It is Week 4 of the 2020 college football season and finally fans will get to watch the SEC. The Big Ten has yet to play a game, and the Pac-12 can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether or not there will be a 2020 season. The big question on college football fan’s minds is will there be a CFP National Championship this season?
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With all of the craziness that is the 2020 college football season, there is a looming question that has yet to be answered. Will there be a College Football Playoff national championship this year?
Understanding Eligibility
In a normal year, FBS teams must win at least seven games in order to be eligible for a bowl game. Teams being considered for the CFP will always have seven wins and then some.
Most CFP participants are teams that win their conference championship. To do so in a normal year usually requires winning 12 to 13 games.
In 2020, teams will not play a normal 12-game regular season. When the Big Ten resumes play in late October, teams will play eight scheduled games. The East and West Division champions will meet in the final week of play for the conference championship, a ninth game. The rest of the conference will also play a ninth game, to be determined, that week.
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The SEC will play a 10-game, conference-only schedule. The ACC will play 11 games while the Big 12 will play 10.
The first question that will need answered is the number of games a team must win to be eligible for the postseason? Will that number be the same for all teams?
Disparity of Schedules
One of the big problems with the CFP this year will be making sense of the differences in schedules. The coronavirus pandemic could further wreak havoc on the playoff system.
There have been some games cancelled or postponed already. How will the CFP committee make sense of a situation like this. If Team A went 10-1 and won the ACC, and Team B went 6-2 and won the SEC.
Maybe Team B had games cancelled because of the virus. Team A is Clemson, but Team B is an Alabama team that lost to Georgia and Tennessee, but won all its SEC West games and the conference title game.
Could the 6-2 team get in the CFP over the 10-1 team? What about the Big Ten where there will only be nine games? What if a team wins the conference but, because of COVID, finishes 6-0? It really causes concern for the CFP National Championship.
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Legitimacy
One of the questions surrounding a potential CFP at the end of this season concerns the legitimacy of the champion. If the Pac-12 doesn’t play in 2020, is there really a national champion?
A better question is probably related to the virus, cancelled games, and teams that had players opt out of the season. In six years of the CFP, the Pac-12 has had exactly one – Washington in 2016 – participant.
Many coaches, including Georgia’s Kirby Smart, believe whoever wins the CFP this year is absolutely legitimate. Consider what an eventual champion will accomplish. What do NCAAF bettors think about that one? Tell us below.
CFP National Championship Champs
A potential 2020 national champ would likely do so without the luxury of spring practice. A title team would not have had the regular offseason, on-campus experience beginning in June.
A champion will also have not had a typical preseason training camp. A team emerging from the SEC will have played not nine conference games as is usual, but ten in 2020.
With all of the adversity college football teams will face, it seems that the champion would most certainly be legitimate. All this does make you ask the question, will there be a CFP National Championship this season?
The CFP national semifinals are scheduled for January 1, 2021. The national championship game is scheduled to be played on Monday, January 11, 2021, at Hard Rock Stadium in Florida.