The Oval has officially been defeated. If you're not sure what that means, it closely relates to something you were probably at least tangentially aware of, so let's dig into it.
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16 of the last 17 college football national champions have come from inside this red oval. pic.twitter.com/kf6lQ1AMQ1
— WTF Stats (@WTFstats) January 23, 2023
It's no secret that the current era of college football has been dominated by the Southeastern Conference. However, even when that particular conference has failed to produce a national champion, the winner has rarely been far away from the conference's core territory. The South has controlled even the Atlantic Coast Conference, the only other conference to consistently reach the final stages in college football over the past several years.
Ohio State shocked the world when it won the inaugural College Football Playoff back in 2014. Other than that campaign, every year since 2005 has ended with a champion from inside the red oval shown in the tweet above.
The non-SEC squads in this club include Clemson for Dabo Swinney's pair of playoff wins with Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence at the helm; and Florida State in 2013, with an undefeated squad led by Heisman winner Jameis Winston. As for the SEC, this period includes the Florida dynasty under Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow; a couple of different title runs from LSU; the magical 2010 Auburn season; Georgia's recent back-to-back titles; and, of course, quite a few championships from Nick Saban and Alabama.
There have been challengers to the Oval over that time, although they've been relatively few and far between. Oregon has reached a couple of championship games but hasn't won any. Oklahoma reached several playoffs and competed hard at times, but it never quite finished the job. And, of course, from the Big Ten, Ohio State won a ring, reached a championship game and lost some semifinals, while Michigan was 0-2 in the playoff before Monday.
This year, a champion will come from a very different region. The Oval was technically defeated with Monday's Rose Bowl, when Michigan knocked out Alabama, but Texas was still alive. Austin is outside of the Oval, but it's not all that far away, and the Longhorns were the last champion before the SEC's reign of terror. Now, with Washington's win Monday, it's confirmed that there will be a decidedly Northern champion for just the second time in over a decade.
In the ever-changing conference landscape, this year's playoff provided us with a few interesting wrinkles. The Rose Bowl was fought between perhaps the most traditional powers from the Big Ten and SEC, while the Sugar Bowl was a contest of teams entering each conference next season. The current and future Big Ten squads won both, officially firing the first shot as the "Power Two" conferences will fight for supremacy in the next era of the sport.
Of course, Washington isn't in the Big Ten just yet — it's the last remaining Pac-12 squad in the conference's final season. We'll have to see whether the Huskies provide the West Coast's premier collegiate conference with one more magical moment, or if they will fall to the rulers of their new league.
