College football's new playoff is so good it doesn't need a weekly TV show. (USATSI)

Well, the frenzy certainly died down considerably.

We're only through Week 2 of college football broadcasting its playoff selection committee's grand-standings-of-the-moment final four. And while this new, slightly altered inaugural College Football Playoff list will be a sports topic over the next day, the actual urgency and emotional investment behind the latest projections aren't rippling like they once did, all the way back to last week.

This is a good thing. Perspective and patience are always welcome. Let's temper the faux outrage and save it for when it matters: in early December, after most of the anticipation has been stripped bare and accurately predicted long before the final four is finally figured by the committee. To live and die with these rankings every week would be a big waste of energy for any sports fan.

I'm happy college football has finally evolved to a real playoff. It's long overdue, and I can't wait to watch this tidy four-team, three-game arrangement in January. But the process already is unnecessarily ornate without being all that transparent.

You've got three of the same four teams as last week (Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn) with Oregon kicking out Ole Miss. Arizona State going from 14th to ninth is ... something? Nothing? Teams could vault or flop another five or seven spots in a week, just like another 10 teams could with a big win, or loss. With football offering so few games its mandate to publicly shift teams based on week-to-week results is self-defeating, manufactured drama, and it's not all that dramatic.

What are the headlines here? Where's the urgency? What's the point?

So, with that in mind, I'm banging on the theoretical door of the NCAA men's basketball selection committee: Don't get any ideas. For Selection Sunday, one of the most exciting days on the sports calendar, the beauty is the build-up to when a massive curtain is drawn to reveal a field impossible to guess in terms of seeds and sides.

It all unfolds in about 25 minutes on a mid-March Sunday night during one of the last must-see-by-the-second events airing on American sports TV. Those 68 teams: where they'll be placed, cities they'll be sent to, schools they'll play. It's magnificent, and even those who don't really pay attention to college basketball inevitably tune in -- or certainly seek out a bracket before bedtime.

There are many things the selection committee still doesn't do quite right.

But the one thing it absolutely nails is releasing only one bracket and doing it at the very end. No hints. No easter eggs. No tips.

I've heard some say college basketball should now model its process after college football. Get back in the national conversation. This is folly; it's based on logic that the sport exists in a vacuum and is void of any real television exposure prior to Valentine's Day, which isn't even close to the case. Millions watch, follow, read about and invest themselves in college hoops from November on. It's not in need of a national boost by inventing a TV show to create instantly disposable discussion after games are played within hours of an advanced bracket reveal.

For those who think the regular season already is lacking, this would water it down moreso.

And by revealing only, say, the top four seeds from each region? You're then sucking some life, some mystery and a lot of the crescendo to what makes March feel like March. College basketball shouldn't replicate college football. It's not the same, nor should it be.

For football, its teams' bodies of work continue to change, evolve and distinctly alter by the week. And with a pool of 11 or 12 games -- not 30-plus, like college hoops -- extra weight and additional reaction is compiled and compounded with each week. Enhanced/artificial drama is now part of the process. The idea of which team should fit where based on best wins or other across-the-board criteria is still up for debate.

And, generally speaking, when you're wringing hands most over teams 21-25, that's largely a waste of time. You don't see the men's selection committee tossing food over Nos. 76-80 on its respective overall list.

College football has earned this; I don't fault the additional attention in this trial run. But the playoff race is still basically a logjam. All top 10 teams have zero or one loss. Plenty more to come, though. Transparency isn't bad, but this is inviting criticism without much benefit. And in doing so, takes some of the appeal of the grand exposition away.

These rankings? Right now? Don't matter.

The drama will be in the doing, in playing the games and watching the unpredictable still predictably to come. We wait, we guess, but we won't know until the very end. That has the most value.

College basketball still has that in full and hopefully always will.