College football will waste its time this weekend with the relic that is “Conference Championship Weekend” because the powers that be in the sport are old and unimaginative.

To call Saturday an exercise in nonsense and futility doesn’t even describe the inanity of it. It makes no sense. None. Not competitively. Not in terms of entertainment. Not even in generating revenue.

The only reason this is even accepted is that college football fans suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and gladly accept the insanity that’s been repeatedly sold to them.

Start with this very simple lesson: You don’t need to expand the current College Football Playoff. You just need to reform the postseason into something that looks like it was designed by someone with a functioning brain.

In actuality, conference championship weekend – this weekend – is Week One of the college football playoff. That’s the key deal here. Week One.

College football has chosen conference championship weekend as the de facto first round of its playoff. Doing so means that, with justification, it can argue against playoff expansion because it would mean there are too many games for the players.

But what if they scrapped the conference championships and, instead, started an eight-team playoff this weekend?

This is the slate of games (rankings are projected) for the “opening round” of the current postseason:

No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Georgia: Alabama only has to not lose by, say, 50 points and they advance. Georgia either has to win, or maybe just lose by a couple points, to advance.

No. 2 Clemson vs. No. 22 Pitt: Clemson just has to not lose by more than, say, 21 points and they advance. Pitt can’t advance.

No. 3 Notre Dame. Idle. They advance.

No. 5 Oklahoma vs. No. 13 Texas: Oklahoma needs to win, Georgia needs to lose and then they need to win a debate with Ohio State (or have Ohio State lose) to advance. Texas can’t advance.

No. 6 Ohio State vs. No. 18 Northwestern: Ohio State needs to win, Georgia to lose and then they need to win a debate with Oklahoma (or have Oklahoma lose) to advance. Northwestern can’t advance.

No. 7 UCF vs. unranked Memphis: Game is meaningless.

No. 13 Washington vs. No. 16 Utah: Game is meaningless.

Alabama likely just needs to show up Saturday against Georgia to guarantee itself a spot in the College Football Playoff. (Getty) More

If the conference championships were scrapped, here’s what we could have instead, using five automatic bids for the major conferences, three at-large bids and home sites for the first round:

No. 8 Washington at No. 1 Alabama, yes, in Tuscaloosa.

No. 7 UCF at No. 2 Clemson, yes, in Clemson.

No. 6 Ohio State at No. 3 Notre Dame, yes, in South Bend.

No. 5 Oklahoma at No. 4 Georgia, yes, between the hedges.

Which set of games would you choose to be the first round of your postseason/playoff? This is not a trick question.

If you answer the former over the latter, you’re either a bowl director terrified of the playoff being staged in electric and historic on-campus stadiums (while generating economic activity for the towns that support the sport all year long) because people might realize there’s no need to give the bowls the semifinals, either, or you’re an asleep-at-the-wheel conference commissioner.

You can have eight teams with legitimate claims for a playoff spot play each other, or you can have Clemson vs. Pitt.

And forget that we have to determine who won the conferences. There is only one (sort of) conference championship that is in doubt heading into “conference championship weekend.” One.

Alabama won the SEC. Clemson won the ACC. Oklahoma won the Big 12. Washington won the Pac 12. There is no debate here. Check the records. It was settled on the field.

Technically, Ohio State and Northwestern are both tied in the Big Ten with 8-1 league records, but this is a product of severe scheduling imbalance based on geography. It’s map-based welfare. Northwestern lost all three of its non-conference games, including to Akron. It played a weaker schedule. There are 100 ways to break such a tie. Ohio State would win them all. This isn’t hard.

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