Conference championships were maddening, and I’ll miss them anyway
Conference championship games were flawed, frustrating and sometimes downright unfair, but college football won't be quite the same without them.
Conference championships, once a cherished tradition, are set to cease after this season. The Power 4 conference championships were a victim of the expansion to a 24-team playoff, and they were officially replaced on Monday. The conference championships, implemented in an ad-hoc manner, were born out of a desire for profit and had become obsolete.
They represented the inherent imbalance in college football, with varying dates for different conferences and the SEC's version dating back to 1992. Notably, Notre Dame, as an independent, avoided participating in these championships. The conference championships will be replaced by the first round of the newly expanded playoffs, which means the audience will witness a plethora of teams with three or four losses instead of the traditional matchups.
The elimination of these championships signifies the larger shift towards a more professionalized and revenue-focused model, weakening the generational bond that college football fosters. Although the conference championships may not have been strictly necessary, they represented a unique tradition that contributed to the rich history and spirit of college football.
Written by urgent.news from Yahoo Sports's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
