COLUMBUS, Ohio — Chaos, angst, horror and resentment, entities so cherished in college football, seem bound for a fresh heyday up ahead as the country’s most wonderfully ludicrous sport heads for its regular-season curtain.

The entities have been hushed lately. The 13-member College Football Playoff selection committee has gone to Dallas-Fort Worth the past two weeks with only placid work to perform, making one hope somebody brought along a corkscrew. The top 10 remained identical from Nov. 6 to Nov. 13, and the top seven remained identical from Nov. 13 to Nov. 20. The committee inched Central Florida to No. 9 ahead of Ohio State on Nov. 20 out of merit unless it was to amuse itself understandably.

Yet No. 10 Ohio State just went and renovated its entire decor from wobbly to towering with its 62-39 pillaging of No. 4 Michigan, and arranged delicious speculation about a wondrous mess for the fourth spot, possibly involving the Buckeyes, Oklahoma and maybe even Georgia or Alabama. Especially plausible would be an Ohio State-Oklahoma discussion, involving two of the castles of the game, and promising the kind of bad vibes and wretched suspense college football fans so adore.

One of the four playoff spots looks clinched. That clincher would be Notre Dame, which writhed through Southern California with a 24-17 win Saturday night in Los Angeles to conclude a 12-0 regular season only two autumns after careening to 4-8. “Today it was gritty. It wasn’t perfect,” Coach Brian Kelly told ESPN of his team. To recap, the Irish have beaten four teams that are currently ranked, five teams with winning records and eight teams at .500 or better. Their opponents stand 76-67 with a few tweaks to that up ahead.

Only nine programs bothered to claim playoff spots in the first four seasons of the concept; Notre Dame will become a 10th in the fifth.

From there we go to the conference championship games. Operating by current rankings that figure to jumble some, there’s No. 1 Alabama (12-0) versus No. 5 Georgia (11-1) in the Southeastern Conference in a building they’ve visited together before; No. 6 Oklahoma (11-1) versus No. 14 Texas (9-3) in a delectable rematch in the Big 12; No. 2 Clemson (12-0) versus No. 24 Pitt (7-5) in the ACC; and No. 10 Ohio State (11-1) versus No. 19 Northwestern (8-4) in the Big Ten.

College football, an eternal study in snobbery and class warfare, has managed to evolve to an era with four playoff spots and five major conferences, so for the third time in the first five seasons, the Pacific-12 has been ushered out of the party setup. Banishment came with No. 8 Washington State’s 28-15 loss Friday to No. 16 Washington, which meant that for the last six years, Washington not only has beaten Washington State but has deprogrammed it, holding it to 17, 13, 10, 17, 14 and 15 points when it averaged 31, 31, 31, 38, 30 and 40 otherwise.

They will hold a Pacific-12 championship game anyway, and Washington (9-3) will play No. 17 Utah.

No. 9 Central Florida (11-0) will play in the American Athletic Conference championship game against Memphis (8-4), and here’s the moment to bow to McKenzie Milton, the UCF quarterback from Hawaii who suffered a gruesome injury Friday and has had knee surgery already. A junior, he takes his 8,683 college passing yards into recovery, his stunning college career sidelined for now. The effect of that on the playoff rankings seems trivial next to the reactions of his coach and teammates, none of which concerned themselves with the playoff rankings.

Coach Josh Heupel said, “Obviously it was traumatic out on the field.” Running back Greg McCrae called it “heartbreaking,” linebacker Nate Evans said it “really hurts,” and offensive lineman Jordan Johnson said, “I was heartbroken, definitely. I dropped down to my knees.”

In the cold world we inhabit, it would seem to affect the rankings.

More affecting would be this question suddenly overarching: How much will No. 10 Ohio State rise after it decimated Michigan’s No. 1-ranked defense? With No. 9 Central Florida in an agony born of love, and No. 8 Washington State removed, and No. 7 LSU cleared after the game of some century, its seven-overtime, 74-72 loss at Texas A&M, and Michigan ousted from No. 4, might Ohio State turn up just behind Oklahoma, or even just ahead?

The first answers and next rankings come Tuesday.

Won’t Georgia (11-1) hold down No. 4? It just restated its newfound deep seriousness about football when it ransacked Georgia Tech for the second straight year and third-year coach Kirby Smart said of the SEC title game, “It feels like a game we should be going to every year.” Various Bulldogs said their scout team simulating Georgia Tech’s rare offense had been hardier than Georgia Tech’s rare offense, and you must love those who bother to credit the scout team. Senior linebacker D’Andre Walker said, “I feel like after this year, there will be no more years where Georgia Tech will come into the University of Georgia and beat us in our own stadium.”

Man, that’s cold: Never again.

We are talking centuries of woe here.

They and their beloved mascot bulldog will go to Atlanta as they did last January, opposite Alabama as it happened last January. All manner of permutations could spawn from either side winning or the whole thing being as close as the 26-23 Alabama overtime win in the most recent national championship game.

Over in Texas, Oklahoma (11-1) will get another shot at the only team that beat it, which Texas (9-3) did by 48-45 on Oct. 6 even after it led 45-24, and the Sooners’ staggering offense managed touchdowns with 8:28 left, 5:11 left and 2:38 left to tie the game. Watching quarterback Kyler Murray fly down the sideline on his 67-yard run, the middle of those touchdowns, felt like some sort of further upgrade in human capability.

“Aw man, just to have the opportunity again is amazing,” Oklahoma running back Kennedy Brooks said Friday night in Morgantown, West Virginia, after the Sooners beat West Virginia 59-56 in something resembling football only less uptight. If Oklahoma can run past Texas this time, Ohio State can thwart Northwestern and Alabama can handle Georgia, it could come down to that Ohio State-Oklahoma chatter.

Then we’d all have to weigh Ohio State’s opponents (currently 67-77) against Oklahoma’s (72-69). We’d have to say Ohio State has the best win (over Michigan). We’d have to say at least Oklahoma never got mauled (as Ohio State did at Purdue). Each beat two ranked teams (at the moment). That Oklahoma escape of Army (9-2) way back when looks stouter all the time. That Oklahoma defense, yielding 189 points the last four games, does not look stouter all the time and may offend some of the retired coaches on the committee right down to their core.

It would come down to parsing between two places that win all the time, a miserable reality epitomized Saturday when the first question to Ohio State Coach Urban Meyer went, “With all due respect, where has this team been the last two months?”

A mirthless sport has a golden chance to get more mirthless soon. Maybe some fan base will get the chance at the privilege of holding a lifelong grudge.

« Previous

Next »

Related Stories