This fiasco of a college football season, in which no amount of coaches’ scheming or testing or contact tracing could keep the coronavirus from wreaking havoc, stumbled toward an inevitably messy finish on what in a normal year might be celebrated as a championship Saturday. Instead, as Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly threatened a playoff boycott on Friday, and Ohio State bumbled its way to the Big Ten title on Saturday with 22 players sidelined — many presumably related to the virus — the College Football Playoff committee may have a decision that is not as neat and tidy as it would have wanted. In this year, and others, the playoff committee — for all its boasting of football intellect — has been little more than a boxing matchmaker, releasing weekly rankings in November and December as a way to gin up interest (and outrage) before ultimately providing a rather obvious four-team field that will make the television networks happy.

Source: New York Times December 19, 2020 23:23 UTC