Quarterback Bryce Young was brilliant in his final game for Alabama, but it’s a shame that the best player in college football went out in a bowl that kicked off before noon on New Year’s Eve.

It can’t be expressed strongly enough how much I hate college football’s current postseason, and this year’s slate of games fills me with a burning frustration in my eyes, throat and soul that can only be compared to dull pocket knives, people who wear socks and shoes on the beach and four-wheel drive trucks painted yellow.

It wasn’t even a bittersweet Sugar Bowl for Alabama on Saturday in New Orleans. It was the NutraSweet Bowl. It was a bottle of warm Boone’s Farm on New Year’s Eve when perfectly chilled Dom was right there for anyone to drink. Don’t let people fool you into thinking it was a good thing for college football that Young and Will Anderson Jr. decided to play in a game that no one cared about. That’s just gaslighting by ESPN. More than anything, Alabama 45, Kansas State 20 was yet another reminder of a college football postseason that is flawed, fraudulent and hurting the sport that it’s supposed to be promoting.

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GOODMAN: Nick Saban’s shining example shouldn’t go unnoticed

Happy New Year, y’all, but can we just skip ahead to 2024? That’s when the College Football Playoff is set to expand to 12 teams, and it can’t get here fast enough.

Alabama coach Nick Saban wants to know what’s broken about a four-team playoff. He posed that question in rebuttal to a reporter this week who asked Alabama’s coach about the problem with the current system.

Really, coach? More like, where to begin?

And Saban’s own team is the perfect example why the expanded College Football Playoff has the potential to be so revolutionary for the postseason and its sport. For the time being, the four-team setup is sabotaging college football with games that are afterthoughts involving players who are too good to be playing for nothing except pride this time of year.

I’m not talking about the second-, third- and fourth-tier bowls. Those are fine. I’m talking about a resurgent Washington Huskies team led by quarterback Michael Penix Jr. playing on Thursday night and taking down Texas in the Alamo Bowl. I’m talking about Tennessee having its best season in years and then playing in an Orange Bowl on Dec.30 that ended so late at night I think everything was closed on South Beach except Big Pink.

It all Bigly Stinks.

The fans deserve better. The schools deserve better. The players deserve to be paid by the bowl games and television networks broadcasting these games. Young was masterful against Kansas State, throwing for 321 yards and five touchdowns in the Superdome. Unfortunately it will not be remembered by the large majority of college football fans because the game has no impact on the national championship. That’s a crime against America.

And what if this also-ran Sugar Bowl were Saban’s final game? I’m not suggesting it is, but nothing can be taken for granted now that Saban is 71 and the oldest coach in the history of SEC football.

Alabama missed the four-team playoff this season because it lost road games to Tennessee and LSU on the final plays of games. Is it fair that Alabama missed the playoff because of those losses? Yes, of course, but that’s not what’s at question here. Objectively no one can refute the fact that Alabama would have been favored against every team in the CFP except for maybe Georgia.

The Alabama team that de-toothed the Kansas State Wildcats would have destroyed TCU in a neutral-site game of high stakes. Kansas State earned its invitation to the Sugar Bowl thanks to an overtime victory against TCU in the Big 12 championship game.

Despite that loss, TCU made the four-team College Football Playoff. On the other side of the CFP bracket, Ohio State made the playoff after losing to Michigan in the Buckeyes’ final game of the regular season. I’m not suggesting Alabama or Tennessee should be in the playoff instead of TCU and Ohio State. I’m just pointing out that half the teams in a four-team invitational billed as a playoff back-doored their way into the party.

We love it no matter what because it’s college football and college football is glorious, but let’s not pretend it could be so much better.

ESPN and other media outlets and reporters should be ashamed of themselves for driving a narrative about “good” teammates choosing to play in meaningless bowl games. What an absolute slap in the face to journalism and its pursuit of truth. The players are not being compensated financially by the bowls or their schools. ESPN is making money off the players while not paying them a single dime. Of course ESPN wants the players to play. Young’s value in television advertising for ESPN alone is worth millions.

It’s all an egregious form of exploitation.

Alabama’s trip to the Sugar Bowl was an hors d’oeuvre for the College Football Playoff semifinal games, but it could have been so much better. It all left me frustrated and annoyed, and wondering what-if all over again with this excellent Alabama team. The vessel that is the college football postseason is like a years-old, stale Saltine cracker sitting on a party tray surrounded by Beluga caviar, fresh stone crab claws and Waygu steak tartare.

Pass me the freshly baked bread, please and thank you.

It’s Alabama’s fault they missed out this year, but imagine if this two-loss Alabama team were playing a first-round playoff game in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Imagine if Tennessee were kicking off right afterwards with a home playoff game inside Neyland Stadium. It’s all coming, but I hate it for the former college football stars who will be watching at home and wondering what took so long.

It’s like everyone was stuck in traffic behind that yellow truck driven by the dude with sand in his socks.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.