“We consider the outcome of this college football postseason to be conclusive: it just doesn’t mean more,” said Anil Gollahalli, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel for the Big Ten Conference via Slack Huddle late on Thursday night.

“The amount of handwringing and ballyhooing about Alabama and South Carolina being left out of the playoff only to see those teams defeated on national television by ‘inferior’ B1G opponents is, frankly, shameful,” the lawyer said.

“Now Georgia has been exposed by Big Ten-adjacent Notre Dame, and all that’s left for the conference is Texas, who not everyone even agrees is an SEC team. And don’t even get me started on what Ohio State did to Tennessee,” Gollahalli went on.

“Isn’t this a victimless crime?” CFB News Now asked. Gollahalli doesn’t think so.

“Players, coaches, and spectators have had this idea hammered into them year, after year, after year,” the B1G lawyer said. “We believe the effect of that constant and deceptive piece of communication is significant and quantifiable, and we aim to use the court system to have it addressed,” Gollahalli said.

So what does victory look like for the B1G in this legal tussle? Gollahalli has a couple of ideas.

“First, we’d like a handwritten apology from the SEC, that’s the first order of business. Beyond that, we want the conference to adopt a modified tagline, something more fitting and accurate, like ‘It just means more (in basketball),’ or ‘It means exactly as much as any other conference, or perhaps even less now that Saban has retired.’ Something simple, catchy, but also factually accurate,” Gollahalli conclude.

The tournament—which is fictional, and exists only in the minds of this article’s writer and some random Redditors—began and concluded after two games ended exactly the way everyone who roots against the SEC wanted.

Lane Kiffin wasn’t available for comment but was noticeably avoidant of issuing any snarky, SEC-biased barbs on X (formerly Twitter) as the games played out. Instead, he spent New Year’s Eve re-posting motivational and encouraging Facebook content, largely sidestepping the topic of football altogether.

South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer and Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema nearly threw down mid-game in what most pugilism aficionados would call a weight class mismatch. Illinois would go on to defeat the Gamecocks 21-17.

Michigan, who defeated Alabama 19-13 in what can only be described as one of the ugliest games in college football history, won’t be advancing to the next round because there isn’t one. The Wolverines end the 2024 season with an 8-5 record and riding a two-game winning streak heading into 2025.

“This is high-level math we’re talking about here,” said Chalmers’ dissertation advisor Belinda Montreal in a telephone interview this morning. “With sixteen teams, no divisions, and South Carolina playing like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, really at this stage, anything is possible.”

“There’s the potential for an eight-way tie, there’s the possibility that the top-ranked teams both miss out on the championship game. There’s a non-zero chance the Texas students protest when they learn they’ve been left out. Who knows where this thing is headed.”

Chalmers’ dissertation concluded that Vanderbilt had the best chances of making the SEC championship game, appearing in the finale in an astounding 81% of scenarios. When asked how this was possible, Montreal responded, “It would take too long to explain. But you can trust us, the math works out.”