Dennis Dodd: ‘The SEC and Big Ten are a Notre Dame away from staging their own playoff’
The college football offseason has become an annual arms race between the SEC and the Big Ten to see who will form a super conference faster, and right now Notre Dame is the main prize both conferences are eyeing for their next blockbuster acquisition.
Last summer, the SEC ushered in a new era of college sports by taking two Big 12 pillar schools (Texas and Oklahoma) and the Big Ten carried that torch this summer in pillaging USC and UCLA from the Pac-12.
Right now, the Fighting Irish brand has the chance to swing the pendulum far in the direction of whatever conference lands them. While All Aggies called Clemson a potential ‘crown jewel’ in realignment talks, that distinction might belong to Notre Dame.
CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd said that the SEC and Big Ten could be a Notre Dame away from forming their own College Football Playoff — and even implied that the Fighting Irish may not even be needed to accomplish that:
"“What we’re witnessing in real time is the consolidation of the best brands atop the sport. Everything else be damned. When Knight is being reduced to speed-dialing to save his Ducks, well, that takes potential exclusion to another level. You may have noticed: The SEC and Big Ten are a Notre Dame (or so) away from staging their own playoff. Maybe they don’t even need the Fighting Irish, who are again deciding whether to join a conference after 130 years of independence.”"
The SEC, not Big Ten, is the only conference able to pull off their own playoff
As much as it pains Fly War Eagle to ponder this, it has to be asked: what would the College Football Playoff be without Alabama? The Crimson Tide have missed exactly one CFP (2019) since its inception in 2014.
Clemson has only missed two CFPs themselves, but they have the best odds to be the next to accept an invitation to the SEC along with Florida State. Only Ohio State has won a title since the CFP began, and it was the very first one. Let’s not forget that the Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines were reportedly interested in the SEC themselves a year back.
If a postseason was ever staged by a single conference, only the SEC would be able to pull that off.