CFP-influenced college football rivalry week is the perfect Thanksgiving

Perhaps it is best to begin the celebration of Rivalry Week and what we are grateful for as a college football community with a rare moment that will never be repeated.

The choke on Doak.

This week marks 30 years since that magical day in Tallahassee when Florida State came back from a 31-3 deficit in the fourth quarter to tie Florida, 31-31. A year later, the NCAA introduced overtime play.

And 30 years later, there isn’t a sane person on the planet who doesn’t believe that the Seminoles would have converted a two-pointer in the final seconds had they tried to win the game instead of tying it.

Even Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, who made the decision to push the conversion and decide the game in the first place.

Years later, Bowden told me that although he never regretted taking the extra point, he also knew what would have happened if the Noles had attempted a two-point turnover.

“Yeah, they’re on their tail,” Bowden said. “(We) probably would have scored too.”

Welcome everyone to rivalry week. The joyous occasion to throw away every record, every rhyme and every reason because, well, the hate runs deep, baby.

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Although the sport has felt like a tsunami of change and some classic rivalries have been abandoned or postponed in the final week of the regular season, there is no week quite like this one on the college football calendar.

To cut to the chase when it comes to the current state of sports: There are numerous games with implications for the College Football Playoff – despite the dire predictions that the sport’s final few weeks will be affected by the new 12-team lineup format would be shortened. If anything, the new system has improved Rivalry Week.

We’ll start with Michigan and Ohio State, because what would Rivalry Week be without the most hatred in the sport? This one, like so many others, goes beyond any drama that exists in the sport and focuses solely on the machinations within it.

Specifically, the job status of widely successful Ohio State coach Ryan Day.

He blew everyone away in the Big Ten and brought the Buckeyes multiple playoff appearances. He also lost three straight times in the series.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Day began comparing the game to war this week. Yes, War.

Because even if another Michigan win won’t knock Ohio State out of the CFP, it will push the Buckeyes out of the Big Ten championship game – and lead to Day’s firing.

Unless Ohio State can come all the way back and win the national title. Because you can’t fire a coach who just won the national title, right?

“This game is a war,” Day said. “And every time there is a war, there are consequences and losses.”

Not to be dramatic, but he just made the point.

And that’s just the beginning of this pivotal week across the college football landscape.

Vanderbilt, which already has a home win against Alabama (and another near-home win against Texas), can knock its rival Tennessee out of the playoff race with a win.

Southern California, whose five losses have all been one-possession games, can beat Notre Dame and potentially eliminate the Irish from the field.

Auburn can end all of Alabama’s hopes of returning to the CFP with a win in Tuscaloosa, where the Tigers haven’t won since Cam Newton and The Lutzenkirchen in 2010.

Arizona has lost six of its last seven games, but can eliminate Arizona State’s CFP hopes by winning its third straight game in the series – something it hasn’t done since the mid-1990s.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning is 0-3 against Washington, an underrated rivalry that was moved to Rivalry Week when the two schools left the Pac-12 and moved to the Big Ten. Washington hasn’t won four straight against the Ducks since the early 1990s.

Then there’s Texas and Texas A&M, who haven’t played since 2011 when Texas A&M moved to the SEC. The Aggies weren’t happy in 2021 when Texas announced it would be leaving the Big 12 to join the SEC, and are more pleased that first-year Bevo is still two games away from accomplishing what the Aggies didn’t come close to winning the SEC.

We are 25 years removed from the somber, touching moment when the two schools symbolically embraced each other in College Station after the campfire tragedy the night before the 1999 game. The Aggies outscored Texas 14-0 in the second half and scored the game-winning touchdown with five minutes to play.

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