Opinion: CFB Regular Season STILL Matters

So why are so many entities so convinced that it doesn't?

College football has been exceptionally good this year. In my opinion it’s always exceptionally good. But as we hurdle towards the end of the season, what you hear, and have been hearing for a while now, is that the regular season doesn’t matter. Unless you’re 10-15 teams vying for 4 (soon to be 12) playoff spots or the team playing spoiler, your games and season mean nothing because you have no say on the final playoff push. I’m not even exaggerating here. It doesn’t take long to find an article or a talking head via podcast or on TV echoing those sentiments verbatim. I’ll…get to this later.

But let’s ask ourselves, what has changed so much to make the regular season “irrelevant”? It’s not like the kids playing the game and the coaches putting in long hours woke up one day and told themselves well if I’m not Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State I may as well mail it in after the first loss. I don’t think you could tell Big South Champion Gardner-Webb, that will be going to the 2nd round of the FCS playoff after their win against Eastern Kentucky in the first round, that their season was irrelevant. Fordham made it two Patriot League teams in the FCS playoff for the first time in a long time. Benedict College in Division 2 went undefeated and hosted a playoff game, a rarity for HBCUs at that level and even though they would fall to Wingate, you’re going to have a hard time telling those kids their season didn’t matter.

But perhaps you can’t make that connection like me as someone who grew up attending mostly “small time” (and I say that dripping with sarcasm to prove a point) football like I did. Washington decided who would play in their conference title game with their win during PAC 12 After Dark, even though the Huskies will not play next Friday. James Madison obliterated the de facto Sun Belt East representative Coastal Carolina, even though the Chanticleers will be going to Troy. The Dukes won their division on the field but can’t represent the division because they’re transitioning, but I bet you’d be hard pressed to find a fan of the team or player that didn’t absolutely love what that win meant to cap off a historic season for JMU. Heck, many teams earned bowl eligible status Saturday, and having watched the way the rivalry ended between Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, each team fighting for the 6 FBS wins to earn that eligibility, you can’t tell me that game didn’t matter to those players. 

So, what’s changed? Why does the regular season seem so irrelevant? Why do people think expanding the playoff takes away from the importance of regular season games? Why does it diminish the significance of a conference title, more so with 4 teams than 12 seeing as conference titles will mean more in a 12 team format. What happened to amateur athletics and just winning for the old alma mater??? I have a few reasons why some try to program us into thinking only a few games and teams matter, and unfortunately for some people with an agenda, I’m not going to be blaming the 18-24 year old’s playing the game. 

NFL

You may be going, “Wait what? How?”. It’s not a very direct effect, but as the NFL grew in popularity along with the lucrative opportunities for those talented enough to be higher draft picks, top players have started looking out for their own health in a more business like way. Prospects will opt out of what they perceive as meaningless bowl games to be in peak physical condition for draft positioning. Again, I’m not going to blame the kid for that business decision. But the NFL wasn’t always as popular as College Football, that’s really a phenomenon that has come about over the last 50 years or so as they leaned into television markets for teams/revenue and have not looked back since. Again, I don’t think the NFL is a big contributor to diminishing the college football season, but you can’t overlook how it has taken up a lot of the sports oxygen in the fall, especially the football specific oxygen. 

Bowl Games

Having lived in FCS Fans Nation land for the bulk of my sickos phase of college football enthusiasm, I have heard all the reasons why bowl games are silly and most of them are a waste of time. We have gone from a handful of games to over 40 of them and teams with losing records sometimes making spots. The FCS has a 24 team championship playoff to play for and work during the regular season towards making that field. What do you get for winning the Cheez It Bowl, especially as a player? While I do think there’s probably too many bowl games and realize that they are programming for TV and advertising for sponsors, schools and conferences have financial incentives to participate as well. For those players, it’s a chance to play with your team one more time, and for more than a handful of the bowls, it’s a great vacation opportunity for fans that can afford it. Plus, degenerates love more college football to watch. But with such a robust postseason, does it take away from the joy of making it if you’re 5-7 and got in just to fill a spot? Maybe there are too many bowl games which take away from the games during the regular season, but there’s more pressing factors in my opinion. 

Amateur Athletics? LOL

When it comes to athletics in college, especially at the biggest schools, their departments are anything but amateur, especially those playing college football and basketball at a high level. As a result success and especially postseason success is paramount. For a handful of teams success is defined by your team being a part of the final four and nothing else. Others it’s a New Years 6 Bowl, one of the higher rated bowls, and heck a bowl period. They all have their monetary values and depending on the size of your athletic department, the game and payout adjust accordingly in terms of significance. I’d guess that for the bulk of these programs and communities though, especially in smaller towns, they make more than a pretty penny on game day revenue and those small businesses stay in the black because of those 6-7 home games a year. 

