This is an opinion column.

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There was a homemade cardboard sign in the crowd of the college football national championship game that summed up this season.

An Ohio State fan made the placard before the game and then proudly toted it into Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium for all to see. Here’s what he had to say:

Ticket to the game: $8,000.

Price of hotel: $1,000

SEC watching from home: Priceless.

Ohio State’s hate for the SEC and Michigan won it a national championship in 2025. When you get down to the how and the why of this Buckeyes team, that’s the truth of it.

College football is changing. We’ve all been saying it over and over. But you know what? At the heart of the beast, it’s still the bloody, oozing, festering rivalries that are moving this sport forward.

The NFL is about corporate opulence at the Super Bowl. College football is about money, too, but the motivations remain tribal. If we learned anything during the 2024 season, it’s that college football is still about sticking it to the rivals.

And the sport needs to stay that way to remain unique.

Ohio State’s 34-23 victory against Notre Dame was a showcase for how money buys championships in this new era of college football. It wasn’t about the coach. It wasn’t about recruiting. It was about Ohio State watching Michigan cheat its way to a national championship over those rascals down in the SEC, and then doing something about it.

How did Ohio State do it? They put Urban Meyer on the board of its NIL collective and then the collective went out and raised the most money. Ohio State used that money to buy the best receivers in college football and the two best players in the SEC, running back Quinshon Judkins of Ole Miss and safety Caleb Downs of Alabama.

Judkins, who is from Pike Road outside Montgomery, Alabama, scored three touchdowns in the national championship game.

Ohio State gets it. Based on its new roster, Auburn appears to be fully prepared to do whatever it takes, too. As for Alabama, though, I’m not so sure the Crimson Tide fully understands the assignment just yet.

Alabama might still be too fat and happy off the Nick Saban years to appreciate the abysmal depths of desperation it takes to win these days.

At Ohio State, they hate Michigan and they hate the SEC. That’s the motivation. At Alabama, they still hate it for themselves that Saban retired.

Here’s an idea. Instead of paying Saban $500,000 a year to wear Alabama shirts and hats, maybe ask the GOAT and Miss Terry to be co-chairs of Alabama’s NIL collective.

Saban was at the national championship as an analyst for ESPN. Something he said before the game caught my attention. He used his platform to lobby for a revolutionary idea. He said college football needs a hard cap on its player spending if the sport wants to survive. I couldn’t help but think that Saban was speaking on behalf of Alabama.

In a perfect world, Saban is right. A team spending $3 million can’t compete with a team spending $30 million. But let’s be real. College football is anything but a perfect world. College football is a dirty world and there will always be desperate rivals who are willing to spend more money.

Did Tennessee overpay for that quarterback who went up to Ohio State and lost 42-17 in the first round? Nah, because Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava did just enough to help the Volunteers get there by knocking off Alabama 24-17.

Thanks to this new playoff system, teams like Boise State, Arizona State and SMU had a chance to compete for a national championship this season. That’s a good thing. But I’ll never forget what happened after Boise State was eliminated in the first round. Its talented offensive coordinator, Dirk Koetter, decided the college game wasn’t for him anymore. He quit.

Think about that.

At the height of Boise State’s success in college football, Koetter called for the valet. Time to go to the house.

“Our best players are getting offered between two and 10 times what we can offer,” Koetter wrote on social media. “We are losing recruits in the portal to schools that are just flat outbidding us. I know it’s not all about the money, and Coach [Spencer Danielson] and staff will undoubtedly continue to find the ‘right kind of guys,’ but money is an issue.”

Can’t fault Koetter for getting out. Saban did the same thing after losing to Michigan in the Rose Bowl. After cheating his way to a title, Michigan’s championship coach then went back to the NFL.

Ohio State knew the assignment after Jim Harbaugh led Michigan to the 2024 title. Brutus plunked down $20 million for its roster and won the national championship. Not to be outdone, Michigan then spent big on 2025 incoming freshman Bryce Underwood, its highest rated quarterback in 20 years.

Here’s the direct quote of what Underwood had to say after Michigan embarrassed Alabama in its bowl game: “It’s my time now.”

This game is still about rivalries, but is Alabama desperate enough to buy its way back on top?

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Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”