First and 10: Georgia-Alabama clash ushers in college football era where more is always better

1. A brave new (and always better) world

Change is evil, we’ve been told. The beauty and pageantry, the soul of fall Saturdays, is gone.

Until it isn’t.

Until reeling Michigan finds itself against surging Southern California and reasserts in the first game of the new Big Ten.

Until Tennessee leaves no doubt about where it’s headed in its first game in the new SEC, and how we all better get serious about living under a Big Orange Moon.

Until Georgia and Alabama — the undisputed kings of the sport in the College Football Playoff era — prepare this week for a regular season heavyweight fistfight that can only be described as Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns.

Google it, kids.  

“I can’t imagine anything making any game feel less important in this sport,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told me in July.

I ask you, when has change in college football ever not worked?

The Bowl Championship Series arrived in 1998, and was full of annual whining and complaining. And the sport exploded from regional popularity to national relevance.

The College Football Playoff arrived a decade ago, and the “end of every game matters” crowd wailed. Now college football is second only to the big, bad NFL in popularity.

Now that the CFP has expanded to 12 teams (and eventually 14 or 16 in 2026), those same nattering nabobs of negativism are complaining about the “loss of the regular season.”

I think I can speak for Illinois vs. Nebraska, Stanford vs. Syracuse and San Jose State vs. Washington State — high-level, last-second games last week on a random Friday night — when I say, are you out of your collective minds?

In the last 26 years, college football has survived (in no particular order): multiple postseason format changes, multiple phases of conference realignment eliminating two (two!) Power conferences (Big East, Pac-12), and…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/first-10-georgia-alabama-clash-090559638.html

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2024-09-25 09:05:59

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.