New TV deals are so ridiculous now that you can’t even pretend that these athletic departments and football programs at the highest levels aren’t their own businesses running in affiliation with universities. And up until NIL, the kids weren’t seeing any sort of “above board” income which is the only reason we could say this was amateur athletics. (We all know bags were being passed, don't be naïve). But even with NIL those athletes aren’t dipping into the same revenue pool as their schools or coaches. So what used to be winning for the glory of your college and alma mater has been replaced with the need to be a for profit business. Winning makes for a successful business and that means making it to that postseason. With that in mind, beating your 3rd conference rival might not mean as much if that game isn’t well attended or you’re not going to make a bowl game at the end of the season for some, especially for the Athletic Director. 

Media

I alluded to this in the beginning, but there’s an argument to be made that the people that complain the most about games being meaningless are the folks that say the games don’t matter the most and the loudest. What sparked me to write this article in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep, was just how many college football journalists I follow on Twitter were telling me that most of the conference championship games don’t matter because they don’t effect the 4 team playoff now. What are we doing here?! First of all, if this year has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t just assume games will go according to plan. So games absolutely do matter. Furthermore, since when is a conference championship a throwaway? Even in the time before championship games those accolades meant something. Hell, beating your rival the last week of the season was everything. 

Yet, many with the biggest mouthpieces and “pens” in the sport tell you this stuff doesn’t mean crap, all that matters is the playoff and a championship. And then those same people will lambast the college kid that opts out of said “meaningless” game. It’s always those dang youths isn’t it? I could not believe what I was reading as the last regular season week was turning the college football world upside down with upsets left and right. Clearly, lots of these games matter, and still do! I get that we all aren’t sickos and therefore can’t see value in every game. Certainly we can’t predict seismic upsets that shake the playoff picture to its core. But clearly many of these games matter more than those who cover the sport care to admit. We do live in a world of extremes and hot takes where it’s not reasonable to say someone is “good” or “ok” it’s either amazing or trash. I won’t get into that particular philosophical conversation right now but if that’s how we approach college football, that takes out about 97 percent of the sports fans and programs, and that really sucks. Media gets a lot of criticism nowadays and sometimes rightfully so. And while a lot of them do a great job covering college football, maybe let’s pump the breaks on always telling everyone 3-4 games matter a week, and conference championships don’t matter if they have no bearing on a playoff. 

God Bless the Sickos Committee

Yes…ha ha ha…YES! In a world where so many people want you to pay attention to only 10-15 programs in college football, the Sickos Committee tells you that there’s wonderful college football everywhere. Some of us joke about loving MACtion, they cover it like it’s the Iron Bowl. If you want to know whether or not some random team in C-USA is bowl eligible, all you have to do is listen to their podcast or read the Sickos Sentinel. Heck, they cover the FCS and HBCUs with great knowledge too. I’m not saying all of this to suck up to them, and their efforts to truly cover the whole of the sport has not gone unnoticed. They have been getting mentions on College Gameday, they have had articles written about them, and they seem to get a mention in every college podcast network I listen to. But what makes them wonderful is they find joy in the whole of college football, not just the cream of the crop. They laugh at the funny plays and weirdness that makes college football great. you can be in the sickos top 25 for being either hilarious, or being such an algorithm buster from exceeding expectations beyond all reason that you can’t help but be a sickos team. I can’t help but wonder if the reason why this season has felt so complete is the fact that they, in their growing popularity, help others appreciate the entire spectrum of the sport. Their unique take on college football is what I think a lot of people could look to follow. Lean into the funny and the fun. Love the weird and the awesome. We’re passionate football fans, especially if you decided to read this article. And if this is how you make your living? Have a little more sicko in your coverage. It’d be a lot better than listening to the 750th scenario to try and get Alabama into the 4 team playoff with 2 losses and no conference title appearance. Which…somehow is probably going to happen, which is in itself some real sickos stuff. 

Conclusion

Hopefully that wasn’t too much complaining. As is my tradition, I couldn’t keep it short. But this has been on my mind for a while and my goodness is it obnoxious to always see people say 97 percent of the content that a sport produces is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. College football is amazing, top to bottom. People often say bad college football is fun, and bad NFL is just bad. That’s just the truth and hopefully we can keep it that in mind as the sport inevitably becomes more corporate. It’s a unique and diverse sport where no two programs are the same. No traditions are exactly alike and neither is the relationship between rival schools. And that’s why, in my opinion, top to bottom the whole sport matters. Or, maybe I’m just a huge sicko myself. Two things can be true I suppose.