the way conferences were set up in 2012 or before, I'm also not sure there's a good fix.
Committees to pick the best team in each league? Wholly unsatisfying and very corruptible.
Round-robins are impossible without a promotion/relegation setup, and it doesn't make sense for half of teams to not have a playoff chance at the start of the season.
Flexible scheduling for a mini-conference tournament at the end of the season outside of the SEC and Big Ten? It probably can't work with traditional end-of-season rivalries, and would unfairly punish a dominant team like Texas Tech in the Big 12 or JMU in the Sun Belt this year.
A format using auto bids with "play-in games" at the end of the season has always struck me as silly, but maybe it's a better way and doesn't leave out the most deserving teams.
Let's say a 14-team format looked like this:
4 SEC
4 Big Ten
2 ACC
2 Big 12
1 At-large/Notre Dame
1 Best Group of 5 team
Then, each conference could decide how they want to decide their spots, with the committee rankings only mattering for the at-large and G5 spot.
No format will be perfect, and college football may have made its collective bed in the last realignment round and TV negotiations. But one that prioritizes getting deserving teams in the field should be the least-worst and least convoluted option.
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