College football will have consecutive national champions from outside the Sun Belt region for the first time in three decades if Ohio State beats Texas in a playoff semifinal this week.

College football's newfound parity has been a major talking point through the 2024 season. For a multitude of perfectly sensible reasons, the good teams aren't as good at the power conference level, and some of the bad teams aren't as bad.

In this year’s NCAA college football season, only four teams are left in the race to follow Michigan as national champions.

Ohio State ’s Ryan Day, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Notre Dame ’s Marcus Freeman and Penn State ’s James Franklin are the final four. None has won a national championship as a head coach, making this season the third out of the last four in which the title will go to a head coach who has never won one.

There are only three games left in the college football season. That sucks. There's no way around it. If there's a silver lining to that depressing fact, it's that they're College Football Playoff games.

Since Ohio State 's 13-10 loss in their regular-season finale against rival Michigan, FOX analyst Joel Klatt believes "something happened" to the Buckeyes in that game.

When Texas announced plans to enter the SEC, the Longhorns immediately embarked on a 5-7 season in 2021 that was historic for all the wrong reasons. Since that moment, Texas has truly brought itself back from the brink and now stands alone as the only SEC team remaining in the first 12-team College Football Playoff.