Paul Finebaum: New 'template' in college football could lead to chaos in 2024

For all the changes in college football over the decade, this upcoming season should be the most different in history. It’s to the degree that not even Paul Finebaum can feel out how it’ll all play out this fall.

Finebaum spoke about all those changes coming together to make a year unlike any we’ve seen before during ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’ on Monday. In response to a question about whether traditional powers will handle it all better or if it’s going to be complete mayhem, he went with the latter just because of how new everything is going to be.

“I think I tend to favor chaos because it’s a new template,” said Finebaum.

For Finebaum, he just doesn’t even know what will end up qualifying a team for their conference championship or a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff. The math is completely new on what will get a team in contention this year in comparison to even last year, which is why he expects to see disorder across the country.

“While you were there, I was out in Oklahoma this weekend in Norman. The questions that I got no longer so much concern, ‘Hey, do you think, once we get into the SEC,'” Finebaum said. ‘How do we make the playoff?’. Everything, as you guys know, is no longer predicated on your conventional, 10-win season. 11 wins, do we need to run the table to get to Atlanta? It’s all a reset.”

“I don’t think any of us know how it’s going to work,” admitted Finebaum. “An Oklahoma fan said, ‘Hey, what if we lost an early game? Then we had Alabama here on the next to the last conference game? If we beat them?’. All of a sudden, I started thinking, ‘Yeah, that would be a pretty important win’. But it’s all a new calculus.”

Programs all over the sport were already going to be much. Coaching shifts, with none bigger than that of Nick Saban, as well as portal movement are usual causes of that. That’s even before the fact that several of the teams themselves moved and will be playing in new conferences.

Then, from there, both conference and national races will look dissimilar than from before. In leagues, some key divisions are going away with teams all coming together in one group. They’ll go from there into a playoff hunt that’s going from four bids to a dozen.

Whether you think it’s for better or for worse, 2024 will look unlike from any other season in college football that we’ve seen in recent memory, if not ever. That’s why it’s anyone’s guess, including Finebaum’s, as to how it could all come about come kickoff.