5 Observations from the First Round of Home CFP Games

The first edition of the 12-team CFB Playoff is here, and the new-look CFP is producing some WILD takes. While I appreciate the online dialogue between angry college football fans, there are a few lessons learned from this experience that will matter moving forward, and a few others that require some patience.

Homefield Advantage is Awesome, and it Really Matters in the CFP

From the snow on the ground outside of Notre Dame Stadium to the White Out in Happy Valley, it’s about damn time we got those visuals in postseason college football. Those scenes are why we love this sport, and yet they have never existed in postseason play. That’s stupid.

The home teams absolutely blitzed their foes. All four home teams won by double-digits. They were favored by a combined 38 points and won by 77. Indiana kept it the closest with a 10-point loss, and that was only because of a couple of late scores and an onside kick recovery.

As much as we wanted to bet the underdog to rip out the hearts of fans in home stadiums, that’s not how sports work. Only three SEC teams had a winning record on the road this year. The NFL playoffs are typically one-sided for the home teams in the early rounds as well. In the divisional round between 2011 and 2020, the home team won 31 of the 40 games (77.5% of the time).

Blowouts aren’t new to the CFP

Save your hottest takes on who should be in or out and let me share the following stat with you. In the CFP era, 24 of the 34 games have been decided by double digits. Whether it’s four teams are 12, some of the scores are staggering. Why?

Haves vs. Have-Nots

The CFP has given the sport of college football a facade of openness. There is now an avenue to a championship for some teams that previously never existed. It isn’t a beautiful yellow-brick road.

College football hasn’t crowned a first-time national champion since Steve Spurrier won at Florida in 1996. That’s not changing any time soon.

There will be hot takes and hand-wringing over conference strength in the coming days, but that’s not the divide. It’s the Haves vs. the Have-Nots. In any given year, there are about six teams that can win a title, and that even might be a stretch. They are playing a different sport than the rest of college football.

It was most evident in Ohio State vs. Tennessee. The Vols were one of the better SEC teams all year who had a schedule that set them up to be in the 12-team bracket, but they are clearly a notch below the Georgias, Texases, and Ohio States of the sport.

There will come a time when a Have-Not plays over its head for a game and beats a Have, but just because we have an expanded CFP, doesn’t mean that there are more teams who can win a title.

I don’t want to start a conference fight, BUT…

… ACC football is trash. If the middle of the Big Ten and SEC are playing JV compared to the varsity at the top of the leagues, the ACC is still playing flag football. Clemson is a shell of itself, but they at least know what real football looks like. The rest of that league plays a wide-open style that might be fun in the regular season, but doesn’t stand a chance in the postseason. Play bully ball and watch teams from that league fold like a broken lawn chair.

Loved the TNT Broadcasts

Not gonna lie, I was worried when we learned that Turner bought the rights for a couple of opening-round games. As much as I wanted to hear Charles Barkley call Texas women fat on a broadcast, how was this network going to handle a sport it doesn’t regularly cover?

Unlike anything I’ve ever seen in sports media, they took the entire ESPN production, swapped out the logos, and threw it on their network. It was genius. You had the same graphics, same broadcasters, and most importantly, the same excellent technical team behind the scenes. You don’t appreciate all of the camera angles until they aren’t there when you need them for a replay.

The broadcasts were solid, even if the games weren’t close. At least we got fun moments like this:

pic.twitter.com/8nU5CMgoOd

— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) December 21, 2024

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