Another season of America’s most popular spectator sport has ended. For most football fans, the season had two endings: the first was on Jan. 21 when Ohio State defeated Notre Dame to win the collegiate championship, and the second was, of course, Sunday’s triumph of the Philadelphia Eagles over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. With all due respect to the followers of the United Football League, the minor league teams that start play next month, most football fans are already eagerly anticipating the resumption of NCAA football and the National Football League (NFL) in late summer.
The 2024–2025 season’s College Football Playoffs raised some interesting questions. One question involves the format of the playoff. The NCAA departed from a four-team playoff format and tried a 12-team format. Will that format remain, or will it be tweaked some more?
In the first round of the playoffs, the top four seeds received “byes” while seeds five through eight hosted seeds nine through twelve. All four of the bottom four seeds lost decisively to the higher seeds, raising the question of whether twelve is an unrealistic number of teams to invite to compete for the national championship. More games means more revenue, but not necessarily better football.
After the first round, things really got interesting. The second quartet of seeds—numbers five through eight—defeated all four of the top seeds. The pattern continued: in the semifinal games, seeds seven and eight defeated seeds five and six, and in the championship game, the eighth-seeded Buckeyes handily beat the seventh-seeded Irish. Thus, in the final three rounds of the playoffs, the lower seeded team won every game. This illustrated one of those timeless truisms about sports: the team that wins the championship isn’t necessarily the team that was best over the course of an entire season, but the team that got hot in the playoffs.
I, for one, am grateful that college football is, at present, so competitive. That being said, I have a concern about the future competitiveness of Division-I football. The Wall Street Journal reported a month or so ago that Ohio State University’s football players received a cumulative $20 million of compensation last season. It has also been reported that OSU’s arch-rival, Michigan, will pay over $10 million to its incoming freshman quarterback to play for the Wolverines for a few years. Clearly, the amateur status of college athletes is over.
Indeed, while major college football may be entering a period of upheaval, the pro game continues to offer its fans an entertaining product that marches along in well-established grooves. As is always the case in sports, fans never know for sure if the oddsmakers’ favorite will prevail or be upset. A month ago, many football fans were wondering if there would be an enticing matchup between the formerly long-downtrodden Detroit Lions and the perennially excellent Kansas City Chiefs. Alas, it was not to be. In the NFC, the Lions bowed out due to a miserable five-turnover performance against a rising Washington Commanders team.
Similarly in the AFC, the Baltimore Ravens once again found a way to lose a game they should have won, and then Buffalo squandered its chance to defeat the mighty Chiefs with some dubious play-calling.
Still, the eventual Super Bowl game featuring the Eagles versus the Chiefs had multiple intriguing storylines. For one, it featured a rematch of the Super Bowl just two years ago, with the Eagles seeking redemption and the Chiefs striving to become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls.
The Eagles featured a gigantic offensive line (average height 6’ 6”, average weight 338 pounds) the game’s leading rusher, Saquon Barkley, and are notorious for the frequent usage of the most obnoxious, inelegant play in football, the boring “tush push.” The Chiefs, of course, feature superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a very cagey head coach, Andy Reid, and an underrated defense that showed a knack for stopping opposing offenses at crucial junctures.
What was almost universally expected to be a close contest like so many recent Super Bowls turned out to be a blowout. The Eagles simply overwhelmed the Chiefs. To their credit, the Chiefs managed to hold Barkley in check, but the arms and legs of quarterback Jalen Hurts proved too much to handle. The game was a rout, far more lopsided than the final score of 40-22 would indicate. The Eagles led 24-0 at the half, and 34-6 after three quarters. Two late Chiefs touchdowns (beautifully executed, by the way) in garbage time made the final deficit “only” 18 points.
The key to the Eagle’s victory was the play of their two lines. The defensive line made life miserable for Mahomes, pressuring him constantly and sacking him six times. Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s offensive line succeeded in giving Hurts enough time to make key plays. Footballers who believe the axiom “Defense wins championships” received abundant confirmation of that in Super Bowl LIX.
Likewise, the thesis of sharp general managers like the Lions’ Brad Holmes that “Building a winning team starts with the lines” also was vividly demonstrated on Sunday night. I suspect that the draft stock of the top college linemen rose last night, and that they will find their names called earlier in the draft than many fans expect.
Many thanks to the NCAA and the NFL for another entertaining season. We fans will spend the next half-year looking forward to the 2025 seasons that will begin in August and September, respectively. Today, we congratulate the Ohio State Buckeyes and Philadelphia Eagles for winning their championships. Who will we congratulate next year? America’s football teams and fans are already turning their attention to that question.
