Enticing battle of future Big Ten foes awaits in College Football Playoff championship

Over the last decade, we’ve become accustomed to the College Football Playoff title game possessing a distinctly Southern feel.

If it wasn’t SEC juggernauts like Alabama, Georgia or LSU, it was the ACC’s Clemson at the peak of its powers. Southern teams were close to cornering the market on national championship game participants. 

Not this year.

In the last-ever four-team tournament, here comes something completely different: Washington vs. Michigan for the national title.

Welcome to the new Big Ten Conference. 

Tony Petitti’s conference is a big winner – as are the three networks (Fox, CBS and NBC) – that paid a boatload of money ($7 billion) for the Big Ten’s media rights package and over the summer greased the skids for the league to add Oregon and Washington.

CFP viewership numbers should be huge

Expect viewership numbers for the semifinals on ESPN to be massive. The question is: Will Alabama-Michigan eclipse the 28.3 million that watched Ohio State-Alabama – the biggest number for a College Football Playoff semifinal – during the event’s first season in January 2015?

And if Monday’s title game in Houston is competitive, expect robust viewership for a matchup of two schools who will next play as conference opponents Oct. 5 in Seattle.

When the two Pacific Northwest schools hopped aboard, the Big Ten knew it was getting two national brands and solidifying its footprint up and down the West Coast. But now it will be getting a school in Washington that is fresh off a national championship appearance. 

You’d have to go back to the first College Football Playoff final in January 2015 – Ohio State 42, Oregon 20 – for the most recent championship game between two schools from Northern states. What a delicious contrast in styles we’ll see Monday in Houston – Michigan’s physical, blocking and tackling clinic against Michael Penix Jr.’s aerial circus.

Washington excels in close games

Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. was the best player in either semifinal.

He looked like a current NFL quarterback, with precision passing both captivating and incredibly entertaining. Penix Jr. threw for 430 yards, the fourth-most for a CFP game. 

Whether it was in the two victories over Oregon, or a host of other narrow victories, Washington (14-0) was must-see TV all season. It competed in what was widely viewed as the nation’s strongest conference, a league that staged an impressive farewell tour before all but two schools scatter for other power leagues.

Given the league’s strength, it should be no surprise that Washington’s margin of victory has not eclipsed seven points in any of its last five games.

How Michigan’s grind-it-out style keeps pace will make for compelling TV Monday. But the game will be hard-pressed to match the drama that unfolded in the breathtaking semifinals.

The CFP semifinals have been defined by far too many blowouts. But not Monday night, which marked the first time that the semifinals were both decided on the final play.

Between the play of Penix Jr. and the intoxicatingly taut chess game between Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh, this was the best version of the product that college football can offer on the field.

It made you forget about an Orange Bowl that will simply be remembered as 63-3, as well as all the lackluster bowl games, scores of player opt-outs and coaches’ consternation over the transfer portal.

Alabama-Michigan was a game for ages

The 12-team playoff that arrives next year should deliver some more competitive games – for instance, Georgia and Oregon could have competed with anyone this year – even if it may not annually reward us with an Alabama-Michigan overtime epic.

What we watched Monday night underscores why the expanded 12-team tournament could deliver the most lucrative media rights package (perhaps $2 billion annually) in history. For the next two years, ESPN has the rights to the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, as well as first dibs on the first-round games.

But a host of usual broadcast partner suspects, as well as streaming Big Tech giants, are in the mix for a slice of the long-term CFP media rights package – and for good reason.

Alabama-Michigan was a game for the ages.

This was the game’s two most recognizable coaches – including arguably the sport’s greatest ever in Saban – engaged in a low-scoring, momentum-swinging duel against the backdrop of the Rose Bowl and the idyllic San Gabriel Mountains.

College Football Playoff final is must see TV

Hard to top that. Expect viewership numbers to reflect the broad appeal of the two schools as well as the quality of the game.

In the four semifinals the previous two years, viewership ranged from a low of 16.6 million for Alabama-Cincinnati in 2021 to a high of 22.5 million for Georgia-Ohio State last season. 

The low water mark for a CFP semifinal was 15.6 million for a New Year’s Eve game – which traditionally yield lower viewership – between Clemson and Oklahoma on Dec. 31, 2015. No CFP semifinal has garnered such a modest – relatively speaking – number and it stood out in stark contrast to the viewership numbers for the first installment of the playoff the previous year: 28.2 million for Florida State–Oregon and 28.3 million for Ohio State-Alabama, two games played on New Year’s Day. 

We don’t need to look back too far for the least-watched CFP title game. Some 17.2 million watched Georgia destroy TCU, 65-7, last year in the least-watched college football national championship on record, according to Sports Media Watch.

Even with no SEC teams on the field in Houston, Monday night’s championship matchup has all the ingredients for a fitting season finale – appointment viewing in the final installment of the four-team CFP.