Football Isn’t Life or Death

From late Saturday afternoon (or early Saturday evening, depending on your time zone) until noon or so Sunday, the universe of college football held its breath. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee (try saying that fast) would be meeting in the morning to deliberate something of such importance that its members could not have been anything but daunted. The suspense, in some quarters, was almost unendurable. However the committee decided, millions would be beyond disappointed. One wondered if the members had not hired bodyguards. Would there be a puff of smoke over the building where they held their deliberations to indicate they had come to a decision? That’s the way on who will be the next pope.

In previous years, it would have been a slam dunk. Four teams would be designated as finalists in the chase for the national championship of college football. That team’s fans would be entitled to chant, repeatedly and insufferably, “We’re number one.”

The problem for the committee was sort of Euclidian in nature. How do you fit five (or six) football teams inside a circle the area of which will accommodate only four?

It would have been so easy if the University of Georgia had only done its part on Saturday. The Bulldogs (the Georgia mascot, don’t you know?) simply had to defeat the Tide (who knows?) of Alabama. Then, there would have been four undefeated, and therefore undeniable, contenders. The University of Michigan. The University of Georgia. The University of Washington. And Florida State University. Two semi-final games would have produced the opponents for the final. Simple, no?

But Alabama beat Georgia in a game that was like most that those two have played against each other. That is to say, tough. The kind of game that legendary Texas coach Darrell Royal once described as “some snot-knocking the okra patch.” (You figure it out.)

The game was tough and close, and had it not been for one lost fumble and one missed field goal, Georgia might have won. “Might have,” however, doesn’t get you any points. So when the dust had settled, the college football landscape looked as though there were four undefeated teams. And in a Euclidian universe, that would have been the end of it. Two games between some sort of arrangement of Michigan, Washington, Florida State, and Georgia. All undefeated. Then a final to determine the number one team in all of college football.

But the committee had to bless the arrangement, and, well, how could Alabama be left out? The Tide had ended Georgia’s winning streak of 29 games and made itself champion of the Southeastern Conference, arguably the best in college football. Inconceivable that Alabama should be left out of the playoff. (READ MORE: Anti-Woke Texas Rangers Win the World Series)

But … what about Texas, which had beaten Alabama in Tuscaloosa back in September? If the Tide would be going to the dance, shouldn’t the Longhorns be included?

And then, Georgia’s coach was arguing that the Bulldogs deserved consideration in recognition of that winning streak and … well, because everyone with eyes could see they were among the best four in college football.

And then, there was Florida State. Undefeated but in a sort of so-so fashion following a season-ending injury to its star quarterback near the end of the season. The Seminoles won out in spite of losing him. But in an uninspired fashion.

So Florida State got the chop. (Its fans will understand the metaphor.)

And the cries of “unjust” and “unfair” — not to say “corrupt” — went up across the land. The Wall Street Journal featured two — count ’em — columns on the controversy, and one wonders what effect the committee’s decision will have on the market and interest rates.

Anyway, one of those four teams will be the national champion until next year when the college football world will do it all again. Only this time, the playoff format will include 12 teams. Too many, one thinks, for even a remotely qualified team to be left out.

Still, one wonders, in the end, if the whole business doesn’t take something essential out of college football. The piece being … rivalries.

Alabama fans, especially the young among them, will celebrate if the Tide rolls over Michigan on its way to glory in a rematch with Texas. But Michigan is not a rival. That would be Auburn, in the same way that Ohio State is Michigan’s rival. The two play every year, and, for the following 364 days, fans of the winning team get to strut around the state in victory. It is Hatfield vs. McCoy stuff. If you live in Alabama, you don’t schedule your daughter’s wedding for the Saturday when Alabama and Auburn play. Not if you want any of your friends from Alabama to come for the ceremony. It is said that if you want to poach deer in Alabama, game day is when you do it. Not a warden in the state will be out in the woods. They will all be at home, glued to the tube and the game.

It is hard to explain to people who don’t follow the game.

The two teams don’t need permission from some committee before they can play each other. The television boys are welcome to come down and broadcast the game, but it will be played, with or without them. And if neither team is in the running for the national championship — or even ranked among the top 20 in the country — the game will be played. It will be tough, hard-nosed football, and fans will argue about it or gloat about it until … well, until it is time to play it again, next year.

Meanwhile, there will be this business about the national championship. But that’s just television. This other thing … now, that’s The Game.

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