This week should have been about delighting in beating Alabama in the regular season for the first time in nearly two decades. Or it should’ve been about driving in our trucks to get ready to flatten Auburn. Instead, yesterday we got the depressing but predictable news that the College Football Playoff will expand again next year to 24 teams.
I’ll have some unkind words for Auburn football later, but first let me say, this sucks! Like Auburn!
The train has left the station, and there’s nothing I can type here or anywhere else that’s going to stop it. As I said back in May, an ever-expanding playoff was baked into the four-team format, which had been designed explicitly to fuel arguments for further expansion.
To me, the greatest villain of this story is Tony Petitti. His background is in television and Major League Baseball. MLB is currently run by people who actively hate the sport and want to ruin it in a variety of baroque ways, and Petitti has brought that same joyless miasma to his work as Big Ten commissioner. He’s been angling for playoff expansion since he got a desk at the conference’s offices in Rosemont three years ago.
At Big Ten Media Days last year, Petitti offered this argument for expanding: “We’ve conditioned ourselves to think that if you’re not a one- or two-loss team, you’re not worthy of competing. There are plenty of teams in professional sports (emphasis added) who qualify for the playoffs who can’t get past the first-round game. That’s okay.”
Actually, that’s not okay! This statement shows that Petitti has a fundamental misunderstanding of the unique character of college football so profound that his occupancy of this job is an insult to anyone who’s ever rooted for a college team. He and the other conference leaders very simply do not understand why people care about this sport.
College football is not a professional sport, even if the players can make money. Nor should it aspire to be a professional sport. It offers fundamentally different pleasures than the NFL does. I like NFL football because I find the sport schematically interesting. But I love college football because there is something special about seeing a wide receiver who’s a few months away from making millions of dollars being guarded by a future CPA. And sometimes, the CPA wins! The chaos is the point.
And as I have said before, my love of college football is driven by the fact that I am, at heart, a hater. The most fun I have in a season is seeing Georgia win, but a very close second is watching other teams lose. Nothing saves a lost season like putting nails in the coffin of your rival’s title hopes. Following the dwindling number of playoff contenders is a huge part of the fun, as is watching opposing coaches squirm and fanbases melt down as their championship dreams get squashed. Do you really want to see Lane Kiffin say, “Our goals are still in front of us” after LSU inexplicably loses a midseason game to Kentucky? Or do you want to see the color draining out of his face like he just saw a ghost as he realizes he’s going to end yet another season without coaching in a playoff game? I know which one I prefer!
To the extent that anyone in a position of power cares enough about fans to bother lying to us, one of the things the Big Playoff boosters will say is that rivalries will still have meaning. To some extent, that’s true because yelling “EFF AUBURN!” after a half-dozen or so tailgate beers will never stop being fun, no matter what Petitti or Greg Sankey do to this sport. But attrition is going to force changes to the way coaches manage the regular season, and that will eventually water down everything great about college football.
More games means more risk to the players and greater likelihood of injuries. At some point, a coach will rest his starters ahead of a playoff run. Once somebody breaks that barrier, it will become increasingly common to do so, even if it means starting a backup for a late-season rivalry game. The primary motivating factor behind this expansion is less money this time than the belief on the part of coaches and administrators that more playoff spots will allow them to protect their jobs. If a coach believes sacrificing a chance to win a rivalry game will give him a better chance in the playoffs, and thus a better chance of staying employed, that’s what he’ll do.
They’re wrong, of course. Just ask Sean McDermott if making the playoffs is enough to stay out of the breadline. If the boosters want to force a coach out, they will, and it won’t matter at all how many times he’s made the playoffs. And now, at a lot of schools, if you miss the playoff even once, you’re going to be out on your ear. This will make things worse, not better.
And I very simply do not have sympathy for these men. They knew the job was dangerous when they took it, and they’re given millions of dollars on the way out the door. I would love it if someone would give me millions of dollars because I’m bad at my job! Instead, everybody just yells at me!
Petitti wants the college postseason to be more like pro sports. If you’re an NFL fan, how much do you actually care about your so-called rivals? I am only marginally a Falcons fan because the Falcons are a (very poorly run) business, and I don’t care about what happens to a business.
I am a Georgia fan because of tradition. The first Georgia game I ever attended was the 2009 Auburn game, and despite the amount of pregame revelry, I remember almost every play from it. My sister, brother-in-law, and wife are all alumni. Georgia fandom is a beloved family tradition. Watching my daughter learn to yell “SIC ‘EM!” at the kickoff was nearly as meaningful to me as seeing her take her first steps.
I hate Auburn football because of the Prayer at Jordan-Hare. Because of watching Nick Fairley gloat after cheap-shotting Aaron Murray. Because of the Game Between the Hoses. Because of Junior Rosegreen and Cam Newton. That’s what makes college football special. And it’s the kind of thing Tony Petitti, Greg Sankey, and everyone else mangling this sport neither understand nor have the capacity to value.
We’re lucky to have a coach who went to UGA and seems to take as much delight in beating Auburn and Florida as we do. The bloodless moneymen at the top and the craven mouthpieces they use as ventriloquist dummies on TV will tell you that, even if Georgia loses today, it’s not a big deal because our playoff ambitions are intact.
We know otherwise.