Fair to say, I turned out to be right<\/a>: Georgia fans did end up getting everything they ever wanted (twice, no less) and now everybody\u2019s sick of them in the same way everybody used to be sick of Alabama. (Which was also all Georgia fans ever wanted.) And that\u2019s the thing about your team winning a national championship: It will change your life. All the drama, all the angst, all the frustration, all the angry message board posts, all the screaming at your television, all the fall weddings you spent staring at your phone in the bathroom? It all proves worth it. The joy won\u2019t last forever \u2014 LSU has imploded, like, five times since winning its title six years ago, and Michigan is already catching up two years after winning \u2014 but you\u2019re still not quite the same person after your team wins a title as you were before.<\/p>\n And there are ramifications for the rest of us when a team wins a title, too. Imagine how different the Notre Dame discourse would have been over the past week if it had won the title last year, or how the coaching carousel would have been different had Washington beaten Michigan two years ago. These games change everything for everybody.<\/p>\n And the winner could \u2014 at least theoretically<\/a> \u2014 be anybody. So, before the College Football Playoff kicks off Friday night, let\u2019s take a look at how the world changes and what the ramifications are if each of the 12 teams involved<\/a> ends up winning the national title on Jan. 19. Consider these 12 alternative realities.<\/p>\n 12. James Madison Dukes<\/strong><\/p>\n Hey: Not so impressed by Curt Cignetti now, are ya? If James Madison were to somehow pull off the most shocking postseason run in American sports history \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what this would be \u2014 it would readjust what every college football fan considers possible in a way that would even exceed Cignetti\u2019s unprecedented success since leaving JMU for Indiana two years ago.<\/p>\n This would be George Mason in the Final Four crossed with Leicester City winning the Premier League plus Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson multiplied by Jesse Ventura becoming the governor of Minnesota. Forget taking away CFP slots from G5 teams: Can we build the whole plane out of them? Also: You thought Gainesville was hard? Good luck following that, Billy Napier. While we\u2019re at it: What\u2019s Bob Chesney\u2019s buyout at UCLA<\/a>? Because I\u2019m pretty sure this would get him promoted, probably to god emperor. Yeah: This would be the most amazing thing that\u2019s ever happened in college football, and maybe on earth.<\/p>\n 11. Tulane Green Wave<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible Tulane is the worst team in the field, but it probably has a better chance<\/a> to win its first game than James Madison does. Legitimate question: If Ole Miss loses its opener, does that make us all hate Lane Kiffin<\/a> more, or less? (I\u2019m honestly not sure.)<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, a team from Louisiana that\u2019s not LSU winning the national title makes Kiffin\u2019s job that much harder and that whole fan base that much more demanding: I wonder what the governor<\/a> would have to say about it. Tulane winning would lock in that automatic qualifier for a G5 even more securely than a JMU win would, considering it would have beaten, in succession, likely Ole Miss, Georgia, Ohio State (or Miami\/Texas A&M), and then whatever team came out of the other side of the bracket. Imagine the ESPN roundtable after that many SEC teams bit the dust.<\/p>\n Also: Mardi Gras in New Orleans is one month after the CFP title game, if you\u2019re making travel plans.<\/p>\n 10. Miami Hurricanes<\/p>\n All the problems the ACC had<\/a> this year vanish in an instant: It turns out the conference had a powerhouse all along. (It still probably needs to fix those tiebreakers.) All those celebrity Miami<\/a> fans who have been hiding out for the last 30 years or so, apparently too busy to actually attend any Hurricanes games in that time, will be everywhere: A-Rod will ascend to heretofore unattainable levels of insufferable. Jon Sumrall\u2019s job at Florida<\/a> gets that much harder, and it\u2019s possible Mike Norvell<\/a>\u00a0is too afraid to come out of his house until April. Also, welcome back to the Instagram discourse, Carson Beck.\u00a0It\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0safe to return again<\/a>.<\/p>\n 9. Alabama Crimson Tide<\/p>\n I could go into all sorts of detail about Notre Dame having even more egg on its face, or the relentless and inescapable SEC triumphalism, or how impossible watching ESPN will become, but, frankly, considering the current attitudes toward Kalen DeBoer from large swaths of the Alabama fan base, I only really feel comfortable saying that the primary result of Alabama winning the national championship this year would be Alabama fans deciding, OK, fine, we\u2019ll give him one more year.