Was college football season derailed by playoff bracket once again?

With what has been a crazy college football season ending in a national title game matchup seen under five years ago, has the greatness of this current run taken a hit?

Most college football fans would agree that this season was a great one. A big reason for this was because of the many new faces that appeared, in regards to both playoff contention and overall relevance. The randomness of the stretch was headlined by a pair of playoff novices, Michigan and Cincinnati (the latter of which isn’t even a Power 5 talent).

However, with the new faces came some familiar ones, teams that have been no strangers to the top-dog mentality: the Georgia Bulldogs and, even more so, the Alabama Crimson Tide. To make matters worse, these two even met up in the national title game just four whopping years ago.

As one could surely imagine, most fans outside of Tuscaloosa and Athens were hoping for some underdog victories. Unfortunately, the semifinal games on New Year’s Eve drug them all back to the disappointing reality.

With each outcome eventually being decided by 21 points or more, the CFB world quickly realized that this season’s national championship was going to be a rematch of the one seen in early 2018. Not only that, but it would also be the rematch of an SEC title game blowout witnessed not even a month prior.

At that moment, the majority of the CFB landscape had to be on its couches thinking, “wow, that really sucks.” And to be completely honest, why wouldn’t it?

Over a span of about four months, the entire nation had just sat back and watched countless upsets, multiple newcomers making noise, and multiple powerhouses crumbling. To go from all of that to a rerun of an SEC beatdown for the natty is a bummer to say the least, yet that’s what the people got.

The conflicting reports surrounding the viewership of the CFP semifinals–especially when compared to that of the Rose Bowl–have been questionable at best, but one stands unrefuted: the Cotton Bowl was easily the lesser-watched of the two playoff battles, despite being the more “competitive” of the pair.

Now there could be several plausible explanations for this. For starters, Cincinnati is a smaller college football power, and with that is bound to come an influence not as far-reaching as its adversary’s (Alabama’s).

There could also have been a good deal of people anticipating a blowout, as one can almost feel the severity of the mismatch when just thinking of the concept of Alabama and Cincy facing one another.

There is another possible reason for the noticeably-lower views, though, and that is the fact that many fans just didn’t want to see Bama wiggle its way into yet another national championship game. It’s boring, repetitive, and less people love it than some media pundits imply.

It would not be surprising at all if the Alabama/Georgia rematch takes a hit in viewership to at least some degree, despite college football being a predominantly-Southern interest. But if it doesn’t, hopefully it will be because the contest was a tad closer than last time.