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Whew. So, it has ended.

A game. A season.

We all mourn its passing.

College football fired to a close on Monday night, by way of a 45-40 Alabama win over a previously undefeated Clemson team, a team trying to become the first in the history of the college game to get 15 victories.

It didn't work out that way, but it was close, it was wild, it was a gas to watch.

Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said before the opening kick that his team needed to "get into the flow of the game." That much, it did — just not quite enough of a flow to knock off the Crimson Tide. Alabama went ahead and did what a lot of observers had predicted. It won. At 24-all, Nick Saban called for an onside kick that gave his team the edge, that enabled him to hoist his fourth national title trophy for Tuscaloosa, and that hoisting punctuated all the season's mayhem.

How's the saying go? Fortune favors the bold.

The game was decided in the final minute, after each quarterback threw for more than 300 yards, after big scoring plays, after those onside kicks, after goal-line stands, after heart attacks, after just about everything and anything a game can offer, everything except stingy defense.

Nobody — except defensive coordinators — cared about that last one.

After a dismal bowl season, the championship game rekindled everybody's hope for what schoolboy football can be. It almost felt like an NFL playoff game. And if college football can approach that, it would be a good thing.

The powers-that-be have tried. After years of dawdling, of making excuses about keeping the old BCS system intact, refusing to put together a real playoff, college leaders finally came around last year — sort of. Afraid of too much change too quick, they threw together a four-team playoff. They settled for that. It was an improvement, but also a missed opportunity.

Dad always said, "There's a right way and a wrong way. If you're going to do something, do it the right way, go all the way."

College football advanced itself, setting the stage for what we saw Monday night, but it could have done even better. It went with four teams instead of eight. Eight would have given all the P5 conference champions a postseason spot, plus three at-large berths. It would have covered all the bases, taking teams from every region of the country, and filled in the gaps with outfits that might have stumbled early or late, just enough not to get an automatic bid, and thrown them all into the same stew.

Let the best teams bubble up to the top.

If adopted, that extended process would bring more buildup into the playoff, allowing fans around the country to get more acquainted with the qualifiers as they battle through another level of do-or-die competition, culminating in the title game. Any downside to that? Some say it would cheapen the regular season, but, in reality, it would add more importance to it. With the college game being as regionalized, as fractured, as it is, this option would put significance on winning a league championship and, for just a few, coming close. Stories of possible redemption add to the drama.

In the postseason, that excitement would do nothing but increase.

That's the way it works in the NFL, doubling up the regular-season intensity with no room for slippage at the end. In the NFL wild-card round alone this past weekend, four road teams won, some of them in insane fashion.

The college game could offer and enjoy the same.

Monday night's Alabama win was enough to stoke the imagination. We want more. And there's more where that came from. There were quality teams that could have spiced the mix, more than just the final four — Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma and Michigan State. As it was, the semifinals this time around weren't all that scintillating. Add to that group, say, Stanford, Ohio State, TCU and Houston, and … the whole deal would have been more compelling.

On the whole, the bowl season stunk. A lot of the peripheral games were one-sided and uneventful and unmemorable. A bigger playoff is no guarantee for a great ending — Alabama and Clemson still might have faced off at the finish — but four is not enough.

Eight is enough.

Eight is darn near perfect.

Any team outside the last eight likely would have no legitimate shot at winning it all, so … no complaining.

Eight would make what happened Monday night — a grand title game — that much more difficult to get to and to win, that much more elusive and inclusive, that much more fun to watch, that much more satisfying, that much more convincing that no doubt about a true champion remains.

GORDON MONSON hosts 'The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.