College sports don't need to give up on the concept of a regular season. Cleveland.com's Stefan Krajisnik believes the Alabama Crimson Tide would do College Football a disservice by taking away the two most interesting games of the 2027 and 2028 seasons, home-and-home matchups with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
As Krajisnik noted, while the idea of a non-conference game between the two feels archaic in the face of an expanded CFP, the No. 3 Duke Blue Devils' upcoming matchup with No. 1 TTUN on the hardwood on Saturday at the Capital One Arena in Washington D.C., and the hype it's generating, is proof that it's still worth staging games like Alabama-Ohio State.
Krajisnik also made an important point: viewers will never be happier to see a Power 4 squad beat up on a Group of 6 school. He used the NIU Huskies to make that point.
"A 24-team playoff would likely yield similar results (of low-stakes games," Krajisnik prefaced before asking, "If Ohio State, Alabama, or Georgia are unlikely to lose more than three games in a season, and making the CFP is seemingly a guarantee, what would the stakes be for a nonconference game?
"Do you remember watching Duke vs. Michigan State in December, a college basketball matchup between two teams sure to make the Field of 68? Probably not. However, the teams still played hard, and there was excitement around the matchup, which will be the case Saturday when No. 1 Michigan faces No. 3 Duke.
"College football teams will still play 12-game schedules, and while the stakes may not be as high, fans would still rather watch Ohio State against Alabama than Ohio State against Northern Illinois."
College Football cannot lose the plot on regular season play
You can chip away at traditions by realigning conferences and putting advertisements everywhere in sight, but once you take away the excitement of early-season non-conference matchups, you're threatening to shorten the window that many fans will even pay attention to the sport.
Simply put, there's no need to punish the viewer like that. Why must it be the one time that revenue doesn't trump all? Well, to answer my own silly question, it's because postseason revenue is more in the end for universities than the payouts for non-conference blockbusters. So that's not even the case.
We get it. The powers that be in every walk of life hate our guts.
But can't the Crimson Tide finally do something for the greater good and take one for the team by facing the Buckeyes buzzsaw two seasons in a row? Is the "Bama Standard" not actually about beating and being the best anymore?
If only Nick Saban were still walking through that door in Tuscaloosa. He wouldn't allow University of Alabama AD Greg Byrne to even think about taking this game off the Tide's docket in 2027 and 2028.
Just kidding. Even Saban sold out and would probably vouch for whatever Alabama does as long as it benefited him somehow.