Paul Finebaum highlights how College Football Playoff has negated regular season, SEC Championship

Paul Finebaum believes the recent changes to the College Football Playoff have made conference championships less significant. The field expanded from four teams to 12 this past season, marking yet another significant shift in the sport.

The top four conference champions all receive an automatic bid to the playoff, so one might argue that some importance still lies within the game. But Finebaum argued that when the season is over, a conference title doesn’t matter if you failed to win in the CFP. He pointed to Georgia, which won the SEC Championship but lost in the quarterfinals of the playoff, as an example.

“I was talking to Kirby Smart and I was trying to make a point about some caller who asked me what was wrong with Georgia,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “I made the point to Kirby that I said, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad. They did win the SEC Championship.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Well, you seem to have forgotten that too.’ It’s a double-edged dancer.

“…Unfortunately, the CFP is so big now and so important that it has negated what I thought was sacrosanct and that is the SEC Championship. It used to be the mantra at the beginning of the year. ‘We’re not trying to win anything other than the SEC Championship.’ And I sincerely doubt many Georgia fans or players felt all that great when they were packing up from the dome on Jan. 1 after losing to Notre Dame and they told their parents, their friends and their girlfriends, ‘Hey, we’re still SEC champions.’ It’s been diluted as much as I hate that.”

In the past, winning a conference title did not mean the right to compete for a national title. So some teams who knew they would not make the playoff were simply happy to compete for that goal. But now, Paul Finebaum argues, the games that follow are more important.

He pointed to Texas, the runner-up in the SEC title game to Georgia. The Longhorns advanced to the semifinals of the CFP and he said he didn’t notice any fans complaining about the conference championship loss after the season.

“Listen, I’m a purist and a traditionalist and I’m as old school as you can get in today’s media, but as much as we love that game and it’s been celebrated and the memories from there are enough to fill 10 30 for 30s, the problem is that there’s something more important to play for the next week,” the SEC Network analyst said. “If you go out the next week and lose an opening round game, that SEC Championship game won’t carry very far. Clemson is proud to have won the ACC. Why? Because it got them in the CFP. If that’s what the case is, it’s more important.

“But last year, you had the two best teams playing again. When it was over, it was a big win for Georgia because I think it gave them the first round bye. But Texas also wasn’t in that bad of shape. They got to go home and play, some would say, inferior teams. I think it’s a debate that goes on and on, but as much as we all love it, I don’t think we’re going to be able to defend it much longer.”

We’re still early in this new era of the playoff and college football at large. But based on what he witnessed this past season, Finebaum can already see the ways it’s changing an aspect of the game that many hold dear.