MATTHEW BROWN: My holiday wishes

Published 9:09 am Saturday, November 30, 2024

A note from the editor (there must be some other way to phrase that?): This is being written a week in advance as the writer planned to take a break the second half of the Thanksgiving week. So the Georgia-Georgia Tech outcome, you know already. Was Georgia able to make it as thrilling an outcome as that Yellow Jacket-N.C. State finish?

Since a major holiday was approaching, to be soon followed by another that will require some family off time, here’s the opportunity to get a few things said, like …

Has it occurred to anyone that, when the next Major League Baseball season starts, one American League franchise (the Athletics) will be playing home games in a minor league park and another (the Rays) will be playing home games in a spring training facility? It’s a good thing nothing major happened when Army hosted Notre Dame football at Yankee Stadium that would require the Yankees to relocate to, say, Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. Hey, it seats about 9,800, which might be equal to what the Rays or A’s average no matter where they call home. And I suppose Aaron Judge could handle 336-feet and 350-feet power allies and 390 straight away center, should the need still arise based on any exuberant New Year’s Eve celebrations.

But everything now is about the College Football Playoff. Twelve teams, increased from four. Everybody loves this because it gives more teams something big to fight for, making it more inclusive for the little guys like Boise State.

“THEY JUST CAN’T HAVE OUR SPOT!’ the University of Georgia fanbase I am sure was screaming that time when the Bulldogs were on the outside looking in. Just go beat Tennessee and it will be the Volunteers on the outside looking in … oh, wait, that’s exactly what happened. Now it’s Alabama and Ole Miss outside with Tennessee back inside.

And did the Tide and Rebels really help the UGA cause? Maybe we didn’t want to play GT then go to an indoor SEC championship game, both of which might take us to the outside again. We sure don’t want to go to a first-round game in snowy Pennsylvania or Ohio the weekend before Christmas. Did you see what our old pal Nick Chubb had to deal with that Thursday in Cleveland? First half, fine; second half, where’s the parka and the shovels?

Things did change in the rankings with the Ohio State-Indiana result and all that aforementioned chaos, and Indiana is another example of how a great season might be for naught without an expanded playoff.

Ah, but ‘strength of schedule’ is still lingering around. “Give Indiana Georgia’s schedule and see if they start 10-0!”

Can I just stop right there and make another point that won’t change week per week? I am now fully against Georgia – and for that matter all the rest of the Southeastern Conference teams – playing the same league slate next year as this year. Yes, you say now Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss will come to Athens. Still, it needs to be different in some way each year as has always been the case in UGA lore. Doing it this home at-home way looks more like high school.

The non-con gives us Marshall, Austin Peay and Charlotte, which makes for a great SOS case. What I want to see, and I know won’t happen, is for LSU, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Missouri to play at Sanford Stadium. We’ll go to South Carolina, the Vanderbilt construction zone and Arkansas with the one remaining constant, Florida, in Jacksonville before the new renovation begins.

Now, back to the CFP. So the narrative has gone from inclusion to ‘They don’t belong,’ as in what a joke it would be for Boise State or BYU to have a top-four seed, even if they are conference champions.

Right now, a team like Georgia Southern, which has beaten Marshall and James Madison this season, is fighting for a chance to play in the Sun Belt Conference championship game. The Sun Belt is the last in the Bowl Subdivision to still use divisions, and the Eagles suffered a costly loss to Troy from the West division and fell behind Marshall for second place in the East Division. So they need big help from JMU to put their tiebreaker edge to use, provided they keep on winning themselves against App State.

Point being, that’s the biggest thing Georgia Southern plays for all season. I know I’ve said that before, and I am about to say something else for the umpteenth time. Because expansion of the field is on the way with a brand new media deal on the way, too. Who is ultimately going to control what that looks like?

We say big-time college football is getting more and more like the NFL. The one thing the NFL doesn’t use is a committee to decide playoff teams. As long as the college game is all about the conferences, there will be committees, and no conference can be treated any different than the others. Call it fairness, or simple integrity, but to do it the other way, giving unequal automatic bids per conference, reeks of elitism.

And then there’s the long-time outlier, the aforementioned Notre Dame, which does not play football in a conference and agreed to a format where it will not get a top-four seed. Aside from the fact the Irish has a deal with the Atlantic Coast Conference to play (this year anyway) five of its teams, this school makes its own schedule.

Perhaps that’s what they all need to do. Take conferences out of the equation so no team gets judged by the overall strength of one league or the other. No conference championship game is of less value than the others if there are none. Everyone then makes up their own schedule, as strong or as weak as you want to, or are able to.

How teams are put together, that’s a whole different world we are heading towards.

(If at all possible, give pet adoption a try through the Animal Rescue Foundation in Milledgeville. Donations of any kind are also in great need. ARF is the little red building at 711 S. Wilkinson St., and more information is available at animalrescuefoundation.org.)