Nevius: College football championship seems to be same old game

I think we can all see what’s happened here. Alabama and Clemson (but mostly Alabama) have broken the College Football Playoff.

When the four-team CFP was installed five years ago we were promised nonstop excitement in the college game. It was hailed by fans and championed by the sports media (sheepishly raises his hand) as the much-needed fix for national championship uncertainty. Finally, a fair and logical way to determine the nation’s top college football team.

The concept was that we would watch the polls breathlessly all year, waiting to see which teams would emerge among the final four. Those four would play in two can-you-stand-the-tension semifinal playoffs, leading up to a final, climatic big game. Which teams would make it?

And the answer is: Alabama and Clemson. Alabama has made at least the semifinals every single year. And the Tigers have been there in four of five years. If Georgia hadn’t slipped into the final last year - losing to ’Bama in OT - it would have been more of the same. To get there the Bulldogs beat Oklahoma, which has been in the playoffs three of the last four years.

Can you stand the suspense?

Apparently many can. There are reports of ticket prices plummeting for Monday’s championship game in Santa Clara.

Now some will say this is because of concerns by Alabama and Clemson fans about flying to a faraway land where marijuana is legal and left-wing liberals walk the streets with impunity.

But c’mon, a major part of this has to be that, as a concept, Groundhog Day makes a good movie. For a sport trying to promote itself as whoa, anything can happen, repeating the same script over and over is not helpful.

Also, the whole point of this overarching tournament was to move the site around the country, like the Super Bowl, to engage huge swaths of football fans. Instead it has turned into a showcase for the deep South, featuring two teams a little more than 300 miles away from each other.

If they played this in Atlanta, like last year’s, the fans could have packed a lunch and driven over before kickoff.

Instead, the closest semifinal team was Oklahoma, 1,400 miles from Santa Clara. And by the way, Alabama fans may blanch at the thought of the Left Coast, but Cali fans haven’t exactly spent their time breaking down the Crimson Tide depth chart this year. They are more likely to ask, “What’s with the elephant?” than who’s the starting QB.

So it is a double whammy. The game is miles and miles from its core supporters and the locals have only a passing knowledge of the combatants. Quick quiz: What is the name of the city where Clemson is located? Trick question. It’s Clemson.

No worries, say the deep thinkers. We have the solution. More teams. The problem is that deserving squads, like Georgia, Ohio State or Central Florida, didn’t make the playoff. Expand the field to eight teams, create a semi-semifinal and the problem is solved.

This year what if we included Michigan or Washington to the above three? Include them with Notre Dame and Oklahoma, who were already in, and you’ve got eight solid contenders.

The beautiful part, say proponents, is that nobody deserving gets left out. This avoids the Central Florida situation from last year, when, after an undefeated season and a bowl win, the school unilaterally declared itself national champion. They staged a parade, handed out championship rings and even hung a 2017 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS banner at their stadium.

An eight-team playoff would avoid those kinds of shenanigans.

OK, we can do that, but based on this year’s postseason don’t expect much of a change in the world order. Georgia got Bevo’d in the Cotton Bowl 28-21. (Bevo is Texas’ longhorn steer mascot.) Washington lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. (The Buckeyes may make the best case for an expanded playoff.)

Central Florida, 12-1 at the time, was handled 40-32 by 10-4 LSU in the Fiesta Bowl. And Michigan, holy Harbaugh, was positively shellacked by 10th-ranked Florida, 41-15.

So where’s your potential alternative champion? Maybe Ohio State, but that’s a lot of work to satisfy the Midwest.

All right then, wise guy, you say, what should be done? Honestly, outside of making Alabama players wear weighted vests during games, it is hard to say.

One thing is for certain, to compete with ’Bama schools are going to have to up their game. And exhibit A is right here on this side of the USA - the ?Pac-12. Once a West Coast power and Heisman Trophy production facility, the Pac-12 went an unimpressive 3-4 in bowl games, which was an improvement over 1-8 last year.

This will sound far-fetched, but I think part of the reason for the decline is that potential recruits don’t see the games on TV. The unfindable and inaccessible Pac-12 Network leaves out huge chunks of the TV audience. It hamstrings recruiting and diminishes the importance of games. The conference needs to fix that before it becomes completely irrelevant.

Other than that, all we can do is watch the College Football Playoff championship game. And not expect things to change much in the future.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius