College Football Protestin'

 Three days now until the College Football Playoff  bracket reveal, and everyone's gripin'. Miami's gripin' there's no way a three-loss Alabama squad should be ranked above them. The  Big 12 commish is gripin' there's no way the champion of the Mountain West (Boise State) should get an automatic bid over his conference's champ.

How could three-loss Clemson still get in? How could the Big 12's two title-game contestants, Arizona State and Iowa State, be out until one of them wins this weekend? And DAMMIT INDIANA STILL HASN'T PLAYED ANYONE.

Well ... let me say this about that.

Ain't it grand?

Like a lot of folks I wondered how expanding the CFP from four teams to 12 would affect the college game, but turns out it's affected it like a shot of penicillin affects the creepin' crud. It's made a lot more games a lot more relevant, especially late-in-the-season games. It's given college football a narrative that changes with every week, and therefore keeps our attention riveted. And schools that before now would be looking forward to some Radial Tire/Chicken Sandwich/Lawn Implement Bowl are still in the mix for the Big  Square Dance -- or so their fan bases believe.

The upshot of all this is everyone's arguing again. Which to me has always been the bone-and-blood of the college game.

It's what I miss most about the old days, when New Year's Day had a distinctive storyline that unspooled as the day went on. Did Great Big Deal U. losing in the Cotton Bowl open the door for Just As Big Deal U. to win the national title in the Rose Bowl? Or would Hey We're Big Too U. claim it by winning the Orange Bowl?

Terrific stuff. It was especially terrific in years like 1966, when Notre Dame won the national title while unbeaten Alabama and Penn State said wait a minute, you haven't played us yet. Or when AP and UPI came up with dueling national champs.

All this College Football Protestin' has revived some of that, and I love every whiny morsel of it. Major nostalgia hit is what that is. And remember the part about making more games more relevant?

Well, when Indiana played Purdue in the Old Oaken Bucket game last weekend, there's was a level of suspense -- tiny, but it was there -- that would have been missing without the expanded CFP. The loss to Ohio State, coupled with IU's admittedly pallid strength of schedule, meant the 10-1 Hoosiers could possibly have been an odd man out if they didn't sufficiently pave the 1-10 Boilermakers. 

Of course, it would have been ridiculous to keep out an 11-1 Big Ten team. But if IU came out flat, and the Boilers decided to put up a fight ...

Nah. The Hoosiers came out to prove a point. The Boilers came out like congealed gravy. The result was an historic 66-0 rump-roasting that punched the Hoosiers CFP ticket and earned Purdue coach Ryan Walters a bus ticket out of  town.

Without the CFP, who would have cared outside of Bloomington and West Lafayette? It would have been just another dreary Bucket beatdown -- albeit administered by Indiana this time and not by Purdue, as has often been the case in a rivalry the Boilers still lead 77-42-6.

And now people can resume griping about Indiana's SOS. And of course much else.

One more time: Ain't it grand?