"For ages, certainly as long as we have been in the College Football Playoff age, people have politely asked and desperately pleaded, when were some new bloods finally going to replace the blue bloods on college football's biggest postseason stage? Well, folks, the age of new is officially the age of now. The promise of the four-team CFP versus the two-team Bowl Championship Series title game was to create more room"
"For the first time since the CFP debuted at the end of the 2014 season, the playoff's final four lineup does not include Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State or Clemson. And over those first 11 editions, any team that did manage to break the big four's big box déjà vu blockade to earn a spot in the semis or final ... well, they weren't exactly George Mason '06 or Loyola Chicago '18."
"However, this year's fortuitous foursome -- with Ole Miss facing Miami on Thursday night and Indiana taking on Oregon on Friday -- is guaranteed to bring us a new-age champion, no matter who winds up standing atop the stage at Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19. And it won't merely be the boldest new-blood dash of the CFP era, but also of nearly the entire BCS era that began in 1998."
College Football Playoff final four excludes Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Clemson for the first time since the CFP began in 2014. The four-team playoff and subsequent expansion to a 12-team field increased opportunities for nontraditional programs to reach the postseason. The expansion aimed to widen access and inject a March Madness–style unpredictability. Early returns show the change producing different contenders, led unexpectedly by a basketball school. Past breakthrough teams like Notre Dame, Michigan and TCU reached late rounds but did not mirror true Cinderella runs. This year's semifinalists—Ole Miss vs. Miami and Indiana vs. Oregon—guarantee a new-age champion and mark a historic shift.
Read at ESPN.com
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