Here is a trivia question you might find interesting: Since the 1998 college football season — which began the Bowl Championship Series era — how many Division I college sports programs have produced a men’s basketball Final Four AND either a berth in the BCS Championship Game OR a spot in the College Football Playoff?
Just to be clear: a Final Four AND one of the two: a BCS title game appearance OR a College Football Playoff spot? In the past 22 college sports cycles, how many schools have managed to end their season in a neutral-site football stadium in BOTH sports, at least once?
Think about it. I had to look this one up.
Take your time. Go through the various conferences. See if you can remember the various BCS title games from the 1998 through 2013 college football seasons. Recall the various Final Fours over the past 22 years.
Ohio State is the most obvious answer, but which other schools are there? Florida, right? Oklahoma made a couple Final Fours in the past 22 years, so you know the Sooners are part of the mix.
Oh, yeah, right — Michigan State made the playoff in 2015, so the Spartans are there. That’s four schools.
Wait — didn’t Oregon make the Final Four in 2017? The Ducks were in the BCS title game against Auburn at the end of the 2010 season and even made the first playoff in 2014. Five schools.
Auburn, you say? Auburn’s Final Four last year enabled the Tigers to join this group. Six.
Those are probably the answers most people can come up with. You then need to remember that LSU snuck into the 2006 Final Four and played an atrocious semifinal against UCLA. You also need to recall that Texas had that one special season in 2003 before Carmelo Anthony and Syracuse stopped the Longhorns in the Final Four.
Eight schools — that’s all. Eight schools have a Final Four AND either a BCS title game berth OR a College Football Playoff appearance in the last 22 years.
Wisconsin has come verrrrrry close. Had the 2017 football team beaten Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game, the Badgers would be on this list.
UW therefore has something to shoot for. Obviously, making the College Football Playoff is valuable, prestigious, and transformative on its own terms, in isolation, without regard for any outside circumstances. Yet, if Wisconsin football can indeed make the playoff, a very exclusive club of only eight programs dating back to 1998 would grow to nine.
Imagine a world in which Wisconsin is one of only nine elite athletic programs in the United States. That is one of the many different reasons a College Football Playoff berth would be a seismic event in Madison.