Domination the talk of college football

Now the college football country settles in for another week of yakking about whether college football might be in some sort of existential trouble.

It’s going to be fun — or not. Can a national sport thrive indefinitely if all of its titles keep getting shoveled toward one corner of a vast country and if the same teams from the Southeast keep showing up on the big stage?

Maybe it can, if the people keep watching. They certainly sustain bowl games between 6-6 teams, even if that’s only through plopping deeply into the couch with the digestive onslaught of some holiday meal.

So here comes Alabama vs. Georgia again, and here comes the discussion, which might venture into irrationality on occasion, long a delight to all of us who have spent life addled with college football. The talk might venture into topics such as sociology and money — you know, the kinds of things people seek out sports to escape.

What’s not debatable is that, for a sport that spent a long history rich in geographic variety, such variety isn’t the spice at the moment. It isn’t even present. It got left in a past now crawling with tumbleweeds, a past when titles would come to the Nebraska plains, to the middle of Pennsylvania, to just below downtown Los Angeles, maybe even up to the Pacific Northwest and the tailgating boats competing for primo spots off Lake Washington.

Now it’s 2022, when this Alabama-Georgia championship game differs from that other Alabama-Georgia championship game, which happened in January 2018 but also differs, of course, from the Alabama-Clemson championship game of January 2016, the Alabama-Clemson championship game of January 2017 or the Alabama-Clemson championship game of January 2019.

Those games differ from January 2020, when there came a splash of variety: a Clemson-LSU championship game, which meant there were actually a whole three states between the contestants.

The first College Football Playoff championship game, in January 2015, pitted Ohio State against Oregon. It seemed fresh and bright, not to mention a resurgence of the Big Ten to counter the crowing of the SEC.

Well, it was some funky outlier. Of the 14 finalist slots since then, 13 have gone to teams from the Southeast, including nine to the SEC (with the other four to Clemson). Of the 20 wins available in College Football Playoff games since then, 19 have gone to teams from the Southeast and 13 to the SEC (with the other six to Clemson). Of the seven national titles available since then and through this coming Jan. 10, all will have gone to teams from the Southeast, five to the SEC (with the other two to Clemson).

The whole premise drove itself farther into the earth with Georgia’s 34-11 romp through Michigan in the Orange Bowl national semifinal on New Year’s Eve. It had seemed that Michigan, which had just manhandled Ohio State and Iowa, might prove incapable of getting pushed around with its Hercules of an offensive line and its scary scrimmage trespassers David Ojabo and Aidan Hutchinson.

Well, it didn’t really get pushed around per se. The pushing went both ways, but the pushing didn’t matter as much as the pushing and the running did. Everywhere Michigan went, it seemed Georgians turned up sooner than all of Michigan’s other opponents would have turned up. Everywhere Michigan tried to defend, it seemed Georgians arrived at open spaces sooner than Michigan seemed accustomed. Michigan looked as if it had run across something that moved faster than it comprehended.

The whole thing looked like a ratification of a chasm.

Erick All, the Michigan tight end who made one of the biggest plays of the year with his touchdown romp up the sideline at Penn State, noted the truth. “The margin of error is really low,” he said. “We found that out today.”

Errors glared more than errors usually would because they just weren’t affordable.

“A lot of those guys will be playing on Sundays,” Michigan offensive lineman Andrew Vastardis said.

Now, here’s this: In the 2022 ranking of that crucial variable of American happiness — football recruiting — Alabama stands No. 2 and Georgia No. 3, per Rivals. com. That follows on 2021, when Alabama finished No. 1 and Georgia No. 5; on 2020, when Georgia finished No. 1 and Alabama No. 3; on 2019, when Georgia finished No. 1 and Alabama No. 2; on 2018, when Georgia finished No. 1 and Alabama No. 7; and on 2017, when Alabama finished No. 1 and Georgia finished No. 3. They get recruits, so they win, so they get recruits.

It can make you wonder something: What the hell happened to Alabama in 2018?

Beyond that, it can make you wonder just how many Alabama-Georgia title bouts we have coming. Georgia Coach Kirby Smart is just getting going at 46; Alabama Coach Nick Saban always looks like he’s just getting going at 70.

How long might the dance persist, the one where the Southeast plays football better than all the other regions, the fans crow about it, the pundits note it, the fans from other regions seethe over it and then the Southeast plays football better than all the other regions?