While the dawn of NIL, the transfer portal, and College Football Playoff expansion have brought mostly good things to college football, they have also ushered in some unintended consequences. Although players getting paid, having more movement than ever, and more opportunities to play in big games are great, playoff expansion may do away with the idea of conference title championships.
Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart touched on this while talking to UGA legend David Pollack.
"That's a tough one. I was just talking about that with someone. It's one of those things where to each his own. I enjoy them and believe in them, but as the playoff expands, it's going to be hard. I just don't know how they are going to continue to do that. They really need to move the calendar up, which would move the [conference] championship games out completely if that happens."
Here is the entire episode of See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack where Smart appears as a guest.
Smart mentioned that he has been, and probably always will be, a big fan of winning an SEC Championship. For a guy who has won four as a head coach at Georgia, as well as several others as an assistant across the league, you cannot really blame him here. That being said, until we get true scheduling uniformity across the sport, the Selection Committee will make it up as it goes along.
If Smart believes that conference championships may go away soon, what does that mean for us?
Kirby Smart sees the writing on the wall for conference championships
It is a bit of a catch 22 in the wonderful world of college football. In the expanded playoff, the five highest-ranked conference championships all get auto-bids into the 12-team tournament, while the rest of the field is comprised of the next seven highest-ranked teams. Giving the four highest-ranked conference champions last year was too much for college football fans to endure for another season.
Had it been a four-team playoff the last two years, Georgia would have gotten in as the SEC champion in both situations. They would have been the No. 2 seed playing Big Ten runner-up Penn State in the national semifinals. If it were the case this season, No. 3 Georgia would face No. 2 Ohio State in the semis. While winning one's league was of utmost importance not that long ago, it might no longer be.
Look at last year's playoff. All five teams who won their league championships who made it in lost in their first game. While the quick turnaround was brutal for No. 12-seeded Clemson, too much time off hurt the likes of Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State. Eventually, water will find its level here. But in the meantime, everything will be looked at under a microscope until we figure this all out.
Overall, conference realignment has made it a doozy to get the right teams into their respective title bouts. While it was easy to see the Big 12 should have been between Texas Tech and BYU, the ACC really made a mess of it with a 7-5 Duke team taking on Virginia, and then beating them. As long as a team that is above the cutline before the penultimate rankings does not drop with a loss, it will be fine.
As Smart said, this is a interesting point of discussion, but one we do not understand to its fullest yet.