Parity is the wrong word to describe CFB, Variance is more accurate

A lot of people saying NIL/Portal has brought in more parity, but I don’t think that’s true. The NFL has parity because all teams have the same salary cap, reverse standings draft, rookie pay scale, and trades.

CFB has none of that, and some schools spend 5x more than others. So why are we seeing so many upsets and ranked teams losing? Variance. Unlike parity which implies all teams are essentially similar talent levels, variance just means teams have higher ceilings/lower floors.

Florida doesn’t have the same talent as Texas, but they have enough talent thanks to NIL and the portal to win 2 out of 10 games instead of losing by 7. Texas also has a lower floor because instead of playing together for 4 years their $50 million roster has less than a year together.

Variance means you will still have weeks where every favorite wins by 3 scores because the underdogs aren’t actually on the same level. But I would honestly rather have variance because it is more exciting than NFL style parity where 20-30 teams are good and basically never lose to any lower ranked teams.

It’s why Miami almost won a title as the 10 seed. Good enough to beat anyone, bad enough to lose to Louisville. Eventually we will have a 17th seed champion just due to variance