Ohio State's home and home matchup with the Alabama Crimson Tide is in danger of coming off the books.
The 2025 regular season and playoffs will have a ripple effect on the sport of College Football for years to come. Three football teams were left out of the College Football Playoffs, with their only losses being to teams in the Top 25 of the sport.
Notre Dame was left out of the playoff because of losses to No. 5 Miami and then No. 16 Texas A&M Aggies. BYU had just two losses on the season both to Texas Tech while they were ranked No. 8 and No. 4 respectively.
Finally, Texas was left out of the playoff with their losses coming at the hands of No. 2 Ohio State, Florida*, and No. 5 Georgia. Their loss to Florida is the lone blemish on this record, and it is certainly a game that they should have won.
However, the precedent has been set, winning football games is more valuable than playing quality opponents out of conference. It's that simple.
The fallout from these results is exactly what we expected when these teams were left out of the playoffs. Marquee matchups outside of the conference provide zero value to teams when it comes to Playoff rankings.
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Whether you hate it or love it, it's the reality of the situation, and teams are going to respond in kind.
Ohio State and Alabama being on the "radar" as a game that may get cancelled is still just a rumor at this point, but where there is smoke, there is usually fire. This news comes from the Triple Option Podcast featuring Mark Ingram, Urban Meyer, and others who are a part of FOX's gameday crew.
It's a sad reality because the early season matchups between top tier programs made for great theater in 2024. However, if these teams will only be punished for playing in a game like this, than there is truly no point of scheduling these matchups.
What's the fix?
That is the million-dollar question. In my honest opinion, they need to find a way to take the subjectivity out of the decision making. The College Football Playoff committee is one of the great jokes of this generation of the sport.
At least when College Football was decided by the BCS, there was a point system assigned to explain why teams got the opportunity to compete for the title.
Recreating a point system would be the first step to solve this issue, and then expanding the Playoff to 16 teams would be the next step. The final step would be to eliminate the Group of Five automatic bid.
One other solution is for College Football not to care about the early season matchups, and that could absolutely be a reality.
Regardless of what it is, don't be surprised to see more and more teams backing out of agreements like this and into more contracts like Ohio State vs. Grambling or Ohio or Akron.
Sigh.