50 Rejected Names for the College Football Playoff

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide

The news came out Tuesday that college football’s new four-team playoff system will be called “College Football Playoff.” It’s a safe choice for the BCS, which decided to play it simple. But the decision came at the end of a lengthy debate, and this morning Grantland received a sheet of paper from a BCS source with a handwritten list of 50 names it considered and ultimately rejected. Some of them are predictably masculine, some are cynical attempts to play off pop culture phenomenons, and some are just bizarre. Throughout, you’ll notice a strange fixation on Nick Saban. In a few cases, clarifying parenthetical notes accompany the names. We now present the unedited list:

50 Rejected Names for the College Football Playoff

1. The Leather War
2. The Pigskin Playoff
3. Emmert’s Circus
4. The Olde Timey Football Fracas
5. The America
6. Leather America
7. The Leather Lords
8. Nick Saban and the American Lords of Leather
9. Wimbledon
10. Sheriff Football’s Tumbleweed Showdown
11. Texas Forever
12. Ole Chalk and Grass: The Playoff
13. One Hundred Yards of Hell
14. One Hundred Yards of Hell: The Final Four
15. One Hundred Yards of Hell: The Final Four: Teams, Not Yards
16. Nick Saban’s Weird Personal Playground
17. Nick Saban’s Weird Personal Dungeon
18. The Masters
19. THE MAN SHOW
20. The Younger Games
21. Scary Potter and the Gridiron of Secrets
22. Scary Potter and the Goblet of Football
23. Scary Potter and the Disorder of the Phoenix [games would have to be played in Phoenix]
24. Scoreless in Seattle [games would have to be played in Seattle between Big 10 teams]
25. Last Dance in the Tickle Barn
26. Last Dance in the Tackle Barn [“Tickle” above = typo, sorry]
27. The Tour de France: America
28. The Second SEC Championship Game Plus Two Other Semifinals
29. The Padded Quarrel
30. Angry, Beautiful Young Men in Pads
31. Unpaid Labor: The Best of the Bond Servants, ft. Nick Saban
32. Nick Saban’s Tickle Palace
33. Nick Saban’s Tackle Palace [sorry, again with that typo!]
34. The SuperER Bowl
35. The Curious Case of Benjamin HUT-ton
36. HIKE it like Beckham
37. Spinal SNAP [pun combining Spinal Tap and snapping the ball … could be misinterpreted]
38. Dude, Where’s My Football? Right Here, in This Awesome Playoff
39. The Last Grunt
40. Nick Saban’s Last Grunt
41. The Fearsome Four
42. Grunt Like a Saban: The Fearsome Four
43. Anything to Do With the NCAA
43. The Last Judgment
44. Judgment Days: The Last Gut Check
45. Judgment Days: The Last Gut Check: End Zone
46. Fight for the Fucking End Zone: Pigskin Pyrotechnics
47. The Fucking Pigskin Zone: Fuck You, Soccer
48. TackleZone: A Clash of the Realest Men on Earth
49. ManClash: The Endless Days of Tackle
50. Nick Saban’s No-Questions-Asked Week of Endless Tickles

Filed Under: College Football, Nick Saban, Shane Ryan