PLAYOFF STUCK IN RUT

Can new blood break through blockade dominated by Tide, Tigers?

College football fully kicks off its 2019 season with anticipation – but also a sense of inevitability.

Seemingly everybody’s goal is to reach the College Football Playoff, which has become the prism through which the delightfully quirky sport is viewed. But very few teams have realistic hopes of getting into the four-team bracket – and never mind four, college football remains dominated by two programs.

It seems very likely we’re headed for yet another showdown between Clemson and Alabama, the prohibitive favorites who have alternated wins after meeting in the playoff the past four seasons.

Maybe Oklahoma finally begins to stop opponents. Or with a new coach and quarterback, Ohio State finds the best version of itself again. Or Georgia finally figures out how to hold a lead against Alabama. And if any or all of those things happen – so what?

Those teams, which along with Clemson and Alabama occupy the top

five slots in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll, have combined to fill 15 of the 20 available berths in the first five years of the playoff. Never mind the Power Five conferences; college football has come to be dominated by a Powerful Five.

Could an outsider crack the code and find its way into the bracket? And beyond getting in, is there potential for a legitimate title contender from beyond the usual suspects?

Here’s looking at you, LSU. We’re hoping for something from you, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan. Perhaps Notre Dame can go unbeaten again. Or maybe Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger was correct when, after beating Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, he pronounced of the Longhorns: “We’re ba-a-a-ack!”

But it seems far more likely that we’re all headed back to Tide-Tigers V, either in a playoff semifinal (the Fiesta or Peach bowls) or Jan. 13 in New Orleans.

Since 2009, Alabama has won five national championships. Clemson has won two of the last three. After Ohio State beat Oregon to win it all in the first year of the playoff, ’Bama and Clemson have traded the trophy every year. They’re the prohibitive favorites to do it again.

“Clearly, Alabama and Clemson have separated themselves,” outgoing Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told reporters in July, “and they have deserved everything that they’ve earned in the last couple years.”

Meanwhile, out on the West Coast, they’re pulling hard for No. 13 Oregon. The Ducks open their season Saturday against No. 16 Auburn in a game that has taken on larger meaning (perhaps too much, but the sport relies heavily on perception). Never mind Oregon’s hopes of returning to national relevance; a win might be essential if the Pac-12 wants any of its teams to be taken seriously in the playoff chase.

“It’s a big game,” says Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, who’s among the preseason favorites to win the Heisman Trophy – and maybe to become the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL draft. “It’s a Pac-12 versus SEC matchup. It’s a chance to represent the Pac-12 in a good way. It’s a great test and a great opportunity for us.”

Oregon coach Mario Cristobal says he doesn’t mind “the noise,” as he puts it, surrounding the matchup: “There’s always gonna be the argument about this conference versus that conference.”

And until the playoff expands to eight teams – which is not imminent – there’s always going to be an argument about how teams should be chosen.

“A four-team playoff has worked, is working and will continue to work,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey says. “That’s my view.”

That appears to be the consensus view of college football’s other powerbrokers as well. While expansion seems inevitable, for the foreseeable future, at least, we’re stuck at four.

But does it always have to be the same four? And does the season have to feel like an inexorable march toward Clemson-’Bama, ad infinitum?

Much of college football’s charm lies in its randomness. We are riveted by a spectacle that is sometimes good, sometimes bad and oftentimes incredibly zany. It would be good if the postseason featured something similar, with unlikely participants generating unpredictable results.

Instead, it seems almost impossible to engineer the delicious scenario where a Group of Five team gets into the bracket. Central Florida can claim another national championship if it goes unbeaten, but it won’t have the opportunity to play for the real one.

Never mind some Power Five team coming from off the radar, either. The current state of college football is such that a program like Michigan, with the most victories in the history of the sport, is considered an “outsider.” And so is this traditional power.

“We got a taste of what it’s like to be in the playoff,” says Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly, referring to last year – when the Irish went 12-0 in the regular season, then lost to Clemson 30-3 in a semifinal. “I want to win the darn thing.”

“A four-team playoff has worked, is working and will continue to work” Greg Sankey, SEC commissioner