The Game will always be the most important game of the season for Michigan Football fans — and Ohio State fans, too, even if they won’t admit it — but The Game was clearly devalued by the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams:
College Football Playoff (CFP) expansion has had more than a few ramifications in the inaugural season of the 12-team format. Most notably, the season ended just last night in the back half of January. The Game between Michigan and Ohio State took place over seven weeks ago already, with Michigan coming out on top in hilarious fashion, 13-10.
The game itself was an instant classic, including a post-game melee as Ohio State still doesn’t know how to lose gracefully, per Kalel Mullings. At the time, it felt like a season-shifting paradigm.
For Michigan, it was. A disastrous season was totally redeemed as the Wolverines beat their rivals and then beat Alabama for the second time in the calendar year. For Ohio State, what felt like an unmitigated disaster at the time turned into fuel for a playoff run.
I was in the minority of college football fans hating the idea of expanding the CFP from four teams to 12. The TV executives undoubtedly got loads of bonus revenue, but we were treated to meaningless conference championship games and a world where the final four teams consisted of three two-loss teams and a fourth that lost to Northern Illinois. What was meant to crown the best and most deserving team has ended up with a “survival of the fittest” season, but I digress.
In the old, four-team format, Michigan would have been unaffected by its win in The Horseshoe. At 7-5, the Wolverines still would have gone to the ReliaQuest Bowl, likely against the same opponent in Alabama. The only difference would have been that Alabama would have been nowhere near the playoff conversation in the weeks leading up to it.
As for Ohio State, that was its second loss of the season. The Buckeyes dropped to No. 6 in the last CFP rankings, which would have designated them as the second team out. We would have been looking at a playoff of Oregon vs. Penn State and Georgia vs. Texas. Ironically, Notre Dame also would have missed the CFP, so we could have been looking at Ohio State vs. Notre Dame in a non-CFP New Year’s Six bowl game that would have been meaningless by all intents and purposes.
To me, this is damning evidence the CFP devalued The Game this season. Michigan’s win would have ended Ohio State’s season in every year of college football history except for this one. You can make the case Ohio State or Notre Dame were the best teams in the country based on their play in the playoffs themselves, but the way the format shook out this year is indisputable evidence the regular season means less overall now. If it didn’t mean less, neither team in the National Championship last night could have even been there in the first place.
My fear moving forward is the ramifications of a world in which The Game is devalued. What happens when they meet again in the future and both teams are already safely in the playoff field? Would either team sit their starters? Will Lane Kiffin’s theory on how playing a conference championship game is actually detrimental under this format gain any traction? There’s a world where this ends very, very badly for traditional, regular season rivalries, and I don’t think we’re too far away from that.
For now, I’ll continue to celebrate the most comical Michigan victory I can remember for quite some time. It’s been 1,880 days since Ohio State beat Michigan.