Swanson: New playoff format gives Ohio State a chance to prove itself

PASADENA – I get it. You hate almost everything about modern college football.

All the jarring conference realignment. The constant churn of the transfer portal. The wild, wild west that is this NIL landscape. You think it all stinks.

But the College Football Playoff? This fully formed postseason tournament? The new 12-team bracket that lets the players — and not voters nor pollsters nor pundits — sort out for themselves where they stand at season’s end?

What a genius invention! A tournament to decide a winner? Who would’ve thought such madness could succeed?

Because coming into Wednesday’s 111th Rose Bowl – which was also a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game – you probably thought that the game in Pasadena might as well serve as the de facto national championship, huh?

Thank goodness it didn’t.

For all of Oregon’s success this season — this regular season — we were reminded Wednesday that a regular season should not a national champion make. Not in others sports, and not anymore in college football either.

Imagine if Wednesday’s sordid affair — in which Ohio State demolished the previously undefeated Ducks, 41-21 — had been the national championship game?

Yawn.

This wasn’t anything resembling the titanic rematch we’d anticipated following Oregon’s 32-31 home victory over Ohio State earlier this season. This was the Buckeyes (12-2) running roughshod, building steam after routing Tennessee 41-17 to open the Playoff.

This was Coach Ryan Day’s squad scoring on six of its first seven drives and building an insurmountable 34-0 lead in the second quarter. It was the Buckeyes sacking Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel eight times. It was Ohio State’s fabulous freshman Jeremiah Smith getting free for seven catches and 187 yards – including five for 161 in the first half.

This was … over before halftime.

And so let us, as college football fans (who aren’t also Ohio State supporters), savor the fact that this isn’t how the curtains will close on this compelling college season.

Because before the  B-2 Stealth Bomber’s shadow fell on the 90,732 green-and-red-clad fans as it flew over the Rose Bowl before kickoff on Wednesday, you might have thought it was a shame that top-ranked Oregon and No. 6 Ohio State had to tangle so soon.

You might have preferred that the Ducks (now 13-1) and Buckeyes (seeded eighth but as talented as any team in the land) had been set on a collision course in the national championship on Jan. 20 in Atlanta, and not made to meet in the second round.

It didn’t seem fair to the Ducks, that this was their reward for keeping their record clean all season. Didn’t seem fair to fans who didn’t want to lose either of these teams so early.

But now we know, on a neutral field with exceptionally high stakes, it’s the Buckeyes who are built for a championship run. Not the Ducks.

“What’s unique about college football right now in this dynamic is that you’ve got to be playing your best ball at the end,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “I think anybody watching Ohio State recognizes they’re playing really good football.”

So good, he recognized, it “has the ability to win it all.”

And winning it all now doesn’t mean impressing the judges. It means winning two more games, starting with the semifinal/Cotton Bowl against Texas on Jan. 10 in Dallas.

“We have a lot of respect for Oregon,” said Day, noting that his Buckeyes were bound for home on Wednesday night, having earned the reward of another game to start preparing for. “They’re a very, very good team and well coached. We knew we had to be at our best today. It will be the same thing next week.

“When you’re playing in the playoffs, you’re playing against very, very good teams.”

But if this had been the good ol’ days, back when we were arguing about the BCS, it would’ve probably been Oregon vs. Georgia playing for the natty: No. 1 vs No. 2. And that would’ve been wrong, we learned Wednesday.

Or, before that, it would have been left up to voters to decide who to rank as the best in the land after the traditional slate of bowl games – though that still might not have worked out well for Oregon, if this time machine we’re using brought us back to when the Ducks would’ve faced the Buckeyes as the Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences’ respective representatives.

But now we’ve relieved committee members of any responsibility beyond matchmaking (which is a controversial enough burden). And we’ve been reminded that rankings can reek. That pundits can predict, but they can’t play. That pollsters can get it wrong (don’t we know).

“I keep saying it,” Day said, for the second time in his postgame news conference. “We’re fighting to keep this team together.”

There’s plenty to dispute if you’re a fan of this sport. But you should love the idea of eliminating the guesswork, of seeing the team left standing at the end raise the trophy. You can cheer for the College Football Playoff.

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