The 2024 school soccer season has been one of many wildest, most unpredictable, and chaotic in latest reminiscence. In the long run, how a lot will it matter?
Rivalry Week noticed No. 6-ranked Miami let a 21-0 lead slip away in a 42-38 loss at Syracuse, whereas No. 2 Ohio State confirmed extra combat within the postgame brawl with Michigan than its offense may muster in a 13-10 loss.
With the groups concerned, Week 14 attracts a parallel to the ultimate month of the equally wild 2017 season. When Ohio State misplaced a shocking 55-24 November recreation at Iowa that yr and Miami suffered one other regular-season finale setback in opposition to Pitt, these outcomes helped successfully deny every a spot within the School Soccer Playoff.
However with the postseason event’s growth to 12 groups this season, the 2024 Buckeyes and Hurricanes may very properly nonetheless be slotted into bids when the Dec. 3 rankings are revealed. Every may even profit from dropping on Rivalry Saturday, because it places convention counterparts—SMU in Miami’s case, Penn State for Ohio State—ready to take detrimental losses of their league championship video games.
Miami’s place is extra tenuous than Ohio State’s, with the Hurricanes getting into Week 14 missing a consequential win. Ohio State, alternatively, has victories over doubtless Playoff individuals Penn State and a blowout of Indiana only one week in the past.
That Ohio State might be, and certain is, insulated from falling out of the Playoff image—however so are each Indiana and Penn State—means that the brand new postseason format has lowered the stakes of every school soccer Saturday in comparison with years previous.
Among the many qualities that made school soccer so distinctive in comparison with America’s different high-profile staff sports activities was the particular lack of a postseason event. The absence of a Playoff earlier than 2014 made school soccer’s “event” basically start on Labor Day weekend and run by way of Thanksgiving.
Even with the introduction of the Playoff, a few of that aura remained—like in 2017, when Ohio State’s loss to Iowa or Miami’s loss to Pitt knocked every out of the nationwide championship hunt.
The four-team Playoff wasn’t with out its flaws, and 2017 once more gives parallels to right this moment. As contenders fell by the wayside all through the season—USC to Notre Dame, Notre Dame to Miami, Miami to Pitt—the pathway for an outsider like UCF appeared open.
As a substitute, the undefeated Knights had been handed over in favor of an Alabama staff that didn’t win its division, not to mention its convention. Whereas Alabama profitable the nationwide championship supplied the choice committee with the affirmation bias essential to justify the choice, UCF bumped into the identical glass ceiling that existed throughout the Bowl Championship Sequence period.
The 12-team Playoff gives an answer, with Boise State in line to get the title shot it was denied repeatedly all through the BCS years. In previous eras, a Week 2 loss to No. 1-ranked Oregon would have eradicated the Broncos, with the “each week is a playoff” mentality making use of extra actually to groups from outdoors the autonomy conferences.
Not even in essentially the most egregious examples of outsiders being snubbed within the BCS or four-team Playoff eras had been there 12 groups worthy of vying for the nationwide championship by season’s finish. It’s clear from the primary common season of the 12-team Playoff that there usually are not 12 groups that needs to be taking part in for a nationwide championship now, both.
Take Alabama: Contemporary off a 24-3 pasting at Oklahoma in Week 13, the Crimson Tide’s Iron Bowl win over a sub-.500 Auburn staff, coupled with assorted bedlam across the nation, may place them to sneak into the sphere.
Does a 9-3 staff with two double-digit-point losses and a defeat to Vanderbilt actually need to play for the nationwide championship? Or does that cheapen sports activities’ most fun common season?
