What Everyone Is Missing About the College Football Playoff

The first 12 -team College Football Playoff had four chances to produce a competitive first -round game.

Bob Greene : Notre Dame destroyed Indiana , Penn State snatched SMU ’s soul, Texas beat Clemson , Ohio State .

Greene: College football is a sport of dud games, all the time, at all levels.

He says the playoff was never about giving 12 teams a chance to win the national title, something no system can do because the sport never has 12 teams capable of that.

Greene says the fun of the NCAA basketball tournament's first round is the occasional huge upset.

Hand-wringing over four lopsided games betrays a misunderstanding or forgetfulness about how college football works.

The average margin of defeat in the four -team playoff was 18.6 points.

Even when playoff games were exclusively at neutral sites and limited to top-four teams, blowouts were frequent.