Please College Football, Mercifully Abolish Pointless Conference Championships

So let’s see. LSU just completed a perfect regular season during which it beat Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama, Auburn, and Florida, among others. It’s ranked #1, yet its “reward” for going undefeated is an extra game; this extra game the “SEC Championship” on Saturday. LSU’s players will have to endure yet another slugfest as a reward for being perfect. It will go up against a 1-loss Georgia team that knows, if it wins, that it will join LSU in the upcoming college football playoffs.

Or will it? Given the politically correct nature of college football’s playoff system, some feel a team must be a “conference champion” in order to make the playoffs. So even though LSU has already completed an undefeated season with a schedule that arguably no other team could complete without a loss, by Saturday it could be SEC runner-up. In short, and based on the supreme illogic that reigns over college football today, LSU could be pushed out of the playoff picture with a loss on Saturday.

Of course it’s possible LSU could lose to Georgia and still make the playoffs, at which point the Tigers would join Georgia, Clemson, and Ohio State in the final four. Maybe, maybe not. You see, an NCAA that aims for fairness over greatness has the Big 12 and PAC 12 champions to consider. One-loss Utah (its loss coming to a USC team that is a faint shadow of its former self, its non-conference wins much less than notable) would expect to be the 4th team if it beats Oregon in the PAC 12 Championship game, plus one loss Oklahoma and Baylor play one another for the Big 12 title. OU’s loss came to unranked Kansas State, after which it beat by the slimmest of margins Iowa State, Baylor and TCU. Baylor managed to beat Stephen F. Austin, UT San Antonio, and Rice (by 8 points) out of conference, after which it its wins came in the Big 12 which, after the flamboyantly pathetic PAC 12, is arguably the weakest Power Five football conference.

About this, in a parallel universe Utah would do the honorable thing no matter Friday’s outcome and opt out of any playoff appearance. Does anyone seriously think the Utes would stand a chance against an Alabama team that saw its playoff chances vanish last Saturday? For that matter, does anyone seriously think the Utes would scare 3-loss Auburn, two loss Florida, a potential two-time loser (after Saturday) in Georgia, or, for that matter, LSU? Yet if LSU loses to Georgia, or loses the wrong way to Georgia, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that the Utes are in and LSU is out.

And what of Oklahoma? No doubt it’s got a great tradition, but this year’s team has been far from dominant. And it was far from dominant in a conference stocked with teams that would hardly spook SEC fans. Think about it. Oklahoma lost to Kansas State, and once again eeked out wins against schools like Iowa State and TCU. Stating what should be obvious, winning the pathetic PAC 12 or the humdrum BIG 12 is likely only good enough for middle of the pack in the SEC. There’s nothing equal about this, yet there’s this stated preference on the college football playoff committee for “conference champions.” Please. It’s not serious.

All of which calls for change. Up front, it’s unlikely that the playoff selection committee will change. Afraid of its own shadow, it’s seemingly still bruised for having selected eventual national champion Alabama two years ago even though the Crimson Tide didn’t “win” the SEC Championship; a championship that Georgia won after beating Auburn, which beat Alabama that year too. The selection committee plainly likes “fairness,” which translates as everyone gets a trophy. Who cares that Utah, Oklahoma and Baylor haven’t scared anyone this year, if they wind up “champions” after winning the Big 12 or PAC 12 championship, they somehow rate playoff consideration.

How about another solution? How about the conferences do what makes sense for once and abolish what doesn’t make sense; as in the conference championships? By all accounts football is a taxing sport on the body, so it’s senseless that the reward for perfection or near perfection is another game.

The above in mind, and going back to Proposition 13's passage in 1978, they say California sets the tone for things political. Why not sports? In that case, Walnut Creek, California-based PAC 12 should abolish its conference championship after this year’s snoozer that will amount to yet again a less than half-full Levi’s Stadium. Wake up PAC 12, your fans have no interest in this faux championship. They never have, the stadium is always empty, at which point the conference championship amounts to another blemish on the PAC 12’s rapidly declining brand.

So start the trend. Abolish what no one wants, and base it on a simple truth that most intuitively understand: the “championship” game hardly decides anything. Better it would be if in lieu of this end of season “reward” for success, PAC 12 teams were required to schedule another in conference game, or much better with fans-in-seats very much in mind, another out of conference game against a real opponent.

Ideally the other conferences will follow the PAC 12. If they’re logical, they will. Fans don’t care about these championships, plus they yet again penalize success. With what’s senseless abolished, force the selection committee to do its job and find the best teams, as opposed to the winners of a match-up arguably defined by two-banged up schools struggling to get through yet another game after a long season.

But wait, some will say, the whole point of conference championships and playoffs is that they lead us to a “true champion.” Championships are "won on the field" and other nonsense like that. Oh really? Does anyone think Villanova would have beaten Georgetown in a best of seven back in 1985, or North Carolina State over Houston a couple years before? Does anyone think the 18-1 Patriots would have needed six games to beat the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants from that same year? Fast forward to this year, do readers want to bet on who would be the favorite between Utah and Georgia, assuming LSU wins and eliminates the Bulldogs in the process?

We know the answers to all this. Playoffs hardly settle anything. For that matter, neither do bowl games when it’s remembered that they’re usually preceded by a week of heavy celebrating by players and coaches alike.

Which brings us to the ideal scenario whereby the playoffs would be abolished too in order to return to the old bowl system. It didn’t settle the eventual champion any more than PC playoff selections do now, and that was the point. With the old system tradition was maintained, historical rivalries continued, and at season’s end after a glorious day of New Year's Day bowls, debate ensued. Who’s No 1?

It was glorious, and it arguably revealed more than what a playoff would today. Again, how many teams would be favored even over Alabama right now after it was “eliminated” from a playoff process that supposedly leads to a champion? Readers know what's up. It’s not just the conference championships that beg for abolishment.