Coming playoff expansion puts college football fans at top of Misery Index for Week 13

College football has evolved quite a bit since the Misery Index came into existence a decade ago, but one thing about this sport hasn’t changed: The bigger the stakes, the bigger the misery. 

Is that still going to be the case next year and beyond? 

We ask that question as the 2023 regular season concludes because, 12 months from now, the sport is going to look very different. The expanded 12-team playoff is going to be better in some ways, but it's also going to rob college football of something that can’t ever be replicated again. 

At the end of Michigan’s 30-24 win over Ohio State on Saturday, the enormity of the result was clear. Michigan was headed to the Big Ten championship game and likely the four-team CFP, while Ohio State’s entire year of work to prepare for this moment was ruined. One side leaves in elation, the other in devastation because there is usually no second chance. You have to live with the result for the next 364 days.

That’s what has separated college football from the NFL for decades, and it’s been a beautiful thing − even if your team is the one that suffers for it. There is no option but to care deeply about every single result. 

But next year in a 12-team playoff world? It won’t be the same. It can't be the same. Sure, Michigan and Ohio State will always have a great rivalry, but it’s impossible to have the same intensity from players, from fans and from those who just enjoy the spectacle when everyone knows that they’re both getting into a playoff bracket no matter what happens on the field. 

The desperation Ohio State fans are feeling right now and the anger at head coach Ryan Day only happens because there’s no second chance. Because as good as their team has been all season, they know there’s no playoff berth coming this time. Because they know Michigan is going to get the glory and the opportunity that they’ve been denied. 

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In a 12-team playoff world, the reality of what happened Saturday is that Ohio State’s "punishment" for losing would be hosting a first-round playoff game at The Horseshoe. May we all have to suffer such a terrible fate. 

Instead, because CFP officials couldn't get their act together in time to expand the playoff for this year, Ohio State is doomed to play in a bowl neither its players nor fans will be enthused to participate in. That may be bad for Ohio State, but it sure made Saturday’s game worth watching and caring about, even if you didn’t have a rooting interest in the result. 

Saturday may be the last time we ever watch a regular season college football game with such big stakes. And for that reason, the final Misery Index of 2023 belongs to the fans of this sport. 

We will surely gain something next year when more teams are in the mix and more games matter down the stretch of the season. But we’re also going to lose something we can never get back. 

Four more in misery

Florida

Nobody is going to be on a hotter seat going into 2024 than Billy Napier and Florida athletics director Scott Stricklin, who seems well on his way to being 0-for-2 on football coaching hires. After coming from Mississippi State in 2016, Stricklin wasted little time firing Jim McElwain and reuniting with Dan Mullen after a coaching search that had initially targeted Chip Kelly and Scott Frost. After Mullen’s initial success faded away, thanks mostly to a lack of recruiting prowess, Stricklin was forced to make a move. Napier was the hottest Group of Five candidate in 2021, having led Louisiana-Lafayette to a pair of Sun Belt championships. He had also been part of the Nick Saban coaching tree as Alabama’s receivers coach for four seasons, so he checked that box as well.

But coaching hires are about more than checking boxes. It’s about people and skill sets, and Napier’s strengths do not appear like they have translated to a job the magnitude of Florida. Through two seasons, the only defining characteristics Napier has imbued into the program are inconsistency and an alarming lack of discipline. That's how you get to 6-7 followed by 5-7 at Florida. And that’s how you end up losing 24-15 at home to Florida State in a game that was very winnable until Florida committed a bonehead personal foul penalty on third-and-14 when a stop would have given the Gators the ball late with a chance to win the game.

Napier’s job will likely be saved by a near-$32 million buyout and a good recruiting class coming in. But if he doesn’t show progress next year, he and Stricklin will probably both be gone. 

Oregon State

The Beavers started the season by losing their conference. They ended it by losing their coach. And the saddest part for Oregon State's fan base is that those two things are highly connected and completely out of their control. By the time Oregon State’s 31-7 loss to Oregon ended on Friday night, word got out that Jonathan Smith was likely headed to Michigan State. Early on Saturday, it became official. Smith, a former Oregon State quarterback, did a really good job in six seasons to make his alma mater relevant again in the Pac-12. Oregon State just wrapped up its third consecutive winning season and will likely finish nationally ranked for a second year in row. But once the Pac-12 imploded and Oregon State had nowhere to go, Smith could no longer be confident that he would remain a power conference coach. Asking him to pass up a situation with more long-term stability in the Big Ten would have been unreasonable. Oregon State will find another coach, but losing someone who is so deeply connected to the program hurts. Beavers fans deserved better. 

