In a general sense, I'm normally a big fan of the College Football Playoff. More times than not I do wish it included eight teams instead of four. I also think if two teams from the same conference have the same record but one team won its league championship and one didn't, the champion should go.
But assuming Alabama and Clemson both win their conference titles over the next three weeks - Bama in the Southeastern, Clemson in the Atlantic Coast - I kind of wish we'd dispense with teams three and four this season and just move directly to the fourth CFP meeting between those two in four years.
Because when you get right down to it, does anyone outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan; South Bend, Indiana; Athens, Georgia; Norman, Oklahoma; and Columbus, Ohio, seriously think the Crimson Tide and Tigers can fail to meet in the CFP title game?
Didn't think so.
And that completely discounts the fact that almost every college football fan in the country save those who live and die with the Tide and the Tigers desperately wants anyone but those two to reach the playoffs.
Still, barring severe injury or serious illness to Bama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa or his Clemson counterpart Trevor Lawrence, that's where we're headed, and what a glorious contest it should be, right down to the fact that Tigers coach Dabo Swinney, in case you've been visiting the moon the past three football seasons, grew up in Alabama and played for the Tide's 1992 national champs.
In fact, the most repeated conversation in Bama Land typically revolves around whether Swinney will come home to '"Mama" - to recall the late, great Bear Bryant's reason for leaving Texas A&M to return to his alma mater - should Nick Saban ever retire.
For what it's worth, my prediction is that he won't, that Swinney has enough sense of history - both at Alabama and throughout the history of college sports in general - that he knows you never want to be the man who replaces The Man, who Saban clearly is. You want to be the man who replaces the man who attempted to replace The Man.
Besides, Swinney has already become the Saban of Clemson, but without the suffocating attention every Bama football coach must navigate.
Yet because there are going to be four teams - rather than Bama and Clemson only - it's worth noting that Tuesday night's top four schools in the newest CFP rankings remained unchanged from a week ago, with Notre Dame still third and Michigan fourth.
Moreover, the entire CFP top 10 remained unchanged from last week, which never previously had happened in the five seasons that the playoffs have been around.
So Georgia's still fifth, Oklahoma still sixth, LSU still seventh, followed by Washington State, West Virginia and Ohio State. If you denote an offensive bent in those rankings, you'd be right. Three of the top FBS programs in scoring offense are OU (2), Bama (3) and Clemson (5).
But as good as all these teams are - and it would be fun to see the SEC-baiting Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh meet Bama in one semifinal - it's pretty difficult to see anybody but Clemson and Alabama facing off in the national title game for the third time in four years.
"These are complete teams," committee chair Rob Mullens said when asked about the gap between Alabama and Clemson. "We spent a lot of time talking about it. They are both top-10 offenses, top-10 defenses, but at this point, everyone has Alabama one, Clemson two."
And that's where they figure to remain. Both for this season, and possibly for the foreseeable future, making those third and fourth playoff spots little more than a nice bowl destination before losing to the numbers 1 and 1-A of college football.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com