image by Cincinnati.com
The College Football Playoff was supposed to be the savior of college football. It was supposed to free teams from the burden of computers picking who could play for a national championship and allow more teams a direct shot at that lofty goal. But for the first seven years of this new system, the Playoff only served to give blue-bloods of the sport more opportunities to leverage their status and recruiting prowess into championship bids.
That all changed Sunday. The field for the 2021 CFP is set, and while familiar names like Alabama and Georgia are on the list, there are two newcomers: the Michigan Wolverines, a blue-blood program with limited success in recent years; and the Cincinnati Bearcats, the closest thing college football has had to a Cinderella story since the 1980’s.
Cincinnati plays in the American Conference, which is considered a lower-tier conference in FBS football and therefore has never received a playoff bid. In fact, no conference in what is referred to as the “Group of Five” has ever sent a team to the CFP. This was supposed to be one of the great benefits of the Playoff, but it had never delivered on that possibility.
For decades, teams from this Group of Five have had incredible seasons and been shunned by the powers-that-be. Boise State and TCU had multiple undefeated seasons in the late 2000’s that were rewarded with big bowl games, but neither one were ever considered for the national championship. UCF won 25 straight games from 2017-2018, but the highest they were ever ranked was #7.
This Cincinnati team seemed to be different from the start, and after a perfect 13-0 season that includes one of the most impressive wins in the country at #5 Notre Dame, they have become the first small-conference team to have a shot at a national championship since the championship game was inaugurated.
This is the beauty of college sports: the underdog, the “Cinderella”, the plucky school that had everything against them, being given a chance to win it all against the heavy hitters of the sport. Cincinnati carries the weight of all that have come before them and fallen short on their shoulders, the Boise’s and the TCU’s and the UCF’s, and they’ll carry that banner proudly with a whole nation behind them.
And on New Year’s Eve, 2021, they will play the best that nation has to offer, the top-ranked Crimson Tide of Alabama, for a spot in the national championship.