Playoff Focus: Everything college football points in one direction

The schedule borders on brutal. USC opens with Alabama and finishes with Notre Dame. In between, there’s a Pac-12 Conference schedule that includes, as of now, four ranked opponents. Which, of course, brings Clay Helton directly to the point.

“We’re in a Playoff system,” he says. “You have to build a résumé. And if you do your job — this schedule, man, what a résumé that would be.”

It’s what a new head coach facing difficult opponents (and some doubters, too) has to say. Never mind its status as one of the best all-time programs, USC seems like an extreme long shot to be in the conversation in 2016. But it’s also an illustration of the new paradigm:

Everything, always, is about the College Football Playoff.

Clay Helton, USC football welcome era free of drama, hype

Quick pop quiz: What’s your final four? It’s still August. We haven’t reached kickoff. But you’ve thought about it. So has everyone.

You say Alabama, she says LSU. You suggest both Clemson and Florida State, the fans of every other Power Five conferences get fired up, recognizing that two ACC teams would mean two leagues get left out (also, SEC fans fume because putting two teams into the Playoff is their divine right).

The point is this: With a long offseason finally almost over, the Playoff is the hottest topic. Well, that and maybe the Big 12’s existential quandary: to be (10) or not to be (10).

But consider: The Big 12’s soul-searching began when Baylor and TCU were left out of the initial Playoff. And if they’re honest, their potential expansion is about money, yes — but a hefty portion of the league’s exploration is predicated on the notion that when it comes to getting into the four-team field, a bigger conference is better. The consultants ran thousands of computer simulations to tell them so.

They could have saved money and just turned on talk radio.

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But if it’s all about the Playoff, we shouldn’t be surprised. Even two years ago, that was already apparent.

“It’s kind of sad,” coach-turned-analyst Rick Neuheisel said then. “We’ve now created everything where I look at Georgia, and in Week One I say they’re a ‘final four’ team. Week Two, they’re out. Neither one of those premises are true. There’s still so much to be played.”

That was in mid-September. Two weeks into the 2014 season, six weeks before the first set of those meaningless in-season rankings would be issued by the selection committee, almost three months before the first bracket would be set, and even longer until Ohio State and Oregon would battle for the first national championship of the new era. But already, the conversation had changed.

College football 2016: Previews of every conference

If anything, as we enter the third season, the volume has only gotten louder. We’re about to feast on the best opening weekend in maybe forever, a fantastic slate of non-conference matchups. Alabama-USC. Notre Dame-Texas. Florida State-Ole Miss. Clemson-Auburn. Georgia-North Carolina. Oklahoma-Houston. UCLA-Texas A&M. And two weeks later, Oklahoma and Ohio State, Michigan State and Notre Dame, Oregon and Nebraska, Alabama and Ole Miss, USC and Stanford, Florida State and Louisville might make for an even better slate.

Most of the non-conference games in that menu were scheduled in part because of the perceived emphasis by the Playoff selection committee on strength of schedule. They’re clearly potential Playoff accelerators. But what’s cool is, in a significant change from the Bowl Championship Series system which often rewarded winning more than quality of résumé, losses are not necessarily eliminators — except in all of the mock brackets published every week under the premise: “If the Playoff were today.”

And it’s no better when the actual Playoff selection committee gets together, five weeks too early, and pushes out its own top 25. By the Playoff’s own definition, those rankings are pointless until the final set, on Dec. 4. But like everything else, it fuels the conversation. And as the regular season rolls toward its finish, the combined voices on the same topic cranks toward deafening.

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And if we’ve learned anything in the first two years, it’s that people love every minute of it. The arrival of the Playoff has continued to lessen the intrinsic value of a conference championship. Its worth now is more as a launching pad to the Playoff than as regional bragging rights. But college football isn’t a regional game anymore. Likewise, the bowls, with the exception of those serving as Playoff semifinals, continue to decrease in importance. Although those trends started with the BCS era, they’ve accelerated.

There’s also more pressure on coaches. Especially if fans believe — rightly or in most cases wrongly — that their team has what it takes to make the Playoffs, then failure is devastating. The traditional bowl consolation prizes don’t feel the same as when winning the national championship seemed a distant dream.

“I think it’s kind of neat,” Ohio State’s Urban Meyer says. “I think the other bowls have taken a hit because of it, but the fans wanted this. The people wanted this.”

So if we’re filtering everything through the prism of the Playoff, if that means some of what has been charming about college football has been lost — well, so what? It’s still crazy fun.

Kickoff is coming, and then after a short but intense burst of action (and even more arguing) we’ll be watching the semifinals, and after that the championship game in Tampa. And after that, it will be time to return to the enduring offseason topic of expansion — not the Big 12, but the Playoff itself. Especially if some conference fills up half of the four-team bracket, or if Houston crashes the party, the calls to double the field to eight will grow louder.

If and when that happens, the pressure will ratchet up again on coaches. Even if the Power Five champions got automatic bids, leaving room each year for three at-large teams, the contrast between euphoria and devastation will only increase. True consolation will continue to evaporate. The shouting each week will intensify. And it might be fantastic — because it’s already incredible fun.

Ohio State's next generation will generate more greatness

In only two seasons, Ohio State has provided a microcosm of the extremes. Meyer’s 2014 team provided validity to the entire selection process in its first year, when Baylor and TCU were left out but No. 4-seeded Ohio State won it all. Last year, the Buckeyes experienced the other end; a late loss cost an ultra-talented team the chance to defend the national championship.

It’s perhaps fitting that the team’s motto in 2014 was “The Chase,” and in 2015 it was “The Grind” — and that now, with an inexperienced but talented roster, it’s “The Edge.” In the Playoff era, teams live there.

“That crushed us,” says Meyer of missing out on last season’s Playoff. “But I still think they’ve got the right number. And I think the way they (select the Playoff), and all the publicity, all the interest — I can’t imagine what would be better.”

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