15. The college football world will be much better if the Pac-12 is awesome.
Rip on the Pac-12 all you want, but no Power Five conference played a more entertaining season on a game-by-game basis in a shortened 2020.
We can’t be allowed to ignore an entire time zone of college football.
Okay, Oregon. You recruited with the Bamas and Buckeyes of the world over the last few years – let’s go.
Okay, USC. You’re USC. Let’s go.
Okay, Chip Kelly. You’re Chip Kelly. Let’s go.
Okay, Washington. That was a great first – and very, very short – look at the Jimmy Lake era. Let’s go.
Okay, reloaded Utah. Okay, fun-looking Arizona State. Okay, Colorado, Stanford and Cal. Let’s go.
14. The Big Ten world will be much better if Penn State and Michigan are awesome.
It’s been totally forgotten, but 2018 Michigan went into the Ohio State game with the puck on its stick for a chance to play for the Big Ten title and the College Football Playoff.
It’s sort of been forgotten after the worst start to a season in Penn State history, but 2020 was coming off a run of three 11-win seasons in four years.
Indiana will be a hot offseason media crush in the East, but the division and the conference need two of the superpowers in the East – let’s throw the rerack of Wisconsin in the West, too – to at least make Ohio State sweat a little.
13. The Big 12 world will be much better if Texas is awesome.
Really? Iowa State is what the kids are slamming to now? I get it, but come on – at the end of the day, it’s Iowa State.
(Relax, Cyclone fans – a big hug is coming a few blurbs later.)
It’s always nice when Oklahoma State is great, and TCU should be a thing, and West Virginia is overdue to rise up and be a Big 12 player, but it’s the Big 12.
It’s Oklahoma, and it’s Texas.
There’s absolutely no possible excuse for the Longhorn program to be mediocre. Tennessee at least is in the nasty SEC, and Nebraska can legitimately fall back on the lack of a high-end local recruiting base, but as superpower-calibers of the recent past go, Texas should be ten-plus wins every year without blinking.
It’s fine if Oklahoma wins its 67th straight Big 12 championship, but the league needs the big badass anchor tenant to pay the rent.
12. The SEC world will be much better if there isn’t one awesome all-time great team.
Personally, I’m amazed by the ruthless excellent of Alabama – but the latest national championship didn’t seem to get more than a big fat yawn from the rest of the sports world.
The 2019 LSU juggernaut that turned in the greatest season in the history of college football might be remembered a bit more differently if the 2020 version didn’t fall off a cliff.
It’s been forgotten now thanks to – sorry, Tide fans – 44-16, but the 2018 Alabama team ripped through everything in its path until the debacle in Santa Clara against Clemson.
The SEC was more fun in 2017 when Alabama was terrific, Georgia was fantastic, Auburn was nasty, LSU was solid, and there was a real, live battle for the conference championship rather than a coronation.
Florida, Texas A&M, LSU, Georgia – make it something more than the Alabama Invitational.
11. The world needs to quit placating/teasing the Group of Five teams.
Cincinnati was never, ever, ever going to get into the College Football Playoff. That’s not to say it didn’t deserve it in 2020 – it didn’t; that fight is so four months ago – but the Power Fivers will always get every benefit of every CFP doubt.
I know how this is going to work, because this is what happens every year. There’s a Cincinnati, or a UCF, or a Coastal Carolina, or a BYU – which isn’t technically a Group of Five program, but sort of gets treated like high-end one perception-wise – or a Boise State that someone will take up as the lost cause team that deserves to be in the final top four.
That rock gets pushed up the mountain, only to have the kids in Grapevine, Texas shove it right back down with a final ranking somewhere around 6ish or so.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily fair – although I am a full-season Power Five schedule snob – or right, but no matter who that star Group of Five team is this year, let’s try to enjoy its greatness without always framing it about how it’s getting totally screwed by the system.
But to remedy that …