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By Aman Sharma
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Missouri Tigers HC Eli Drinkwitz is questioning why leagues matter once the playoff grows to 24 teams and every Power 4 title game disappears.
Dec. 5 brings the last of those showdowns for the SEC, Big 12, ACC, and Big Ten, and next season the regular-season table will name each champion.
Wake Forest Demon Deacons coach Jake Dickert shares the doubt, and his team is well placed to reach the ACC’s farewell title game in Charlotte. The new bracket arrives once the 2027 campaign wraps, with Army-Navy getting that December weekend as playoff teams rest.
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Drinkwitz also has travel on his mind.
“My question is why are we associated with conferences anymore if we’re not playing for a conference championship? If the point now is just to be playing into a sea of 24, are we just doing it for scheduling affiliation? If we’re just doing it for scheduling affiliation, is there a reason to be flying all the way across the country to play games from a national perspective?” Drinkwitz told reporters.
The SEC has escaped that burden. Since the Pac-12 effectively folded after 2023, the Big Ten spans Seattle and Los Angeles to New Jersey, while ACC schools stretch from Boston to Palo Alto and Berkeley.
Dickert’s Demon Deacons made that trip in October, beating Cal 41-7. He admitted a title game could knock Wake Forest, 16th in the committee’s first CFP rankings, out of the bracket. Notre Dame, an independent, never faces that risk.
“It can benefit a team like us; it can hurt a team like us,” Dickert said. “So, there’s a lot of situations. You can play all sides of the coin. But to not say we’re going to have conference champions, why do we have conferences?”
Drinkwitz named an SEC title as a goal upon arriving at Missouri in 2020. The Tigers have reached Atlanta twice, falling 59-42 to Auburn in 2013 and 42-13 to Alabama a year later.
“Do I think that they’re no longer important? Yeah, I agree with the assessment that there’s really no reason to play them moving forward. But it is disappointing to me because one of the goals that I had coming into this university was to try to get a conference championship and win that game in Atlanta,” he said.
A matchup with SMU may decide whether Wake Forest plays for that last ACC crown on Dec. 5.
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