The CFP committee has a mystery criteria is killing marquee nonconference games, and USC–Notre Dame is just the start. Fans deserve real answers, not vibes.
If you’ve been feeling like college football is slowly turning into “schedule safe, pray later,” you’re not crazy. The College Football Playoff committee has created a world where the smartest move for a lot of programs is to duck risk, stack wins, and let the brand names fight it out in a closed room.
And now we’re seeing the consequences: big-time games getting canceled, rivalries getting “paused,” and future matchups sitting on the chopping block because nobody actually knows what the committee wants.
Why CFP Committee Transparency Matters More Than Ever
Here’s the deal. Schedules aren’t built in July. They’re built years in advance by athletic directors who get judged on one thing above all else: making the playoff and cashing the checks that come with it.
So when the CFP committee refuses to give a clear, consistent standard, schools do what any working person does when the boss won’t explain the rules. They stop taking chances that could get them punished. They pick the path that’s least likely to blow up in their face.
And the worst part is, the committee doesn’t even have to say “don’t schedule tough games.” They just have to keep being vague enough that everyone assumes a tough loss might hurt more than a soft win helps.
That’s how a sport built on monster Saturdays ends up quietly sanding down the edges.
USC vs Notre Dame Is the Warning Sign Fans Can’t Ignore
USC vs Notre Dame is not some random home-and-home you forget about in 48 hours. It’s a cornerstone game. It’s tradition, history, bragging rights, recruiting, and basically a guaranteed national spotlight.
And it still got shelved.
The rivalry won’t be played in 2026 or 2027, and from everything that’s been reported, it’s not expected to return until at least 2030. There were scheduling disputes, sure, but the playoff angle is the part that should make every fan’s stomach turn.
Notre Dame is getting a setup starting in 2026 where a top-12 finish guarantees them a playoff spot. That’s huge. That changes their incentives. That changes who they’re willing to play, when they’re willing to play, and how much risk they’re willing to accept for the “good of the sport.”
And it also changes USC’s incentives, because now USC is sitting there thinking: “Why are we taking a high-profile loss risk if the other side is playing by a different set of rules?”
Once that logic creeps in, everybody starts doing it. That’s how rivalries start “taking breaks” and never find their way back.
Alabama vs Ohio State Feels Like the Next Domino
Now we’re hearing noise about Alabama vs Ohio State potentially getting canceled. The series is scheduled for 2027 in Columbus and 2028 in Tuscaloosa, and it’s the exact kind of heavyweight matchup fans want more of, not less.
To be fair, nothing is official yet. This is still chatter, and there are people around Ohio State who say they haven’t heard anything concrete about a cancellation.
But that’s almost the point. The fact we can even imagine this game getting yanked tells you where college football is headed. When a matchup that big can be treated like an optional expense, the incentives are broken.
And you can blame conference schedule changes all you want, but the truth is bigger than that. If the committee had a consistent track record of rewarding teams for playing bold schedules, ADs would fight harder to keep these games. They’d take the heat, eat the travel, rearrange dates, and make it work.
Right now, they look at the playoff math and ask one brutal question: “What’s the upside?”
The BYU vs Alabama Selection Mess Proves Nobody Knows the Rules
This is where your BYU and Alabama point hits like a hammer, because the 2025 selection drama is exactly what sends programs running to safer schedules.
BYU finished ranked 12th and still didn’t make the playoff field. Alabama finished ranked 9th and got in. Texas finished 13th and got left out.
So what are we supposed to take from that if we’re an AD trying to build a schedule?
BYU played the extra game in the Big 12 title, lost, and got pushed down enough that it helped slam the door. Meanwhile Alabama took a conference title game loss too, and the committee still treated them like they “belonged” because of strength-of-schedule logic.
If you’re BYU, that feels like punishment for making your championship game in the first place. If you’re a mid-tier Power program trying to climb, it feels like the league is telling you, “Don’t take risks unless you’re already one of the brands we trust.”
That is poison. Because when teams stop believing the process is fair, they stop giving the sport what it needs: real games that settle things on the field.
Did Texas Get Penalized for Playing Ohio State? That’s the Whole Problem
Texas is the example that should scare everybody, because they did the “right” thing and still got burned.
They scheduled Ohio State and lost a tight one, 14-7. Then when the playoff picture got tight, the question became: did that game help them, or did it quietly bury them?
