Who Will Take the College Football Title? Who Knows? And That's Great.

The expanded college football playoff is upon us! If you’re like me, you sat there watching the selection show with bated, wondering how the Playoff Committee would seed each team, who would host a first-round playoff game and who might have an open path to a national championship.

Not surprisingly, as I wrote in July, it’s a field littered with programs of championship pedigree: Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame and even Penn State have multiple titles to their names. But one thing I found most intriguing about the expanded playoffs was the opportunity for a newcomer to force their way to the champions’ table — a rarity in the world of college football. The last time we saw a school win its first consensus national title was 1966, when Florida won.

Among the 12 teams in the college football playoff this year, many are in search of their first national title, or at least their first title in the lifetime of many of us, or their first title that wasn’t simply awarded by some random, now defunct, poll —like when Arizona State was awarded a title in 1970 by something called “The Polling System.”

If we go by the idea of the consensus national champion, we have Oregon, Boise State, Arizona State, SMU and Indiana, who have never truly won a national title. That’s nearly half the field in search of their first undisputed consensus national title.

The new playoff format has done exactly what it was designed to do. It gave opportunity to more schools and created more games late in the season that carried weight either for seeding purposes or, in some cases, to help eliminate teams, as it did when Alabama lost at Oklahoma on Nov. 23.

We also saw conference title games that served as elimination games, as Arizona State banished Iowa State, and Clemson, which would not have made it otherwise, surprised everyone with a stunning 56-yard field goal as time expired in the ACC Championship Game to clinch a spot in the playoff as the last seed.

Now, there are flaws in the new system. The seeding seems a bit ridiculous with the No. 9 team in the country, Boise State, landing the No. 3 seed, and the No. 12 team in the country, Arizona State, catching the No. 4 seed. The Longhorns, ranked No. 3 but the 5 seed in the playoffs, have an easier path to the title game than even the No. 1-ranked team, Oregon.

Everyone loves a comeback. Time to hit the road and get after it—because we're going all the way. #PonyUpDallas pic.twitter.com/9p8FdkwbyU

— SMU (@SMU) December 8, 2024

So, yes, there are some things that could use fixing moving forward. It makes more sense to reward conference champs with a home game and fill the seeds in order of the rankings so that Oregon would host the lowest seed instead of waiting for a brutal matchup on a neutral field. But, this is what we wanted. We will get an opportunity to see a team like Oregon potentially have to beat Ohio State, Texas and Georgia in three consecutive games to win a national title.

SMU, assuming higher seeds win, would have to win on the road at Penn State, then beat Boise State, knock out Georgia and take down Oregon in a title game to claim the trophy. Now, that would be a hard-earned championship.

There are those who believe SMU should not have gotten into the playoff because of the relatively weaker strength of their schedule. It’s an argument that I find fair but flawed. Is it more impressive to go 11-2 against the 75th-ranked schedule or 9-3 against the 5th-ranked schedule? Typically, I would argue the latter, but 9-3 Alabama got blown out by an Oklahoma team it should not have lost to.

If you want to make the playoffs, maybe don’t lose by three touchdowns to a team that was 5-5 at the time.

I believe that if you play in your conference title game, you should be in the playoff, with the winner securing a home game. What?! Iowa State too?! Well, if they don’t deserve to be in it, they’ll get annihilated fairly quickly.

I hate to tell you, but there will be another playoff expansion to add more teams. I disagree that 'Bama didn’t get in because of SMU’s inclusion. They didn’t get in because Clemson won and secured an automatic bid despite finishing the season ranked five spots lower than the Crimson Tide. It wasn’t SMU that bumped them, it was Clemson. SMU is ranked ahead of Alabama in the final rankings; both teams should be in the playoff, but in the current structure that doesn’t happen. Which is why I anticipate an expansion of the playoffs and re-adjustment of the seeding.

Let’s keep in mind that the Football Championship Subdivision level of football has a 24-team playoff that seems to work just fine. Division II has 28 teams. And, if you want to get really crazy, Division III football has a 40-team playoff. Point being, when you look at all of college football and how the postseason is run, it turns out it’s the big-time Football Bowl Subdivision that is the outlier in determining a champion.

The 2024 playoff will give us our first game on Friday, Dec. 20, in South Bend, Indiana, under the watchful eyes of Touchdown Jesus. Two schools separated by less than 200 miles will kick off the first 12-team playoff when Indiana takes on Notre Dame. Two schools, in the same state, that somehow haven’t played each other since 1991.

We also get a wild battle of different shades of orange when the Burnt version hosts the Bright version in Austin. Clemson and Texas have never played one another in football, and now it’s a playoff game. SMU and Penn State have not played in my lifetime. Ohio State and Tennessee, two schools with a combined 14 national titles, have met only once, in 1996 in the Citrus Bowl. This is what the playoff should be: big-time programs and those having generational seasons in matchups we rarely, if ever, get to see that carry a weight that the Citrus Bowl simply doesn’t, with apologies to its host city of Orlando.

The national title is at stake. If Texas wins, the Longhorns will finish the season 15–2. If Oregon wins, the Ducks will finish the season 16–0. Incredible.

Whichever teams comes out on top, it’ll be the toughest path we’ve ever seen any school go through to hoist the trophy. So, no, the college football playoff expansion didn’t hurt college football. It helped it. And it’s made the path to a national championship more difficult than ever. Whether it’s SMU or Boise State or Texas or Georgia at the end, the champion will truly be the deserving holder of an undisputed consensus national title.