The CFP Final Is an Alternate-Universe SEC Title Game

College football can but hope they're not gonna get a rehash of the 2012 BCS championship.

It came after a slugfest in the trenches during SEC play when LSU outkicked Alabama for a 9-6 victory.

One result besides tanking ratings was an accelerating sentiment for a more credible way to determine a national champion.

We still don't have it.

With only four teams in the running at season's end -- and those teams are chosen on loosely based criteria with ample room for selector bias -- it's no surprise that conference rivals will meet in a national title game.

Like now.

It didn't have to be that way, even under the current inadequate format.

But who knew Georgia soph LB Tae Crowder still had shortstop reflexes?

It's rare that one play actually can be singled out as the reason for a win or loss, but this one could because it was so unnecessary. Just pooch it past the first line, and the half's over.

The Sooners didn't, the game wasn't, and Georgia made the most of it:

For want of a nail, Sooners ...

Nick Saban is 11-0 against former assistants who graduated to head coaches and faced the Crimson Tide.

Alabama's 24-6 beatdown of defending champ Clemson sets up a shot for him to add another notch in his saddle:

This isn't to disparage Alabama or Georgia. They've got a schedule, and they're playing it. Quite well.

No one ever begrudged the Big East when three of its teams earned trips to the Final Four in 1985 -- Georgetown, St. John's, and Villanova -- because they had to run a gauntlet to get there.

And fan attendance was not an issue.

So, CFP, figure it out, dammit!

The irony is this sport is conducted under the auspices of America's highest level of academic institutions with more than enough intellectual firepower to sort this out.

Then again, the bigger programs in college football, in their infinite wisdom, formed their own little clique because they contended only they had the wisdom to organize the championship process.

They don't.