College Football 2018: 5 takeaways from Conference Championship Week

1. Should divisions be 86’d?

After two games in particular on Saturday, it became apparent that perhaps, some conferences should do away with divisions. So far, the Big 12 –– which was the last of the Power 5 conferences to create a championship game –– doesn’t have separate divisions.

Instead, they should implement a system where the top two teams (by conference record) qualify for the conference championship game. This would eliminate the potential for a one-sided conference championship game.

This realization might have been made more apparent on Saturday when Clemson picked apart Pittsburgh in a decisive 42-10 victory. Clemson quite literally didn’t even need to score in the second half as it held the Panthers off the board for the final 30 minutes of play.

In the Big Ten Championship Game, a similar result transpired as Ohio State defeated Northwestern by a significant margin of victory.

In both cases, the much weaker team (Pittsburgh and Northwestern) reached their respective championship games because they won the necessary games in conference play.

Overall, however, Northwestern entered Saturday as a four-loss team while Pittsburgh came in as a five-loss team.

These lopsided affairs call into question whether or not it is worth it to have divisions in Power 5 conferences. Even if a team plays an out-of-division but in-conference opponent, that game still counts towards a team’s conference record.

By eliminating divisions, conferences would have truer championship game matchups that feature the two best teams overall, not just the top team from each division.

For example, if the Big Ten didn’t have divisions, Ohio State could have faced rival Michigan for a second straight week.

The potential for the two best teams in each conference playing for a conference title would make the final game before bowl season much more exciting. It could also potentially play a more significant role in determining what the annual playoff field shapes out to be.