Nine college football conference champions will be crowned by the end of the weekend. There are plenty of questions to be answered, including: Who will earn automatic byes in the College Football Playoff and who will be left out?
But perhaps the biggest question of all is this: Are these games necessary?
The allure of the conference championship weekend is a day and a half of football between some of the best teams. Most of the games, including the SEC title game between No. 2 Texas and No. 5 Georgia in Atlanta, will be played in front of packed houses at NFL stadiums. Most of the games have playoff implications.
That sounds nice, but with this year’s expanded, 12-team playoff, it’s time to admit the truth: Conference championship games aren’t needed. For example, take SMU (11-1), whom the CFP committee on Tuesday ranked three spots ahead of No. 11 Alabama (9-3).
SMU’s only loss is an 18-15 defeat Sept. 6 against BYU — a team that was highly ranked and looking at a first-round bye a few weeks ago. SMU has beaten a pair of ranked teams since then (No. 22 Louisville and No. 18 Pitt).
Alabama has ridden a rollercoaster this season, beating ranked Georgia, Missouri and LSU but losing big at unranked Oklahoma as well as at unranked Vanderbilt and at Tennessee, then ranked seventh.
Alabama will be watching games on television this weekend. On Saturday at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., SMU will play No. 17 Clemson (9-3) in the ACC Championship Game. CFP chair Warde Manuel said Tuesday that an SMU loss could be detrimental to its playoff hopes.
“Potentially, yes. And they can move above teams, as well. Again, it just depends on the outcome of the game,” he said when asked if SMU could drop below Alabama should it lose the ACC Championship game.
