Back in the day, kids, the way college football worked was that once your favorite team lost, the season was lost, too. If you wanted to win a national title, that is. An undefeated season was the Holy Grail, the only valid indicator of true greatness. Nothing cheap about those champs. And the sanctity of the regular season was as inviolate as the Virgin Queen.
Or at least that’s the revisionist history sold to us by critics of the expanded playoffs.
Turns out the numbers really don’t support the argument. Not only that, here we are halfway through the first season of the new format, and the product on the field has never been more fun.
Count Mike Elko a fan, anyway.
“When it was a four-team playoff,” the Texas A&M coach said this week, “you basically went into the season kind of prepared on how you were going to get knocked out of the playoff race early, and you had to keep going, right? And so you kind of never talked about it because you were so far removed from being in a four-team playoff race.
“Now that you’re 12, I mean, you’re talking about 24, 26, 28 teams still viably alive to find a way into the 12.”
Like, say, the Aggies.
This season has produced many surprises, none more shocking than the fact that when eighth-ranked LSU visits 14th-ranked A&M on Saturday, the 6:30 p.m. game will pit the only undefeated teams still standing in SEC play. Who could have predicted such a thing? Not if you watched the Aggies the first time they played a Top 10 team at Kyle Field this season.
After that 23-13 opening loss to Notre Dame in his debut, Elko felt it necessary to apologize to the faithful, telling them, “You deserved better. We didn’t give it to you.”
Conner Weigman, in particular, gave them just 100 yards passing, which is what happens when you throw two interceptions and nearly three. But what really bothered Elko, a defensive coordinator at heart, was that the Aggies gave up 198 yards rushing.
Since then, the Aggies have tightened things up a little. The run defense is allowing 116 yards a game, 36th in the nation. Weigman, on the other hand, remains a work in progress. He returned from injury to lead an upset of ninth-ranked Missouri, completing 18 of 22 passes for 276 yards. But, last week, in a 34-24 win over Mississippi State, he threw two more picks. Elko noted it was a testament to the Aggies’ pluck that they won ugly against the Bulldogs, but they’ll have to play pretty if they want to beat another Top 10 team.
LSU has also come a long way since its opening loss to USC. The Tigers’ defense held Arkansas, which had averaged 199 yards rushing, to just 38 last week. For the second week in a row, they didn’t give up a touchdown in the second half.
Brian Kelly was looking for more defense after finishing 105th in the nation last year, and Blake Baker, his defensive coordinator, has given it to him. He’s got plenty of offense, as usual. Garrett Nussmeier, a borderline first-rounder, is working his way up draft boards even as you’re reading this.
Kelly called A&M “the best team in the SEC right now,” and while it might sound like he’s playing to the home crowd, the title will apply to one of the teams at Kyle Field. At least on paper.
Of course, the reality is that the game is still afoot, not only in the SEC but around the nation. Oregon looks like the real deal. And if Georgia keeps playing like it did in Austin, maybe we can begin the process of winnowing out pretenders fairly soon.
But, for now, anyway, the field is wide open.
Which is good, no?
“There’s more teams that are still alive,” Elko said. “I think there’s probably, what, eight teams in the SEC, maybe more, that are still alive to be in the playoff.
“That’s never really been the case in previous years.”
Bob Bowlsby, the former Big 12 commissioner, back when we could actually name all the teams in the Big 12, tried to tell us this would be the case with an expanded playoff format. November would be more fun because more teams would still have a shot. One loss doesn’t mean your season’s over after all.
One-loss teams certainly aren’t any less deserving. Realignment ratcheted up the level of conference play. Before this season, Ohio State wouldn’t have had to travel to Oregon in October. All the Buckeyes had to worry about was Michigan and maybe Penn State. Occasionally Michigan State or Wisconsin. This year, they’ve got to worry about Indiana, for crying out loud.
For that matter, before this year, Texas wouldn’t have played Georgia in October. The Longhorns’ schedule is scarier than it was in their heyday. Either Texas or Arkansas won every SWC title in the ‘60s but two, when SMU and A&M served as exceptions.
College football may be a mess off the field, but, between the sidelines, it’s never been more exciting. Don’t let anyone sell you the nonsense that the playoffs have watered down anything, either. Of the national champs crowned by the Associated Press since the organization took the notion upon itself in 1936, 35, nearly half, had a loss or a tie on their records. A couple had two losses. Oh, and that Virgin Queen thing? Also a myth. At least that’s what I hear.
Twitter/X: @KSherringtonDMN
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