Four of the eight teams remaining in the College Football Playoff certainly proved they belong after dominating their respective opponents in the first round, and now the race for the 2024 national championship embarks on the quarterfinal round in the coming days.

We spend so much time during the run-up to the release of the final College Football Playoff Rankings arguing about strength of schedule and quality wins. The imbalance across the modern mega-conferences and the small sample size of college football schedules leave much up for interpretation.

It took more than 100 years, a few billion dollars and the cold, hard realization that you can’t fight progress forever.