There's only a handful of college football teams playing this weekend and traditionally you'd want to be one of them competing for a conference championship. However, in this new age of the 12-team College Football Playoff, the extra opportunity for a loss has become a disincentive.
Of the nine conference championship games scheduled for this weekend, four will feature a ranked-on-ranked matchup. All eight ranked teams participating are considered playoff contenders, but some of the four losers risk being dropped out of the 12-team bracket altogether if they lose.
Well, it seems reasonable that if you don't win your conference, you're potentially not national championship material. That sentiment may hold more value if the current system wasn't already built to benefit teams that are not participating in conference championships and are idle this weekend.
Conference championships just mean less in the CFP era
For example, the loser of the Big 12 Championship game between No. 11 BYU (11-1) and No. 4 Texas Tech (11-1) could be left out of the CFP in favor of idle squads like Notre Dame (10-2) and Oklahoma (10-2) simply because they're already in the field and didn't lose another game.
The same risk goes for the ACC, where if unranked Duke (7-5) topples No. 17 Virginia (10-2) then that conference is likely to be excluded altogether for two Group of Five champions. There doesn't really seem like a point to playing these games aside from the trophy.
If the sport is trying to get closer to the vibes of college basketball and March Madness, where any team has a chance at pulling an upset and chasing a national championship, why won't the committee embrace each conference champion?
Granted, this is television entertainment at the end of the day and football is a much different competition to basketball. ESPN, which owns the exclusive rights to the CFP, wants the best possible product on the air and that really can only come with the best teams participating.
In reality, a program's name brand is key to the attractiveness of their resume when being considered. The committee would much rather have another SEC team participate in the tournament than an additional Group of Five representative that will likely get crushed by Oregon or Ole Miss.
So, again, why play conference championships? Why not just crown a regular-season champion based on standings and admit teams into the bracket via resumes that include the same number of games?
Money, of course. Conference championship games are more opportunities to make cash via television contracts, ticket sales and concessions. But at the end of the day, it's made the playoff system more convoluted than it needs to be, which ultimately hurts the consumer and will cost money at some point.