College football Week 15 overreactions: Say goodbye to conference championships, Curt Cignetti is sport's best

Conference championship games are an institution. Few weekends are more exciting, as some of college football's top teams take the field to realize their dreams of winning a trophy. 

Conference championship games still mean a lot. Just ask Duke, which won its first outright ACC title in over 60 years Saturday night. Or Indiana, which downed the nation's best team in its first Big Ten Championship Game appearance. Or James Madison, which likely secured a College Football Playoff bid by winning the Sun Belt. Or Tulane, which in similar fashion, did snag a playoff bid by winning the American. 

Those moments still matter. Unfortunately, conference championships also come with downside and what schools would likely refer to as "unnecessary risk" in the modern era. Alabama, for example, entered Week 15 as a virtual shoe-in for the playoff. 

Now the Crimson Tide's hopes are on life support after they got dog-walked by Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. Ohio State lost in the Big Ten title game, but it doesn't matter -- the Buckeyes will still be a top-four seed and they'll still get a first-round bye. 

Fernando Mendoza took the hit and got back up. Up next: A Heisman and more confetti?

John Talty

At some point, the sport's biggest programs are going to realize that, whether it be to avoid injury or an otherwise disastrous result, they'd be better off skipping their league's title game. That will be a sad day, but it seems inevitable.  

Curt Cignetti is the best coach in college football 

There are coaches with more conference titles than Curt Cignetti. There are coaches that have made more playoff appearances. There are active coaches that have won a national championship. 

But what Cignetti is doing clears it all. Prior to his arrival at Indiana, the Hoosiers had just one winning record in a full 12-game season from 2008-23. Indiana entered the 2025 season with more all-time losses (715) than any other FBS team. 

The Hoosiers had never won more than 10 games in a single season. They had never made the Big Ten Championship Game and they hadn't had an outright share of a conference title in 80 years. 

Cignetti led Indiana to its first 11-win campaign last season. The Hoosiers followed that up by going 12-0 and, on Saturday night, downed No. 1 Ohio State for the Big Ten title. They will almost assuredly supplant the Buckeyes as the top overall seed in the College Football Playoff bracket and their validity as a national title contender is beyond doubt. 

Cignetti built Indiana from the ground up to where it is today. It's one of the most impressive coaching jobs we've ever seen, and there's plenty of reason to believe he's the best boss in college football right now. 

Alabama doesn't belong in the playoff 

Alabama will most likely get in the College Football Playoff based solely on the fact that it is Alabama. Were the Crimson Tide left by the wayside, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would throw a tantrum of biblical proportions, and we just can't have that. 

Remove the logos from the equation and it's obvious that Alabama has no business making the College Football Playoff. Not only have the Crimson Tide been bad over the last month, they also have the worst loss -- their season-opening upset at the hands of Florida State, which beat three Power Four teams this season -- among programs on the bubble. 

If that game happened at any point on the schedule besides Week 1, Alabama would already be eliminated. Let's take the latest results into consideration, then. Alabama lost 28-7 in the SEC Championship Game Saturday. Granted, it was to a Georgia team that the Tide beat in the regular season. 

Including that regular season win, though, Alabama scored a whopping seven points in its last six quarters of action against the Bulldogs. Saturday's result dropped Alabama to 2-2 against FBS opponents since the start of November with a record of 0-2 against currently ranked foes in that span. 

The Crimson Tide's win included an entirely uninspiring effort against a rudderless LSU team and a narrow seven-point shave against an Auburn team that went 1-7 in SEC play. Hardly the stuff of contenders. 

Alabama's strength of record (10) still falls behind BYU's (9). And if we're going to punish BYU, which had an 11-1 regular season record to Alabama's 10-2, for looking non-competitive against a higher-ranked team (Texas Tech), that same logic should apply to Alabama during the selection process. 

Otherwise, the committee does not care about fairness. It only cares about pleasing the conferences with the best propaganda machine attached.  

Texas Tech is a national title contender

The selection committee's process thus far seems to indicate that Georgia will slot in at the No. 2 seed in the final bracket, if any team moves ahead of Ohio State. Realistically speaking, the difference between Nos. 1-4 is largely cosmetic. By the time those games roll around, all the teams are good. 

That being said, Texas Tech deserves to land at No. 2, ahead of both Georgia and Ohio State. Beyond that, the Red Raiders are legitimate national title contenders. Sleep on them at your own peril. 

The defense, rightfully, steals all of the headlines. Texas Tech boasts arguably the nation's best linebacker duo in Jacob Rodriguez and Ben Roberts. The defensive line is absolutely loaded with premier talent, including star edge rusher David Bailey and interior force Lee Hunter. The personnel on Texas Tech's defense compares favorably to every other team in the field. 

The offense has some dudes, as well. Quarterback Behren Morton is rock-solid, but his supporting cast is top class. Running back Cameron Dickey has been a surprise star. He rarely goes down on first contact. The receiving trio of Caleb Douglas, Reggie Virgil and Coy Eakin can give opposing secondaries nightmares. 

Texas Tech will absolutely make a run at the national title in this year's playoff and, as long as the investment remains, the Red Raiders aren't going anywhere.