Wild Card Weekend Looked a Lot Like the College Football Playoff — Which Is Exactly the Problem

There are so many people out there who are so close to getting it that I felt compelled to pen this blog in hopes that even just one person out there will read it and maybe something will click in their brain that allows them to finally see the light.

We wrapped up Wild Card Weekend with a whimper on Monday night as the Rams thrashed the Vikings, 27-9. That brought the weekend's final tally of average margin of victory to just over 15 points per game, even with a three-point game decided on the final play between the Commanders and Buccaneers. And this isn't anything new, as last year's Wild Card Weekend saw its games decided by an average of more than 17 points per game. The NFL's first round is rarely very competitive because it lets in any Tom, Dick or Harry who's above .500 and tells them to go out there, give it their best shot and make the League office a few million dollars while they're at it. This obviously also devalues the regular season to a large extent, because teams can lose eight times and still get a home playoff game.

Now contrast that with what college football has been for decades. Every single game is life or death if you're a team trying to compete for a championship. There are rivalries fraught with generations of hatred passed down to children before they can walk. And we've thrown that away in favor of the NFL's system that produces shitty playoff games in the name of MORE FOOTBALL!!!

The thing that has pissed me off more than anything the last few weeks is hearing people say there were "more meaningful games than ever this year." No, there weren't. You just made the games that used to mean something meaningless and contrived "meaning" for other games because more teams could now make the Playoff that you artificially expanded.

If we expanded the Playoff to 128 teams, Kennesaw State-FIU on a Tuesday night would be very meaningful. Sure, Georgia could make it at 1-11, but we would have more meaningful games!

The teams playing for the national championship next week were on the losing end of the two biggest upsets in college football this season. Those ultimately meant nothing. In any other year, Ohio State suffering its second loss to 6-5 Michigan would have ended its chance at a title and nobody would have had a problem with that, because all you had to do was win your final regular season game at home as a huge favorite and you blew it. Notre Dame would have been right on the cusp of making the four-team Playoff, but even if the Fighting Irish were left out, they wouldn't really have a leg to stand on, either, because they lost to Northern Illinois. College football used to be a sport where people agreed if you lost to MAC teams, you probably didn't deserve a chance at the national title.

Georgia went 12-0 last season, lost a nail-biter in the SEC Championship Game and was left out of the Playoff. I don't recall too many tears being shed. And I have a very strong feeling the Bulldogs would have done exactly what Ohio State has done during this Playoff and run through the field like shit through a tin horn en route to a national championship. But they didn't do that, because making the CFP used to be very difficult and exclusive. And while that didn't necessarily always produce the most incredible games you've ever watched, you at least knew the teams deserved to be there.

Unfortunately, what college football used to be is gone now. It's the NFL with better atmospheres. I used to think most college football fans were with me in wanting this beautiful, amazing sport to maintain its distance from the corporate snoozefest we see on Sundays.

But I suppose I was wrong.