The 2024 college football season has been one of the wildest, most unpredictable, and chaotic in recent memory. In the end, how much will it matter?
Rivalry Week saw No. 6-ranked Miami let a 21-0 lead slip away in a 42-38 loss at Syracuse, while No. 2 Ohio State showed more fight in the postgame brawl with Michigan than its offense could muster in a 13-10 loss.
With the teams involved, Week 14 draws a parallel to the final month of the similarly wild 2017 season. When Ohio State lost a stunning 55-24 November game at Iowa that year and Miami suffered another regular-season finale setback against Pitt, those outcomes helped effectively deny each a spot in the College Football Playoff.
But with the postseason tournament’s expansion to 12 teams this season, the 2024 Buckeyes and Hurricanes could very well still be slotted into bids when the Dec. 3 rankings are revealed. Each might even benefit from losing on Rivalry Saturday, as it puts conference counterparts—SMU in Miami’s case, Penn State for Ohio State—in a position to take detrimental losses in their league championship games.
Miami’s position is more tenuous than Ohio State’s, with the Hurricanes entering Week 14 lacking a consequential win. Ohio State, on the other hand, has victories over likely Playoff participants Penn State and a blowout of Indiana just one week ago.
That Ohio State could be, and likely is, insulated from falling out of the Playoff picture—but so are both Indiana and Penn State—suggests that the new postseason format has lowered the stakes of each college football Saturday compared to years past.
Among the qualities that made college football so unique compared to America’s other high-profile team sports was the specific lack of a postseason tournament. The absence of a Playoff before 2014 made college football’s “tournament” essentially begin on Labor Day weekend and run through Thanksgiving.
Even with the introduction of the Playoff, some of that aura remained—like in 2017, when Ohio State’s loss to Iowa or Miami’s loss to Pitt knocked each out of the national championship hunt.
The four-team Playoff wasn’t without its flaws, and 2017 again offers parallels to today. As contenders fell by the wayside throughout the season—USC to Notre Dame, Notre Dame to Miami, Miami to Pitt—the pathway for an outsider like UCF seemed open.
Instead, the undefeated Knights were passed over in favor of an Alabama team that failed to win its division, let alone its conference. While Alabama winning the national championship provided the selection committee with the confirmation bias necessary to justify the decision, UCF ran into the same glass ceiling that existed during the Bowl Championship Series era.
The 12-team Playoff provides a solution, with Boise State in line to get the title shot it was denied repeatedly throughout the BCS years. In past eras, a Week 2 loss to No. 1-ranked Oregon would have eliminated the Broncos, with the “every week is a playoff” mentality applying more literally to teams from outside the autonomy conferences.
Not even in the most egregious examples of outsiders being snubbed in the BCS or four-team Playoff eras were there 12 teams worthy of vying for the national championship by season’s end. It’s clear from the first regular season of the 12-team Playoff that there are not 12 teams that should be playing for a national championship now, either.
Take Alabama: Fresh off a 24-3 pasting at Oklahoma in Week 13, the Crimson Tide’s Iron Bowl win over a sub-.500 Auburn team, coupled with assorted bedlam around the nation, could position them to sneak into the field.
Does a 9-3 team with two double-digit-point losses and a defeat to Vanderbilt really deserve to play for the national championship? Or does that cheapen sports’ most exciting regular season?