<\/p>\n 8. Oklahoma Sooners<\/p>\n One suspects Lincoln Riley \u2014 or his agent, anyway \u2014 might be a little quieter after a Sooners title. This would actually be a classic opportunity for John Mateer, who looked early this season like he was going to become a college football folk hero in the Baker Mayfield\/Diego Pavia mode, to be the sport\u2019s main character, a role he seems more than ready for. And do you need more Brian Bosworth in your life? Because the Sheriff of Fansville will be everywhere you look.<\/p>\n The good news here? If an SEC team has to win the national title, you might as well hope it\u2019s the one that is still generally forgotten to be an SEC team, not least of which by fans of other SEC teams themselves.<\/p>\n 7. Texas A&M Aggies<\/p>\n I argued a few weeks back<\/a> that the Aggies<\/a> might have the most tortured fan base of any big-time program in all of college football. They have not won a national title since 1939, despite the best efforts of a terrifyingly large percentage of this country\u2019s oil and gas revenue. We could theoretically have a Ryan Day problem on our hands, though: It\u2019s great that you won the national title and all, but next time, you\u2019d better beat Texas.<\/p>\n \n Texas A&M hasn\u2019t won a title since 1939 \u2014 and has only four AP top-five finishes ever. (Alex Slitz \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n 6. Ole Miss Rebels<\/p>\n Imagine if Larry David\u2019s Spite Store<\/a> ended up turning into Walmart. The national schadenfreude that would result from Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss<\/a> right before his team won a national title without him could power Jupiter and several of its moons. It would instantly turn its new coach Pete Golding \u2014 who is colloquially known among some Ole Miss fans as \u201cWidespread Pete,\u201d<\/a> because he looks exactly like what every person who attended Widespread Panic\u2019s infamous \u201cPanic in the Streets\u201d show in Athens, Ga. \u2014 into an icon for middle-aged Dad Water drinkers the world over. Coaches, they\u2019re just like us!<\/p>\n 5. Oregon Ducks<\/p>\n Dan Lanning rockets to the top of every A Little Too Intense, Man coaching watchlist: He\u2019s the sort of maniac who may need a national title to truly cross over to the mainstream. Not only would this at last erase Oregon fans\u2019 memories of losing the first CFP title game 11 years ago, but it would give the Big Ten its third different national champion in three years, which would not only allow the conference to jut out its chest but would cause every Penn State fan you know to run screaming into traffic.<\/p>\n 4. Texas Tech Red Raiders<\/p>\n It has been a little underappreciated how much it would roil college football if Texas Tech wins the national championship. Fairly or unfairly, it is widely accepted dogma that Texas Tech has broken through this year<\/a> because of its absurdly rich (and very loud<\/a>) benefactor Cody Campbell and his willingness to pay for whatever player the Red Raiders might need (specifically on defense).<\/p>\n If Texas Tech \u2014 a team that hadn\u2019t finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll ever before this season \u2014 comes out of nowhere and wins the whole thing, it will be seen, really more than any other school winning, as the current college football excesses run cartoonishly amok, something that has no connection to education, or tradition, or anything other than a billionaire oil guy whipping out his checkbook. I am not saying this is entirely fair \u2014 the story is more complicated than that, as any Texas Tech fan will tell you; the Red Raiders had been making year-after-year progress under Joey McGuire before this year\u2019s explosion \u2014 but I am also not saying this is entirely unfair.<\/p>\n Either way: It will become the center of every conversation and, I suspect, would cause a minor-to-semi-major cataclysm in the sport.<\/p>\n 3. Georgia Bulldogs<\/p>\n How wild has the college football coaching carousel gotten? Kirby Smart \u2014 who honestly still feels like he just got there \u2014 is the 10th-longest tenured active coach. That\u2019s incredible. A title would be his third since arriving to coach his alma mater and would bring his career record to 120-20 (with five of those losses coming in his first season, with seven of them to Alabama). It would put him within four titles of his mentor Nick Saban, in 18 fewer seasons. And it would still feel like he is just getting started. It is difficult to overstate how unbearable you will find Dawgs fans if this happens. (They won\u2019t mind, or probably even notice.)<\/p>\n 2. Ohio State Buckeyes<\/p>\n I will be gentle and kind and not go back to find every single media person who thought Ryan Day was done, saut\u00e9ed, flamb\u00e9ed, pan-fried, after he lost to Michigan last year. But just so you know, it was all of them. Don\u2019t act too superior, you thought the same thing, so did I, so did just about every Ohio State fan. If Ohio State wins the national title this year, Day will have responded to that supposed career-ending loss with two consecutive national championships and will have an 85-11 record as the Buckeyes head coach. Like DeBoer, I suspect this will buy him a year or two, maybe.<\/p>\n 1. Indiana Hoosiers<\/p>\n![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2247574558-scaled.jpg\")
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