A scroll through ESPN.com last Saturday afternoon revealed a bit of a shocker. #6 Ole Miss had lost to unranked Kentucky, 20-17.
Trite as it sounds, muscle memory of sorts brought on the scroll of the scores in the first place. They’re not as meaningful as they used to be. Shock is the stuff of the old days when perfection or near-perfection was required for a team to be in the running for a national championship.
This meant two things: first off, teams were expected to be flawless within their conference in order to get the nod for the New Year’s Day bowl associated with their conference. Second, teams vying for championships needed to schedule high quality, out-of-conference opponents each year and beat them in order to earn the votes necessary to stake a claim to #1.
Nowadays, what’s the point? They don’t make losses like they used to. It’s that simple.
The shock over Misssippi’s loss was muscle memory. Nothing more. Mississippi is still in the running for the national title with one loss, that’s similarly true with two, and it’s not impossible that it could slip in to a 12-team playoff with three losses.
The playoff system that trampled on conferences, bowls, and the tradition that gave college football life is revealing its deadening self. No doubt Mississippi fans were shocked, no doubt other traditional college football watchers were, but the surprise is surely fleeting for the fans.
Which is no insight. Just consider the NFL. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl last year. More important, the 11-6 Chiefs (regular season) beat the 12-5 49ers (regular season) in Super Bowl LVIII.
Notable is that some of the 49ers losses last year included teams like the downtrodden Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos. The Chiefs similarly lost to the Broncos, and the Raiders too. Shockers? No. Surprising yes, but not shockers. In leagues with 14-team playoffs, a few losses are the norm.
So will they be in the college football of the future. Losses like Mississippi’s wont matter much simply because the SEC and Big 10 will soon enough be the NFC and AFC of college football. Both conferences will have 4-team playoff guarantees. See where this is going? It’s about tradeoffs that define all aspects of life. A shrinking of the week-to-week excitement of the regular season so that there can be a playoff that will “decide the champion on the field.” See the New York Giants’ last two Super Bowl wins to understand the absurdity of the “on-the-field” drooling, at which point the tradition-minded can lament what the game is losing.
No doubt the optimists will point to Alabama’s riveting victory over Georgia to counter this pessimism. And while it was a great game, it’s no reach to observe that Alabama and Georgia fans will soon come back to reality in the way that Mississippi fans will. The meaning of Alabama’s is blunted (even for Alabama fans) in a season defined by a 12-team playoff (soon to be 14), and Georgia’s loss similarly doesn’t mean that much. See last year’s Super Bowl yet again.
Those eager to explain the evolution of college football will yet again say it was a “business decision.” Sorry, but all decisions are “business decisions.” This was a bad one. For college football. In truth, let’s not even call what’s not college football college football anymore. Let’s call it university-sponsored professional football. That’s what it is, and it’s lame.