Monday Morning Tail Slap: Christmas Just Ain't Christmas
Making sense of CFP's stunning and also not-at-all-stunning omission
Christmas just ain’t Christmas without the one you love.
New Year’s just ain’t New Year’s without the one you love.
Christmas music doesn’t get any better to me than The O’Jays soulful singing of that timeless tune. The song was playing at the Northeast Minneapolis winter market where I found myself late on Sunday morning, taking a break from holiday shopping and constantly refreshing my Twitter feed to see the confirmation of the four College Football Playoff participants.
I figured I knew who the four would be without a doubt. Michigan, Washington, Florida State, and Texas. Alabama’s win over Georgia in the SEC Championship may have been the most impressive individual win of the season for any college football team, but three undefeated P5 conference champions left just one spot left in the field, and 12-1 Alabama unfortunately took an L from 12-1 Texas earlier this season. There’s no shortage of awesome 12-1 teams in the college football landscape this year, head-to-head results is the only fair way to decide it. Georgia lost to Alabama and Alabama lost to Texas. Thus the last spot should go to Texas. Simple as that, right?
Simple? Such a naive thought in today’s college football landscape. As The O’Jays were really humming, a post revealing the four teams getting to play in the College Football Playoff Semifinals on New Year’s Eve finally shot to the top of my feed.
Sure enough, Texas was there. So too were Michigan, Washington, and also AlAbAmA?!?!
Then The O’Jays hit the conclusion of the song as hard as they always do.
CHRISTMAS JUST AIN’T CHRISTMAS WITHOUT THE ONE YOU LOVE!
NEW YEAR’S JUST AIN’T NEW YEAR’S WITHOUT THE ONE YOU LOVE!
I know the song is about singing to a long lost love, and discovering the true meaning of Christmas by being a heartbroken sadboi, but on this day I swear it was the CFP committee and every ESPN talking head singing directly to the SEC. To reassure the conference where “it just means more” that there was no fucking way they’d be spending New Year’s Eve apart from each other.
An SEC-free four-team field in the last year the CFP consists of a four-team field was the only logical conclusion, but the television network suits who run college football don’t care about logic. Like Red says to Andy about The Sisters in The Shawshank Redemption, “...you have to be human first, they don’t qualify.”
It’s a dangerous precedent for college football to set, even as the four-team era comes to a close. This decision by the committee is a declaration that the sport’s regular season means little, and that teams can be punished for injuries, like they are currently doing to Florida State who lost star quarterback Jordan Travis to a broken leg late in the season.
The advent of the 12-team field will solve some things, but not everything. Debates about the final teams in and the first teams out will continue to rage. Though, the undefeated conference champion of the ACC is almost certain to gain admission in such a field, but the fallout of this decision by the committee could very well mean the ACC’s days as a conference are numbered.
Talk about a hot mess.
I don’t mean to diminish the Crimson Tide’s ability to play American Football. The reaction from the Michigan team’s watch party when it was Alabama, not Florida State, revealed as their opponent only helps the argument that Alabama may be the toughest team in the country right now.
The frustration among many fans throughout the country is that the decision only further contaminates the murky waters of what actually matters in this sport anymore. Who is supposed to make up the field of the College Football Playoff? Is it the four best teams? Is it the four most deserving? And if most deserving has nothing to do with it then just what in the hell is the point of the regular season?
The actual TV networks in charge of this sport won’t answer this bluntly, but the fact of the matter is college football is a television show and the head honchos are treating it with the same amount of compassion and grace that President Snow and The Capital treats The Hunger Games.
Florida State’s exclusion from the CFP, could very well mean the destruction of the ACC, a depressing yet on-brand bookend to a season that began with the destruction of the Pac 12.
More conferences and programs will be sacrificed before this thing is over, and even then, it will never be ‘over’ over. Just different and totally unrecognizable from what it once was.