Commonplace accepted in college football

By David Mullen

The Associated Press college football poll is out, and there are some surprises. The University of Pittsburgh is first, followed by Washington, Alabama, Nebraska and North Carolina. The SMU Mustangs have been picked sixth, followed by Georgia, Penn State, Oklahoma and USC.

Sorry. Call it the old college prank. That AP preseason college football poll is from 1982, not 2022. 

SMU was in the Southwest Conference, as were No. 13 Arkansas and No. 17 Texas. Pitt and Penn State were independents. So were the University of Miami (15) and Notre Dame (18). Powerhouses Nebraska and Oklahoma represented the Big 8. In that bygone era, the college football season opened with hope, anticipation and without regional bias. 

Today, things have changed. And change has not been for the better.

For the second consecutive year, despite a National Championship Game loss in January, Alabama is No. 1 in the 2022 AP preseason college football poll. Since the Nick Saban era began in 2007, the Crimson Tide are ranked first for the seventh time. The rest of the top five teams are Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson and Notre Dame. 

This year, two of the top three teams in the preseason poll reside in the Southeastern Conference. If underdog Notre Dame loses to Ohio State in Columbus on Saturday, Sept. 3, there is an excellent chance that No. 6 Texas A&M will move to No. 5 in the polls, and the SEC will have three of the top five spots. 

“[For] Texas A&M, it’s time,” said ESPN college football analyst Rod Gilmore. “Jimbo [Fisher] has put together a string of top recruiting classes and knocked off Bama last year. Everyone expects Bama to return to the Championship Game, and it would be a surprise for the Aggies to get there, but it’s time for the Aggies to play with consistency, play to their talent level and surprise folks.”

There is also optimism in University Park and Austin and Waco and Fort Worth. SMU will be fun to watch. Texas better be fun to watch. Baylor is always fun to watch. Sonny Dykes needs to prove that TCU can have some fun with a high-powered offense. 

But in reality, it will be the same teams competing for the college football championship. And that is just the way that the decisionmakers want it. A group of selectors determine the NCAA Division I Football teams that play for a title. A championship team is declared by multiple individuals and organizations, and they tend to come from the lower right-hand corner of the U.S. map.

“We’ve already seen interest wane in some parts of the country (e.g., Pac-12 country),” Gilmore said. “Part of what makes the NFL work is its balance, which CFB lacks.”

Many rabid football fans in Tuscaloosa, Ala. and Athens, Ga. have no concept that college football is being played in electric environments like Eugene, Ore., Madison, Wisc., Norman, Okla. and Lincoln, Neb. They don’t show games from Salt Lake City on the SEC Network.

Alabama has Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and national defensive player of the year Will Anderson Jr. They deserve the No. 1 ranking. Ohio State looks like a powerhouse, but they open with the aforementioned Fighting Irish and play Michigan State in East Lansing and Wisconsin and the hated Michigan Wolverines in the “Big Horseshoe.” Under Kirby Smart, Georgia must replace a slew of players that left for the NFL. But Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia are the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros of college football. Every year, you can expect the same teams competing, dominating the airwaves and, ultimately, playing for the National Championship. Or it least it seems that way.

Major college football has become so predictable. Many of the best athletes go to a school where they can win, get the most TV exposure and, potentially, make the most NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) money. Those that watch college football must weed through the plethora of Deep South teams getting big paydays in prestigious bowl games. Six SEC teams are ranked in the AP Top 25.

 “NC State [could surprise],” Gilmore said. “This is a team that is experienced and won some big games last year. They are under the radar only because they don’t have the history or rep of winning.” NC State, like Clemson, plays in the ACC, the conference geographically adjacent to the SEC.   

Not counting the handpicked big three CFP games that end the season, there are 39 bowl games for 78 other teams to compete. The games will be played throughout three weeks in December and January. The bowl games start on Friday, Dec. 16 with the Bahamas Bowl. There are seven bowl games on Saturday, Dec. 17 and no bowl games on New Year’s Day, Sunday, Jan. 1. So much for tradition.

The Cure Bowl is Saturday, Dec. 16 in Orlando. I liked the song “Just Like Heaven” from the “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” album, but does The Cure really deserve a bowl game?

 There is the LendingTree Bowl in Mobile, the Dukes Mayo Bowl in Charlotte and the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. The Tony the Tiger Bowl is not played in Battle Creek, Mich. It’s the new name for the old Sun Bowl played down in the West Texas town of El Paso.

The Arizona Bowl from Tucson will be televised on Barstool Sports. The Gator Bowl is now the Tax Slayer Bowl. The Cheez-It Bowl is in Orlando, not Milwaukee, Madison or Green Bay. The Guaranteed Rate Bowl is in Phoenix, one of the top 10 cities in America for home foreclosures. DFW has four bowl games alone.

Some bowls didn’t give it the old college try. The New Orleans Bowl is in New Orleans, the Las Vegas Bowl is in Las Vegas, the Boca Raton Bowl is in Boca Raton, the Birmingham Bowl is in Birmingham and the Frisco Bowl is up the tollway in that Frisco, not San Francisco. Saturday, Dec. 17 is the date for the Jimmy Kimmel L.A. Bowl. Guillermo is the official crew chief.

The SEC will dominate again in 2022, and all is commonplace in college football. The rich get richer and the poor play in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise on Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN. Get six wins and your alma mater or favorite local team is in a bowl. Please pass the potatoes.

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