This is an opinion column.

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Something tells me that Florida State wouldn’t have allowed 300 yards rushing in the national championship game.

If we needed another reminder that the four-team playoff format was a viral dinner party of the absurd for college football, we got it on Monday night in the final shindig before everything changes.

There was Washington’s defense on the national stage, metaphorically trapped in a magical torture device like Connor from Mountain Brook, and then roundly conquered by the mysterious forces of this thing it apparently had never seen before called the power urn … ur … I mean, the power run.

Move your legs, Washington, you can do it.

I’m trying everything I freakin’ can.

After Michigan’s symbolic, 34-13 sacrifice of the Pac-12, a nation of fans delivered last rites to college football as we know it. Beginning Tuesday, all will be born anew for the greatest, most confounding form of sports entertainment this country has to offer outside of death by urn on New Year’s Eve.

Washington might want to figure out how to tackle running backs before next season. The Huskies are joining the Big Ten, of course, and have Michigan on the schedule once again.

Michigan in 2023 was the poster boy for everything gloriously unsound about college football. Coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended for six games throughout the season for NCAA violations (three games) and alleged sign stealing/an organized college football spy ring (three games). The Wolverines then won the national championship for the first time since 1997.

Let’s be honest, though, Michigan had a great football team even though they probably shouldn’t have been allowed to participate in the College Football Playoff. They ran over Alabama in overtime of the Rose Bowl semifinal, then embarrassed Washington in the title game.

Like it or not, that’s college football, dear friends and dinner guests. The cheaters win. Don’t hate the urn. Just hop in feet first and enjoy the spectacle.

I asked Alabama coach Nick Saban two pointed questions before the Rose Bowl. One, was he concerned about the sign stealing allegations involving Michigan and, two, what had Alabama done to prevent it?

Harbaugh didn’t like hearing it — he said after the national championship game that Michigan was innocent — but those questions needed to be asked. Saban’s answer was excellent, as usual, and thought provoking. He said Alabama wasn’t concerned, but then addressed the important topic.

“Integrity in the game I think is really, really important, and our team has had every opportunity to prepare for this game just like they have every other game,” Saban said. “I think that especially when you’re a no-huddle team you’ve got to adapt and adjust how you communicate with the quarterback, and hopefully one day we’ll get to the NFL system where you can just talk to the guy in his helmet. I think that would be a lot better.

“But, for now, we just have to adapt to how we communicate with the quarterback, and we’ll change it up and try to not put our players at a disadvantage in any way.”

While the NCAA suspended Harbaugh, the College Football Playoff didn’t care one bit. Cheaters? Welcome. Florida State? Tough luck. Go find a better conference.

College football going into 2024 is equal parts toxic and intoxicating. The sport has never been more entertaining and, at the same time, unstable. I originally was going to write unwell, but that’s not quite accurate, is it? College football is thriving, and that’s really its biggest problem of all.

Some will want to frame the state of college football as troubling, or unsustainable, or worse, but it’s more like growing pains. Don’t tell that to FSU, though, or you might catch a lawsuit in court and then some casual death threats on the internet.

Florida State has a legitimate gripe, though, after being left out of the playoff. Does that mean FSU should leave the ACC and attempt to join the Big Ten? That’s probably an overreaction, but when has Tallahassee ever been subtle about anything?

Florida State won the final BCS championship. Between then and now, the four-team playoff was so fantastically disruptive for college football that Texas and Oklahoma are leaving the Big 12 for the SEC, the Pac-12 was torn apart and, finally, FSU was so badly scorned after going undefeated that it wants out of the ACC.

USC, UCLA and Oregon are joining Washington in the Big Ten beginning next season. The other teams from the old Pac-12 are moving to the Big 12. Washington State and Oregon State are somewhere up in the Pacific Northwest rolling around in a couple of urns. Where will FSU go? Who knows? SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would probably recommend a visit to Sesame Street.

Of all the funny business that happened in college football last year, Sankey going full Vince McMahon was possibly the most telling. When lobbying for an SEC team to be in the final four-team version of the College Football Playoff, Sankey referenced Sesame Street and that was enough to bully the College Football Playoff committee into taking Alabama and Texas over FSU.

As an encore, Sankey will welcome Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC this summer at SEC Media Days in Dallas. Let’s just say there will be dinner parties featuring the urn challenge.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the most controversial sports book ever written, “We Want Bama”. It’s a love story about wild times, togetherness and rum.