There are instructive points to make about the national college football landscape in connection to the College Football Playoff, which unfolds on Saturday in Glendale and Atlanta.
National college football observers and USC fans can both gain knowledge and awareness from looking at the four teams which will play in the sport’s championship semifinal games on New Year’s Eve.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that USC should be more like Ohio State, or that other teams need to follow Georgia’s example (as though doing so is realistic — for most programs, it certainly isn’t). The stories of these four teams aren’t necessarily examples of “this is how you should always build a program,” but they carry details which are worth noting as college football’s 2022 season winds down.
Let’s take a look: