College Football is back! Around the country, college campuses will be flooded with fans welcoming the return of football season. College football is beloved because of the great atmosphere outside and inside the stadium through tailgating, marching bands, and cheerleaders. College football is celebrated because of the iconic upsets, and every game is a playoff game mentality. The 2024 season promises to be another exciting edition of college football. In this article, we will discuss three things to watch in this college football season.
1. Longest playoff format- before 2014, College Football descended into chaos in determining the best two teams in the country to contest the National Championship Game. However, in that year, the decision was made to institute a 4-team playoff tournament to determine the national champion. The format has worked in providing equal opportunity, especially for smaller schools that had perfect seasons and still struggled to convince voters that they should be in consideration for the national title. Still, there were complaints that some top teams missed the College Football playoffs after losing just one game all season. The resolution to this issue will begin this season with the institution of a 12-team College playoff format. It means that the race for the 12 spots has the potential to be more exciting, and a bigger pool provides a path for small schools to climb to the top of the sport. It will be an interesting battle for the right to be called national champions.
2. Conference Shakeup-College Football will look different in 2024 because teams will play in a different conference for the first time. The Pac-12 has been dismantled, leaving only the Oregon State Beavers and the Washington State Cougars as the remaining schools in the conference. It means Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado will now be playing in the Big 12 while Oregon, USC, UCLA, and Washington have moved into the Big-10 Conference. Other big schools on the move include Cal and Stanford to the ACC, while the SEC fortifies itself by adding Texas and Oklahoma. If you had trouble keeping up, imagine what it will feel like for fans of these teams and having to travel across the country to play teams in their Conference. College football will be interesting in 2024 because conference realignment will shake things up for better or worse.
3. Rivalries Renewed-despite the realignment in College Football, we will still benefit from the classic matchup of old rivals. For instance, we look forward to watching matchups such as Clemson vs Georgia, Iowa at Minnesota, Michigan State at Michigan, Michigan at Ohio State, and Auburn at Alabama. We still see matchups like Arizona and Arizona State in the Big 12, as well as the Red River rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma in the SEC. Texas’s shift to the SEC also means a return to a classic rivalry with Arkansas and Texas. Yes, the possibilities are endless in 2024.
Prediction: I have Georgia winning the SEC, and the National Championship as the most dominant team in College Football.