Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. on final moments of national title game
The national championship between Florida and Houston ended with a chaotic final play and Walter Clayton Jr. describes it.
Sports Pulse
- March Madness just does not miss. In contrast, college football supplies maybe the best regular season in all of sports, but its playoff often falls flat.
- College Football Playoff cannot match NCAA Tournament’s pacing.
- The 3-point shot offers basketball underdogs an equalizer that football cannot replicate.
March Madness just does not miss.
This year’s tournament served fewer upsets but made up for it with an epic Final Four. Both semifinals were high-stakes thrillers featuring second-half comebacks, and though the championship game looked ugly at times, it came down to the buzzer.
The 68-team tournament provided another reminder that this annually stands as one of the best postseason events in all of sports – not just college sports.
In contrast, college football supplies maybe the best regular season in sports, but its postseason often falls flat. Even College Football Playoff expansion didn’t totally solve the lackluster postseason finish. The CFP’s first-round games were blowouts. So, too, were a pair of quarterfinal games.
Can college football’s postseason ever match the drama of March Madness?
That’s the topic on this edition of “SEC Football Unfiltered,” a podcast from the USA TODAY Network. Hosts Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams argue that while college football will maintain an advantage on college basketball’s regular season, it’s unlikely to ever produce a postseason that mimics the thrills of March Madness.
Why College Football Playoff struggles to replicate March Madness:
∎ A player from an underdog “getting hot” can only influence a game so much in football. Remember what Oakland’s Jack Gohlke did to Kentucky in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament? Big Blue Nation won’t soon forget – as much as they’d like to. Gohlke, a 24-year-old Division II transfer who came off the bench for Oakland, caught fire and drained 10 3-pointers in an upset of No. 3 Kentucky. It’s hard for a single player from a football underdog to influence a CFP game that much.
∎ Football offers no equalizer so great as basketball’s 3-pointer. The 3-point shot buoy’s an underdog’s chance for an NCAA Tournament upset. What’s the football equivalent of getting hot from 3-point range? A barrage of turnovers? Sure, that can happen, but not as easily as a mid-major getting hot from beyond the arc.
∎ The pacing of the NCAA Tournament cannot be matched in football. In March Madness, teams repeatedly play two games in a three-day span. That keeps the action coming at you hot and heavy. The tournament never strays far from our attention, from start to finish. Excluding play-in games, March Madness packs 63 games into a 19-day span. The national championship game occurs 48 hours after the semifinals. Such a barrage simply cannot happen in football, given the sport’s physical nature and need for recovery. Plus, the NFL Playoffs create scheduling conflicts for the CFP, whereas the NCAA Tournament follows a Thursday through Sunday rhythm that’s perfect for TV audiences throughout its first two weeks, followed by a Saturday primetime Final Four.
∎ March Madness doesn’t count on every game being good. It doesn’t need 63 buzzer-beaters, due to the abundance of games. Consider, the first round features 16 games on Thursday and 16 more on Friday. The games are split into four blocks of four. If one game is a blowout, simply flip the channel to another. In the football playoff, if one game is a blowout, you’re stuck for hours until the next game, or even the next day. The staggering of games in the CFP playoff makes blowouts more insufferable.
∎ Final verdict: College football’s regular season is fantastic, and an expanded playoff further enhanced the season’s drama. Enjoy it, then hope for more good games than blowouts in the playoff, while understanding the CFP can never match the unpredictability, upsets, buzzer-beaters and pacing of March Madness.
Also in this episode
∎ The hosts grade this March Madness, and they each provide the moment they’ll remember most from this year’s tournament.
Where to listen to SEC Football Unfiltered
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. John Adams is the senior sports columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. Subscribe to the SEC Football Unfiltered podcast, and check out the SEC Unfiltered newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
