Spencer Wagen / 1600 ESPN
The regular season is in the books in college football, and it’s on to the 12-team playoff and bowl season. With so much going on and so many storylines to follow, I figured I will use this space to touch on some of the topics that are of interest lately in the sport.
The 12-team playoff
Well, it’s here! The first 12-team bracket was revealed over the weekend, and holy cow, the committee actually got it right?
Yes, I’m talking about keeping SMU in the field and leaving Alabama out. The Mustangs fell behind early, trailed Clemson by as many as 17 points before mounting a big rally to tie the game late and the Tigers kicked a 56-yard field goal to win.
There is absolutely no reason for a team to be punished for losing a close game in their conference championship, and I’m glad the committee didn’t pull those strings this time around. Would I have been surprised had Alabama gotten in? No, not at all. The SEC and the Big Ten (and ESPN, if we’re being honest) control the sport, and the College Football Playoff committee putting the Tide in, while egregiously wrong, wouldn’t have been a surprise at all.
As for the playoff itself, I simply can’t wait to watch this whole thing unfold. The first round games at campus sites alone provide plenty of intrigue — and even the top four seeds who got a bye don’t have the easiest path to a title.
Non-conference scheduling
I mentioned above Alabama getting left out of the 12-team field as a three-loss team. As you can imagine, that’s not sitting well with many in T-Town as they had a resume that included some very good wins — but also some very bad losses. Alabama’s Athletic Director Greg Byrne shared his opinion on the matter on X over the weekend but made a peculiar argument in the process. He seems to think that playing a challenging non-conference schedule was detrimental to the team.
As he wrote in the post above, “We had an extremely challenging schedule and recognize there were two games in particular that we did not perform as well as we should have.
“We have said that we would need to see how strength of schedule would be evaluated by the CFP. With this outcome, we will need to assess how many P4 non-conference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the CFP. That is not good for college football.”
Let’s be real here: the Crimson Tide’s non-conference schedule wasn’t challenging in the slightest, at least not this year. They laid waste to Wisconsin 42-10 in Week 3 and beat up on two group-of-five teams and a Football Championship Subdivision school in addition to that. Yes, these games are scheduled many, many years in advance, which makes it hard to tell which teams will be good and which teams won’t be. But it wasn’t the non-conference slate that was the problem! ’Bama’s three losses came within the SEC this year, and I think it’s fair to punish a team that lost two games to teams that ended the season with a 6-6 record, including one in the last three weeks.
For me, it’s simple. Win the games you’re supposed to, and don’t leave it to chance.
The transfer portal
If you thought use of the transfer portal would die out anytime soon, I’d like to see the rock that you’ve been living under. CBS Sports says that when the portal opened on Monday, the number of Football Bowl Subdivision football players in the portal nearly surpassed the entire number of entries for the 2019-2020 cycle.
Yeah, the portal isn’t going anywhere. What we’re witnessing is just college free agency, but remember, we can’t call it that because they’re all “amateur athletes,” wink-wink nudge-nudge.
I don’t have the answers, and I’m sure none of you do either. Putting any sort of guardrails in place is almost impossible, and the NCAA wouldn’t enforce them even if they were in place, so our breath feels wasted even complaining about it.
***
The regular season might be over, but the college football discussion never stops! Enjoy the playoff and bowl season, and be sure to listen to our local shows here on 1600 ESPN for the latest discussion on the big topics of the day and how it impacts both Iowa and Iowa State.
Spencer Wagen is the host of “Spencer on Sports,” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 1600 ESPN. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @SWOnTheRadio and on BlueSky.
