Why are we even having a College Football Playoff title game?
Shouldn’t we just go ahead and send the trophy to the Louisiana State University football offices in Baton Rouge and be done with it? I mean, does anyone really think either 2018 national champion Clemson or second-seeded Ohio State – that second CFP semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl hadn’t even kicked off as I typed these words – is going to knock off the Bayou Bengals inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Jan. 13 in New Orleans?
Heck, is anyone sure last season’s Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, could knock off this top-seeded LSU team?
No, you don’t need to know that LSU won this one 63-28 to realize Oklahoma isn’t an elite team. The Sooners didn’t even arrive for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at full strength, having suspended a few players before the game began at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They were the No. 4 seed going into this national semifinal and the only one of college football’s final four with a loss this season. That they were a good deal weaker than the other three programs now seems obvious.
Also, just for argument’s sake, the CFP selection committee should be ashamed of itself for dropping Alabama, which won 10 games and had narrow losses to LSU and Auburn, to ninth in its final rankings. After watching the Peach Bowl, does anyone really doubt that Bama, regardless of its record, was at least the No. 4 team in the land?