Steve Sarkisian basically said what every fan was thinking when he questioned why they even played Ohio State if it wasn’t going to be rewarded the way everyone claims. And that’s not some message board conspiracy. That’s a head coach admitting out loud that the risk might not be worth it anymore.
Let that sink in.
When major programs start openly wondering if big nonconference games are a bad idea, the sport is in trouble. Because the next conversation in the AD’s office is simple: “Why not schedule someone we can beat, go 11-1, and let the committee figure it out?”
And that’s how you get more September snoozers that nobody watches.
More Big Games Are Getting Canceled, and It’s Not a Coincidence
USC–Notre Dame isn’t the only schedule casualty, and that’s what makes this feel like a trend instead of a one-off fight.
We’ve seen major series get mutually canceled or “adjusted” as conferences move to nine league games and playoff strategy takes over. Georgia and Louisville canceled a 2026-27 home-and-home. Georgia also canceled a future series with NC State way down the road. Alabama and West Virginia canceled their 2026-27 series after the SEC’s nine-game move. Miami and South Carolina canceled their 2026-27 home-and-home, and the reporting around it basically admitted both sides didn’t want to stack another Power opponent on top of everything else while chasing the playoff.
Even Notre Dame’s schedule has been a revolving door, with the Florida State game for 2026 getting removed and reshuffled in the middle of all this conference scheduling chaos.
So yes, conference schedule expansion matters. It’s real. It squeezes flexibility. But it also gives schools the perfect cover story to do what they already want to do in a murky playoff world: reduce risk.
That’s what fans need to understand. The committee’s lack of clarity doesn’t just affect rankings in December. It affects what games exist in the first place.
College Football’s Biggest Problem Is “We’ll Know It When We See It”
The committee loves to talk in generalities.
They’ll say strength of schedule matters. They’ll say conference championships matter. They’ll say head-to-head matters. They’ll say “game control” without ever defining it in a way that means anything from one week to the next.
But when the decisions are tight, it always comes back to the same thing: “We’ll know it when we see it.”
That’s not a standard. That’s a vibe. And vibes don’t belong in a sport where players bleed for 12 games and fans spend rent money traveling to road games.
They even introduced updated evaluation tools like “record strength” to better capture how teams performed against their schedules. Fine. I’m not against better metrics. But if you’re going to tweak the measuring stick, you have to explain how it’s used in the real world, not just announce it like a press release victory lap.
Because if the standard can shift, and the committee won’t commit to how it’s applied, then schools are left guessing.
And when you’re guessing with tens of millions of dollars on the line, you stop being brave.
How the CFP Committee Fixes This Before Fans Lose the Best Saturdays
This is the part where people say, “Well what do you want them to do, publish the whole formula?”
Yeah. Pretty much.
Not the secret sauce. Not the private conversations. But a real, consistent rubric that doesn’t change depending on which helmet is sitting on the table.
Here’s what would actually help:
1) Put real weights on the criteria.
If strength of schedule is worth a lot, say how much it’s worth compared to record, conference championships, head-to-head, and road wins. If you don’t want numbers, at least give tiers with examples that mean something.
2) Explain the “quality loss” line like adults.
Is a three-point loss to a top-5 team a positive, neutral, or negative? Does it change if it’s on the road? Does it change if it’s Week 2 versus Week 12? Fans and ADs shouldn’t have to play detective.
3) Stop punishing teams for playing extra games.
If the committee is going to treat a conference title game appearance like a trap door for certain teams, then don’t act shocked when schools start rooting for weird scenarios where they don’t have to play it.
4) Reward bold scheduling in a way that can’t be ignored.
Not a compliment on TV. A real advantage. A clear statement that two legit Power opponents out of conference will be viewed as a plus even if you drop one close game.
Because the alternative is obvious: teams will keep sanding down their schedules, and the games that made this sport special will keep disappearing one by one.
Final Word: Fans Are Paying for Big Games, So Give Us Big Answers
Look, if you’re charging people premium prices for tickets, parking, streaming packages, and all the rest, then you owe them a sport that doesn’t run from its own best matchups.
We already lost USC–Notre Dame for the next few years. We’ve got smoke around Alabama–Ohio State. We’ve got a growing list of canceled series across the country. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a system telling programs that risk is for suckers.
The committee can fix this with transparency and consistency, or they can keep hiding behind vague talking points while college football quietly becomes a sport where everyone schedules like they’re terrified of one bad Saturday.
And if that happens, don’t blame the fans when they stop caring about “marquee weekends” that feel like exhibition season.
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