Playoff expansion great for college football, huge pressure on Cristobal, Miami Hurricanes | Opinion
You know what they say about idle hands, so everybody needs to find a way to stay busy. Even living legends.
Eight-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick, unemployed and out of the NFL since the Patriots “parted ways” with him, will be guest speaker at the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ coaches clinic in April.
And seven-time champion Nick Saban, newly retired from Alabama, has volunteered himself to save college football. (Am picturing him galloping in heroically on a white steed, although a 72-year-old man on a fast horse seems a tad dangerous.)
What troubles Saban about his sport is rooted in Name, Image & Likeness payouts and the transfer portal further turning “student-athlete” into an anachronism. What he mastered while at Alabama he now bemoans: The lack of rules on agents shopping players in the portal and university programs in bidding wars on high-school players via donor-funded “collectives.”
The feeling of lawlessness in college football extends to conference-hopping that has left the superpower Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences grown to 34 combined teams while the poor Pac-12 is now the Pac-2.
“If my voice can bring about some meaningful change I want to help, because I love the players, and I love college football -- and what we have now is not college football,” Saban told ESPN. “You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist. We’ve gone to nobody talking about education [or] creating value for their future. [Now players are] talking only about how much money can I make while I’m in college.”
Two problems with the ironic crusade of a man who once played those loose rules like a Stradivarius sudden crying out for change:
1) It’s probably too late. As Gramps used to say, “You can’t put the smoke back in the cigar.”
2) Nobody cares. At least fans don’t. They care only about their teams. Anticipation for the coming season and TV ratings won’t dip an iota over consternation about NIL and the portal enabling the rich to get richer and assuring the haves have even more.
In fact, as Saban rails, the sport has had a celebratory week as the College Football Playoff finally expanded from a too-few four teams to a bigger, better 12 beginning this coming season -- the five highest-ranked conference champions and seven highest-ranked other teams.
The CFP in its 10-year history has been a cabal, a closed society led by Alabama, Georgia and Michigan, with those among six schools accounting for 29 of the 40 playoff appearances.
Now the windows of the sport bang open and fresh airs gusts in.
Suddenly the have-nots and have-too-littles have a fighting chance because the margin of error is greater when being No. 12 now gets you through the magic door.
Last season the team that ended ranked 12th (LSU) had a 10-3 record. You no longer need to roll a perfect season or have one loss max to be a championship contender.
This is great for the sport.
It also torques up the pressure on programs like the Miami Hurricanes.
As Mario Cristobal prepares for his Year 3 as head coach, he has been a disappointment, starting 5-7 then going 7-6 last year with a bowl loss to (!) Rutgers. With UM a five-time national champion and with an entitled fan base demanding a sixth..
Cristobal, with two straight top-10 recruiting classes and having scored coveted quarterback Cam Ward in the portal, is poised now to for a big leap from 7-6 to the 10-3 target if not 11-2. And better make that leap.
Because now, with playoff chances tripled from four to 12, his and any coach’s excuses to fall short are commensurately fewer.
This is great for the sport, overriding all of Nick Saban’s concerns about the machinations in the underbelly that don’t interest fans.
Playoff expansion might not be great for Mario Cristobal’s stress level, but it is terrific for college football, and about time.
