This fiasco of a college football season, in which no amount of coaches’ scheming or testing or contact tracing could keep the coronavirus from wreaking havoc, stumbled toward an inevitably messy finish on what in a normal year might be celebrated as a championship Saturday.
Instead, as Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly threatened a playoff boycott, and Ohio State bumbled its way to the Big Ten title with 22 players sidelined — presumably the result of a final pregame round of virus tests — the College Football Playoff committee may have a decision that is not as neat and tidy as it would have wanted.