Winning a Super Bowl Is Not a Big Deal; Winning the CFP Is

The Super Bowl will be played later today, and with it will come to an end of the football season for at least 8 months. No matter which team wins, those commentating on the Super Bowl will undoubtedly mention the difficult nature of winning the final professional football game of the season.

But is it that big of a deal?

Is it a bigger accomplishment than, say, winning the College Football Playoff?

The answer is no.

It is not more difficult or even a bigger accomplishment than winning a college national title.

First, the NFL is set up to make it easy on teams. Barring trades or players acting like primadonnas have the luxury of handpicking the best-of-the-best to play for them for as long as they want them.

In college, coaches only get four years (in most seasons, if players want to stay that long), have to battle the transfer portal, recruiting busts and player's academic requirements—all of which makes the player aspects of college football much more difficult to manage.

Second, is the number of teams. The NFL has only 32 teams. And with the way the draft is set up, the realization that any team can play for the Super Bowl is a reality. America's team, the Miami Dolphins, doubled their win total in 2020, the Browns jumped from six wins to 11 and the Steelers improved by four wins—just to name a few.

In college, there are 127 teams, in theory, with a chance to win a national championship. Even though that number falls to around 50 when you remove the Group 5 and the independents that do not wear gold helmets, the number of teams that start every season with a chance far outweigh the number of teams in the NFL. Not to mention the fact that the number of teams that make the playoff (four) is exponentially smaller than the 18 that make the NFL playoffs.

While I know full well that this is pure opinion, and the feelings of a man who covers a college team, and that there will be people that want to argue, I wish that I could get excited for watching paid men play a game that I love. I will watch the Super Bowl because it is the final football game of the season, but I will long for September when colleges across the country start their journey toward the greatest achievement—the College Football Playoff National Championship.