The excitement of college football’s regular season proves itself to be inelastic yet again. Vanderbilt’s triumph over Alabama stands as the crowning example of just how exhilarating all the volatility can still be. Mix in Arkansas over Tennessee and Minnesota over USC, and you have yourself a proper upset Saturday (Texas A&M was favored over Missouri).
But let’s focus on Alabama. Yes, the stakes around the Crimson Tide’s loss are different than before — they will almost certainly still make the College Football Playoff — but The Monday Read’s confusion lies in why that matters.
Beating Alabama was a program-defining triumph for Vanderbilt regardless of what it means for the Crimson Tide. Similarly, the Tide’s win over Georgia last week was enthralling despite the fact that those teams may play three times before all is said and done.
College football’s regular season has been propped up forever by the varying stupidity in the ways it has crowned a champion over the years, but the 12-team system is at least something approaching the sanity experienced in basically every major team sport on Earth. It was neither quirky nor endearing for allowing people and computers to just vote on a champion for the better part of a century.
More than any other sport, college football is shackled to the idea that undefeated automatically means best, largely because going undefeated is actually attainable in a sport where the best teams spend around 75% of their seasons playing teams that don’t belong on the same fields as them. Part of the fun of the sport remains in the moments when one of those teams that don’t belong pulls off a stunner. Part of the intrigue of the 12-team CFP is that people will have to acknowledge that a two-loss, or even…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/the-monday-read-dont-let-college-football-playoff-discourse-dilute-vanderbilts-historic-upset-of-alabama/
Author : Richard Johnson
Publish date : 2024-10-07 17:27:05
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