COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS MAGNIFICENT, SO DON’T BLOW IT WITH A “SUPER LEAGUE”

Five of America’s top 11 teams, including Alabama and Tennessee, were harpooned on a day that reminds the SEC and Big Ten bosses to shun an ultra-selfish system based on amassing (all) national seeds

     What happened last week in the greedy gyration that never ends? The bloodthirsty men who run the SEC and Big Ten were entrenched with Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns, who somehow rescued Deshaun Watson from the football death he deserves. What are they doing to college football in the inaugural season of a 12-team national tournament?

     They’re trying to waylay it, stunningly. Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti, in tandem with Haslam, are aching to create a “Super League” that rewards the top 72 programs and overloads the postseason affair with, oh, nine or 10 or even 12 of their own seeds. Appoint six from the SEC, six from the Big Ten.

     You know the names of those teams.

     Trash the rest.

     Which makes us ask if Vanderbilt, which won the 1955 Gator Bowl to finish its best-ever modern season at 8-3, wondered about the proposed system as crazy fans carried a goalpost through Nashville and dumped it in the Cumberland River? The Commodores never would be seeded. They almost look duped in the “Midsouth” grouping of a dozen, six-team divisions. Didn’t Jay Cutler once play quarterback there? They are listed with five superior outfits, including …

     Alabama, the team they knocked out of the No. 1 ranking Saturday night.

     Might we ignore the relentless, cheesy goal of the two commissioners when their top seeds keep losing? Can we enjoy the revised format for one season, please? The Crimson Tide knocked off Georgia last weekend, then were outplayed by a team that had been 0-60 against top-five Associated Press teams. Losing coach Kalen DeBoer, who’d been sizzling after a major victory, was described online after a 40-35 loss as DeBoar. As in Boar’s Head, which isn’t safe to eat at deli stands.

     How about Arkansas, which beat No. 4 Tennessee?

     And Texas A&M, which crushed No. 9 Missouri?

     And Washington, which outlasted No. 10 Michigan?

     And Minnesota, which whipped No. 11 USC?

     Hell, No. 8 Miami needed three touchdowns from Cam Ward — in the final 10 1/2 minutes — to overcome a 20-point deficit against California.

     Why don’t we pick more defeats for the rest of the “best”? Georgia and Alabama have lost. LSU and Ole Miss have lost. USC lost twice. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois. Texas will lose to Oklahoma. Ohio State will lose to Oregon, which will lose to Illinois. Penn State will lose to Wisconsin. Then everyone will have a loss except Navy, which is 5-0 and did qualify for the Super League, and Army, which is 5-0 but only is allowed to “play up every season” from a Group of 8 conference of 64 schools.

     Maybe Haslam, a member of the College Sports Tomorrow revolution, can explain himself while the rest of suffer vertigo. Remember: He’s an ardent supporter of those Tennessee Volunteers, who raised ticket prices so fans make NIL payments to athletes. With commissioners making their desires known, he is on the committee with athletic directors, school presidents, and, of all people, U.S. basketball ringleader Grant Hill. 

     “Historically, the beauty of college football has been how many schools around the country were competing for the championship,” said Haslam, who helped design the Super League. “We need to bring college football back to the broad, national model of its golden years in a system which fosters more competitive balance. We realize this is dramatic change. I do think it’s the most comprehensive thing out there.”

     Um, why not leave the sport alone and let kids have fun as weekends bring massive joy? I’d rather hear from Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea, who watched quarterback Diego Pavia outplay Jalen Milroe. “This is the dream, right here,” he said. “And for the next 12 hours, I'm going to enjoy the dream. We've got more ahead of us, but this is what Vanderbilt football needs to be about: big wins on big stages. We're going to go get some more.”

     Said DeBoer, already in bad territory as Nick Saban scowls: “We're going to find out really how much we care about each other and what it looks like moving forward. We've been tested in different ways, really, a lot of the games here this season, and this is a different type of test now in our response.”

     “We never want to feel this again,” Alabama linebacker Deontae Lawson said.

     Or how about Arkansas coach Sam Pittman: “You get into coaching for moments like what just happened. It’s to see kids and the smiles on their faces and the hard work that they do, because a lot of teams can't get to that feeling. We did tonight."

     Maybe Haslam can shun the absurdity of his so-called “national model.” Maybe he should study Saturday’s events and sit down with Josh Heupel, who doesn’t know what transpired in Fayetteville. “When moments like this happen, the outside world's going to have a narrative for you. We talk about it when it's going good, and tonight it didn't go good,” the Tennessee coach said. "You've got to look your teammates in the eye. Those are the opinions that matter. You have to continue to pull the rope harder. We've got to continue to grow.”

     No one wants to see seeds formulated by a predisposed system. We want to see historic upsets, all season. The Super League saves Alabama and buries Vanderbilt.

     I’d much rather hear Pavia say, “Games like this change your life.”

     Go home, commissioners. Count your billions. And smile as lives change.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.