We grew up on a college football season that climaxed on New Year's Day. Is there a way back to that while keeping the excitement of the past month?

Now that it’s all over and the Ohio State Buckeyes are the college football national champions, it can be definitively said: Expanding the College Football Playoff worked.

Plus, more questions on whether the CFP format was a success, next year's rising teams and college football's longest season ever.

The early betting favorite to win next year’s national championship is Ohio State. The question nobody can really answer at this time is what sort of game will the Buckeyes or anyone else return to when they kick it off again seven months from now.

The CFP will never likely surpass the NFL in the attention economy, but the march through the first 12-team Playoff has been a positive one.

Ohio State’s run to its first national championship in a decade enabled the Buckeyes to dominate the Associated Press’ all-College Football Playoff team. The AP changed the way it put together its postseason all-star teams this season as college football introduced an expanded 12-team playoff that had some schools playing as many as four postseason games.

Athletic directors from the SEC and Big Ten will meet to discuss major issues in college football and other NCAA sports at a conference on Feb. 19, according to

Monday night in Atlanta, Ohio State won the first national championship of the 12-team College Football Playoff era. In the process, the Buckeyes showed provided the rest of the college football world with the blueprint for success going forward in this new landscape.

Here are five teams that didn’t make the College Football Playoff this season that should be strong contenders for qualification next season.