Do Alabama, Ohio State Failures Highlight Death Of The "Old Model?"

Since the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, two programs have been mainstays in the postseason tournament.

Alabama and Ohio State.

The Crimson Tide and Buckeyes represent the two model programs of the playoff era, with Bama appearing in nine CFPs and winning three, while the Buckeyes appeared in six and won two.

The only other teams to win multiple National Championships in the playoff era are Clemson and Georgia, highlighting just how exclusive of a club these programs are a part of.

READ: Playoff Results Highlight Major Scheduling Problem For College Football

But within the span of less than 24 hours, both the Tide and Buckeyes went down to relative newcomers in the modern era of college football (Miami and Indiana had a combined one playoff game in 11 years between the two of them).

The class of college football for the last decade plus seems to have been replaced by a couple of upstarts, and that could mean the death of the "old model" of winning championships in the sport.

Or does it?

To be clear, I'm referring to the idea that championships are won through high school recruiting, development, and retention.

Alabama and Ohio State are recruiting powerhouses, but they were both taken down just hours apart from one another by two teams who live in the transfer portal when it comes to roster building.

Is this the end of the recruiting juggernaut era of college football?

That's a complicated question that warrants a complex set of answers, and it's not a topic that I think I can confidently and definitively attack without more data, but to make a long story short, I wouldn't give a ten count to the old guard just yet.

Let's not ignore the fact that another recruiting mainstay – Oregon – just completely pants'd portal and NIL darlings Texas Tech in the game directly preceding Alabama's evisceration.

I've written quite often about how the Red Raiders may end up becoming the "new blood" of college football, but it takes more than just one or two five stars in a class and a sexy portal haul to wrestle the crown away from a team like the Ducks.

Oregon has five-star depth, particularly on both lines of scrimmage, and the Ducks exposed Texas Tech's "mile long and inch deep" approach to stacking studs at the top of their roster.

A team like Texas Tech CAN win it all, but more often than not, the program with championship depth is going to outlast them, if through nothing else than a sheer war of attrition.

The Red Raiders are well on their way, and this season is a good first proof of concept, but "Rome wasn't built in a day," as they say.

As for Miami, it's disingenuous to say they are completely reliant on the portal and can't get it done in the high school ranks.

The Hurricanes have averaged a top-10 recruiting class since Mario Cristobal arrived in Corral Gables, and all of their highest ranked commits have been pass rushers and offensive linemen, which, as I've written extensively about, are two of the three premium positions in college football.

The Canes aren't "reliant" on the portal so much as they are strategic with it, supplementing their high school haul with a high-level quarterback and other pieces to complete their roster.

When it comes to Indiana, I've said it before, and I will say it until I'm blue in the face. Don't look at the Hoosiers and Curt Cignetti as anything other than a one-in-a-million statistical anomaly.

What coach Cig is doing is the exception, not the rule; just a lone data point in a sea of contradictory ones involving blue-chip ratios and talent rankings.

So, when someone asks if the old guard of college football was dealt a deathblow this round of the CFP, we can't say that for sure, but there are plenty of examples that the old model is still alive and well.

Check back with me in a few years and see what I think, though, as this should be a fascinating experiment playing out in real time.

Until then, enjoy the ride.