Nebraska

The last time the Cornhuskers played in a bowl game, Donald Trump had just been elected president. The big international health concern was the Zika virus, not COVID. And Matt Rhule, the current Nebraska coach, had just left Temple to take the job at Baylor. In other words, it seems like a really long time ago. But just a few weeks back, it looked for all the world like Nebraska’s streak of futility was ending. The Huskers were sitting at 5-3 in Rhule’s first season, and with four very winnable games coming up surely the Huskers were going to convert one of them to break the curse Instead, Nebraska did what it does best and vomited on itself repeatedly in the month of November to finish 5-7. Nebraska’s four-game losing streak included three field goal margins and an overtime heartbreak at Wisconsin, cementing this program as college football’s most adept losers. Against Iowa on Friday, all Nebraska needed was to not do something dumb and they’d at least get to overtime. Instead, Chubba Purdy threw an interception with 15 seconds left that set up the Hawkeyes’ game-winning field goal as time expired.

Auburn

On the 10th anniversary of the Kick Six that sent Auburn to the national championship game in 2013, karma has come full circle. Then again, ascribing straight-up incompetence to bad luck or the college football cosmos is probably misguided. Because the reality of Auburn’s 27-24 loss to Alabama is that the Tigers blew it. They blew it by muffing a punt that handed Alabama a scoring opportunity with under five minutes remaining. And they blew it by somehow playing arguably the worst back-end defense any team has ever played in a fourth-and-31 situation with the game on the line. Allowing Alabama’s Isaiah Bond to see one-on-one coverage, when all Auburn had to do was knock down a ball in the end zone, is one of the worst football sins that has ever been committed. Auburn did so many things well against Alabama, and to lose the Iron Bowl on a play like that is both historic and inexcusable. The only way it could be more painful for Auburn is if this result somehow propels Alabama to the national title.

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Miserable but not miserable enough

Arkansas

One week ago, athletics director Hunter Yurachek confirmed that Sam Pittman would return for a fifth season. Then the Razorbacks went out and got absolutely run over by Missouri, 48-14, to complete a 1-7 season in the SEC. Shortly after the game, when asked how he could generate momentum going into the offseason coming off a performance like that, a clearly perturbed Pittman offered only three words: "I don't know." Is that what Arkansas fans want to hear? Is that what the Arkansas administration expects after giving him one more chance? Pittman better have some kind of plan because this is a real low point for the Razorbacks. And if the decision is based more on finances (i.e., boosters being cheap) rather than a conviction that he can turn the program around, we are going to be right back in this same spot next November talking about how Arkansas wasted an entire year before making an inevitable decision. 

Georgia Southern

At Group of Five programs, it’s hard to resist when a big name coach becomes available. But maybe that’s what Georgia Southern should have done when Clay Helton was fired by Southern California in 2021. Because at least through two seasons, the Helton experience in Statesboro has been remarkably underwhelming. After a 6-6 debut last season (6-7 including a bowl game loss to Buffalo), the Eagles are back in 6-6 land. Only this one looks even worse because Georgia Southern got there by losing their final four games, including Saturday’s 55-27 embarrassment at Appalachian State. Georgia Southern invests enough in football to compete for Sun Belt championships, but so far Helton hasn’t even gotten them close.

TCU

How much goodwill does a trip to the national championship game buy you if you follow it with a disastrous 5-7 season? That’s the predicament Sonny Dykes will experience this offseason, having gone from the toast of Texas to completely irrelevant in the span of 11 months. There’s been little reason to pay attention TCU since early October, but Friday’s 69-45 loss to Oklahoma marks a good time to reflect on just how bad its been. Despite putting another top-15 offense on the field − Dykes did not forget how to score points − TCU only finished above four teams in the Big 12 standings including three newcomers to the conference (BYU, Houston, Cincinnati) and woeful Baylor. So this is suddenly a critical time for TCU. A year ago, as the Horned Frogs rode the magic carpet to a 12-0 regular season and a CFP win over Michigan, long-term seemed a least somewhat sustainable. But once you lose momentum as dramatically as TCU did, it might prove difficult to get it back.