The College Football Playoff will decide on Sunday which 12 schools still have a chance to be named national champion for the 2025/2026 season. Saturday's conference championship games made that task even more difficult.
For starters, the Alabama Crimson Tide failed to secure their ticket to the dance by being embarrassed in the SEC Championship Game, 28-7, by the Georgia Bulldogs. Alabama now gives the CFP selection committee its first three-loss team that fell in its conference championship game to consider. Last year, the Clemson Tigers made the 12-team field as a three-loss team that actually won their conference championship game.
The Tide should be out, but there's a big question of brand supremacy sneaking them in anyway. That same precedent isn't expected to help out the BYU Cougars, which lost 34-7 to the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Big 12 Championship Game. BYU is now 11-2, but with fewer signature wins than Alabama.
Both teams making it would draw the ire of Miami Hurricanes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish fans. The Canes and Irish were both 10-2 and didn't have an extra game during conference championship weekend. Miami because the ACC champion Duke Blue Devils and Virginia Cavaliers were playing for the conference title instead, and Notre Dame because, as a College Football independent, they don't play in a conference.
On3 Sports' Ari Wasserman believes the "cleanest" route for the CFP selection committee is to penalize the Tide and Cougars for losing to the Dawgs and Red Raiders, respectively, and admitting the Hurricanes and Fighting Irish.
College Football may get rid of Power 4 conference championship games
While the Tulane Green Wave and James Madison Dukes may make the CFP field because they won their conference championship games, two Power 4 teams may miss the field for coming up short in theirs.
That would likely lead to the elimination of conference championship games altogether.
Tradition in the sport would further be compromised, but every decision College Football makes must legitimize the Playoff at this point.
It's going to hurt two fanbases that realize they shouldn't have played in their conference championship game, but that pain will have nothing on the 2023 FSU Seminoles going 13-0, winning the ACC, and still missing the field.
Change is coming because of that pain. Alabama and BYU, thank you for your sacrifice.