We may not know the exact matchups that we're going to get in the College Football playoff, but we already have a good idea of what it may look like; more of the same. Bama looks like Bama, Georgia seems like they're playing with fire just so they can feel alive again, Clemson is back (after a double-digit win "off" year), Ohio State is Ohio State, and Michigan will probably go back to disappointing fans in the mitten after breaking through last year. It feels very predictable.
If you hear yourself saying, "but wait, what about USC? They're new!" The school is, Lincoln Riley is not. I've seen how his teams play in the playoff and I don't find myself excited by it. And if I'm being honest, I don't find myself excited by anything to do with the Playoff when I think about College Football. It took me a while to realize why, but I've come to the light-bulb-moment realization that it's because the magic of college football isn't the greatness, it's the two steps immediately below greatness.
Think about, what's one of the best, most enjoyable stories to happen in the first few weeks of the season? It's Kansas, right? The Jayhawks haven't beaten a single noteworthy team, but they're 5-0 for the first time in maybe their entire history? Now they have Gameday coming to town and while I have a feeling their season will start to fall a part, there's still a chance that I'm wrong about that. That's what makes them so much fun.
See, I don't want to walk into a game with fifty All-Americans on one side of the field. That's what teams like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Clemson are. Sure, Clemson struggled with Wake Forest, but it's the fact that Wake Forest was inches away from pushing the game into another OT that made it fun. Seeing the Tigers pull off the win instead was a major bummer.
Take a look at this:
PRESENTING THE SICKOS COMMITTEE OCTOBER TOP 25 POLL RESULTS!!! Here’s the Top 25 as voted on by you, the Sickos Committee Members!! (Previous rank was where the team was in the Sickos preseason Top 25 poll.) pic.twitter.com/LSsqObmq22
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) October 6, 2022
Yes, Sickos Committee is meant for our entertainment, not for genuine journalism or anything like that. But that's what I'm here for. This type of pole is what makes college football so great. Give me the teams that give me a wild and crazy games. Give me the TCU's, the UCLA's and I'll even throw Maryland in there (still steaming about those two interceptions against Michigan not being reviewed) that are better than I would have ever predicted them to be before the season started.
Give me Nebraska being an absolute dumpster fire, Texas flirting with being back then turning into nothing but a tease, and a team like Utah giving fans hope that they could have a way to sneak into the playoff if a whole bunch of craziness goes down.
I don't watch college football to watch Alabama or Georgia, I watch it because the other games going on are WAY more entertaining. College football greatness is boring because it feels predictable. The upper-middle to middle ground of D-1 ball is where the fun really is.
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