Jacobs: College football championship still faces challenges

ESPN'S power drives the decisions: the marriage of money and
 television programming.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- When Ohio State and Oregon take the field Monday night in major-college football’s latest version of a championship game, the meeting will be hailed as a landmark moment, the culmination of years of popular advocacy, aspiration and agonizing. Finally, common sense will have prevailed. Satisfaction is mine, saith the horde.

And soon enough, as sure as someone will insist the Ducks are not soft and the Big Ten’s reputation is redeemed, the call will be raised for the College Football Playoff to go forth and multiply, expanding to include eight, not four teams, and seven, not three games.

But before we careen farther – toward more games, more practices, more TV inventory, more coaches’ pay, more revenues for everyone except the players involved – let’s recognize how far we’ve already traveled down the road to excess. For one simple gauge of how far we’ve come, consider that Duke’s spring practice for 2015 starts less than a month after college’s 2014 champion is determined.

You can appreciate college football and still question placing greater demands on the bodies and minds of players, who are supposedly students first. Urban Meyer, the Buckeyes coach, opposes expanding the Playoff. He noted prior to the Sugar Bowl that the length of the college season was positively “NFL-ish.” “I think it’s something we all need to consistently monitor … because the wear and tear on the student-athlete is real,” he said. “It’s never been like this. This is the first time in college football history.”

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