Conference championship games are one thing college football can’t afford to change | Sporting News

There is a part of me, the part that used to enjoy the manufactured fright from a great horror film, that would love to be granted the opportunity to look over the shoulder of the late, great Bo Schembechler as he read one of the many articles in circulation declaring conference championships no longer matter.

The authors are saying, specifically, conference championship games don’t, but we all know that’s not the point being made.

Bo would know, for sure.

He built his Hall of Fame career around winning the Big Ten Conference. He left us too long ago, but that piece of his legacy endures. I’ve seen it, up close. I’ve been on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium for the majority of Big Ten championship games over the past decade, and I’ve experienced the joy of Penn State’s Nittany Lions in 2016, the Ohio State Buckeyes in 2019 and, of course, the Michigan Wolverines in 2023. It mattered to all of them. It’s always mattered.

And it’ll mean even more Saturday, when Oregon and Penn State meet not only for the 2024 Big Ten title but, as well, the automatic berth in the College Football Playoff and first-round postseason bye that will be granted the winner.

Penn State coach James Franklin said, “We’re excited about the opportunity.”

And he should be.

Without the championship game structure, every major conference championship – and the resulting bid to the CFP — would be determined primarily through the whims of the annual league schedule. Expansion to 16 or 18 teams, which is where we are with all of the power leagues, has made it impossible to assure any degree of schedule balance.

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There still might be the occasional LSU 2019 team bound to overwhelm any opponent unfortunate enough to wander onto the same field. The majority of automatic bids, though, would be gained by the team that got the key home game (Oregon playing host to Ohio State this season) or which avoided the greatest number of league contenders (Texas dodging Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss, LSU, Missouri).

Under the current system, both the Ducks and Longhorns will be required to prove their worth against another significantly accomplished team, with all participants aware of the consequences.

And it will be even bigger for SMU vs. Clemson in the ACC and Arizona State vs. Iowa State in the Big 12, which involve four teams that do not have certainty they’ll be invited to the CFP. Only SMU, were the Mustangs to lose, would have a serious case.

In the expanded power leagues, schedule serendipity will have some impact on the championship outcome. It should not be the only factor.

To suggest these games no longer matter, there are those using the gerrymandered argument involving the “get-in” price at this year’s Big Ten Championship: currently $10. We have to better understand by now what that really means.

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What it means is the tickets were sold. They possibly were purchased by Ohio State fans who assumed, with sufficient reason, their team would defeat Michigan in the final regular season game and get a shot at No. 1 Oregon on a neutral field with a chance to win a major conference championship. Or they were purchased by ticket speculators expecting they could earn significant profit by exploiting the passion and proximity of Buckeyes fans.

With the game now set between Oregon and Penn State, the demand for these seats is not as intense. The campus of Penn State is not a comfortable 3-hour drive from Indy. And many Penn State fans who regularly fill the 100,000-plus seats at Beaver Stadium come from Philadelphia or the DC metro area or New York. They’re even farther removed from Lucas Oil Stadium than those who live in State College. And they didn’t expect to be in this game, because entry was beyond their control once they lost their home game against OSU.

And all this is to say nothing of the fact Oregon is more than a 4-hour flight from IND. That’s if you could get a direct commercial flight.

Which you can’t.

For those stating the season has grown too long for the title-contending teams, that’s an easy solution: one fewer game against Mercer. It can’t be argued that these games are indispensable because they make money, because so do the league championships, and not just for the two teams involved. The growth of the regular season to 12 games always was a pure money grab. If it’s between sacrificing three hours of glorified exercise or a game to determine a legitimate champion, it’s obvious which is more valuable to the fans and, by extension, the sport.

There is a world in which one could make the case for these games to be considered frivolous: if the CFP were to expand to 16 teams and all byes were eliminated. That degree of expansion is unnecessary and unwarranted, unless there would be automatic bids granted to every conference winner, not just the top five. And we all know that is not the direction this sport is traveling.

Texas vs. Georgia will be thrilling late Saturday afternoon. The winner will celebrate. The loser will have the consolation of a first-round playoff game on campus. We will know which group is SEC champion, though. They’ll have earned a trophy and, if he were here, a tip of the houndstooth hat from the late, great Bear Bryant.

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