The second round of playoff games should reset established expectations

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The second round of playoff games should reset established expectations

The second round of playoff games should reset established expectations originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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Nothing about the New Years’ Eve and New Years’ Day games should feel typical or expected by traditional college football fans. The short version is conventional wisdom took loss after loss. Any college football viewer leaning into the traditions and tendencies of years past to predict suggested winners lost and lost big.

The world of college football is changing and established powers might be the last to get that memo. The coaches, players, administrators and staffers all seem to understand the landscape is changing. However, fans, alumni, and even the media seem to be the last to understand.

Tradition is no longer the currency of the realm. Currency is the new currency of the realm. Yet on Friday, fans and media alike are reeling from the fallout out of established powers going home instead of moving on. In four games, only one included the ‘perceived’ power winning (Oregon). In the other three games, the established or perceived power in the matchup lost by a combined -54 points.

The ‘new day’ in college football has been predicted for years. While December 31st – January 1st may not be officially the days everything changed, it should be the two days that informed everyone, the old days might soon be over.

Today is not a good day for Blue Bloods

Based on conventional wisdom and decades of data to support it, the majority of those willing to speak on it picked Ohio State, Alabama, and Georgia to win their respective games. Why wouldn’t they? Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia represent most of the recent National Champions. Including ten of the last 25 national championships.

Through the early days of the NIL and Transfer Portal era, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the national championship will in one way or another will at least in some way, run through Columbus, Tuscaloosa or Athens. However, that advantage established powers had, ended when NIL budgets overtook a winning tradition. A very recent addition to the conversation. 

As teams are beginning to understand, paying players and giving players to option to transfer without penalty didn’t change the equation, it changed EVERY equation. Leaving many fans before the games were played to say things like, “in what world could Indiana ever beat Alabama?” Well, the answer is, “this world”, the one we’re currently living in.

Prior to the No. 2 Ohio State vs No. 10 Miami game being played, the overwhelming sentiment among fans and spectators was that Miami had a nice season, but that season is about to end. With many people believing Ohio State would win by a margin significantly larger than the projected ‘over’. The two teams failed to clear 40 total points and despite what the predictions said, the Buckeyes were never a threat to win that game.

Ole Miss was supposed to be scrappy, but they were not supposed to beat Georgia. Ole Miss was the ‘Little Engine that Could’ that lost its conductor to greed and the greener pastures of Baton Rouge. Ole Miss was not supposed to win just like many people said Ole Miss wouldn’t be able to compete with the likes of LSU when it came to the Lane Kiffin decision. Again, based on the perception of something that remains that perhaps won't remain much longer. 

The only game that did not completely conform to this new reality was No. 5 Oregon vs No. 4 Texas Tech. Both are relative newcomers to this concept. Both can generate blue blood level revenue and neither has the ‘tradition’ to lean on that Ohio State, Alabama, and Georgia do. Oregon has been a top 10 contender and has been high powered for quite a while now but have not capitalized on the hardware yet.

Texas Tech is and will be one of those programs that won’t make sense to fans of blue bloods. They have history but not SEC and top end of the Big Ten history. What they can produce though is revenue and an NIL budget that will level the playing field of this new world.

The old guard needs to prepare for new expectations

The days of believing that programs like Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State are going to be football factories with wave after wave of five-star talent and leaving everyone else to scrounge for table scraps is fading. College football is no longer going to be the same 5-8 teams that have a legitimate shot and everyone else on the outside looking in with their faces pressed against the glass.

Arguably the largest proponent of the blue bloods vs the world concept is ESPN’s Paul Finebaum. The same ESPN analyst who did not shy away from the notion that he would rather the 2025 college football playoff (and probably every other playoff moving forward) being the SEC invitational plus Ohio State and Indiana. On the Friday edition of ESPN’s First Take, Finebaum claimed the Alabama program is currently “in shambles” while also acknowledging that Indiana played more like Alabama than Alabama did.

In a post-game video provided by ESPN and the Pat McAfee Show from their “Field Pass” broadcast, the narrative shifted rather quickly to credit for Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers. Cignetti might just be as ‘different’ as he wants viewers to believe he is. Despite the position he and his program are in, Cignetti was at the top of each coaching search this cycle. Until Indiana extended him. Then Pat McAfee said something that doesn’t seemed far-fetched today but would’ve seemed categorically crazy even three years ago. “Maybe the Big Ten runs through Bloomington.”

The 2025 college football playoff began with Ohio State, Texas A&M, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma in the field. All teams with a winning tradition and a belief that they would be favored in matchups against teams with less tradition and winning history. Each and every one of those teams has been eliminated. Leaving only Oregon, Indiana, Ole Miss and Miami left standing. The team that will be the last team standing is wide open at this point. However, one thing is certain, the team that is eventually crowned the National Champion, will be a name we haven’t seen in that spot since at least 2001.

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