Matt Barrie: Final month of CFB season will be ‘tipping point’ that dictates ‘next 10 years’

Credit: The Matt Barrie ShowMany college football commentators have already declared the 2026 season among the best of all time, and it could cement itself as such this weekend if Notre Dame-Miami, BYU-Utah, Alabama-LSU, and several other games live up to expectations.After that, rivalry week and conference championship season will only add to the fireworks heading into the College Football Playoff.It’s enough for ESPN’s Matt Barrie to declare the final month of the college football season a “tipping point” for the sport that will shift how it is run and covered for the next decade or more.“We have four weekends left in the regular season … the schedule-makers did their job because they’re giving us an all-time weekend in the first weekend of November,” he said Sunday on his podcast, The Matt Barrie Show. “And then little by little, this last four weeks of the regular season, the ball that we’re about to see is going to be one of those months … that we look back on at the end of the season and next year and the year after, we’re going to look at this as a tipping point in college football.“Because we’ve been saying it all year, parity, NIL has flattened out rosters. And now we’re at the new norm, and how this thing plays out over the next four years could dictate how we approach this sport for the next 10 years. Because if Wake Forest goes on another run and pulls an Indiana, what are we doing with these Blue Bloods? I’m trying to find schools that historically have nothing, and because of the way college football is now, have everything.”This week the CFP committee will also announce its first weekly rankings during a primetime broadcast on ESPN. Barrie pleaded with the committee to do the hard work of evaluating teams’ performance rather than resorting to standings and head-to-head results.“Now we get to the point where we think, based on the matchups, it’ll be settled on the field,” he said.“And I say we think that because every time you think it matters on the field, the committee will come out and do something to completely throw that away. I just hope, I really hope — because we’re going to 24 — and I hope that within this 12, they dig in and they watch and they look and they see. Because you’ve gotta get this right. Because we’ve been handed the greatest season of all time, and the last thing we need is a room of committee members to screw it up.”A season defined by upsets and chaos still needs a champion. And college football is such that the champion will, in part, be chosen subjectively.Barrie’s larger point that the results of this season will change the sport is worth considering. Even if a Cinderella like Wake Forest doesn’t shock the world, NCAA and conference leadership has to be taking note of the parity among schools and conferences, and especially the value of the regular season as an entertainment product and a way to determine excellence.Heading into the 24-team Playoff era and a future potentially governed by the Protect College Sports Act, a great regular season with balance across conferences and regions shakes up some narratives about college football.The post Matt Barrie: Final month of CFB season will be ‘tipping point’ that dictates ‘next 10 years’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.