Welcome to college football's most awkward Champ Week yet - ESPN

There's nothing quite as unsettling as that moment when you bump into an ex.

At the grocery store. The airport. Wherever. Especially if your breakup was dramatic. A soap opera-worthy split that involved name calling and shouts of «I wish we'd never met!» and wound up with lawyers involved. A schism so sensational that people still gossip about it every time you enter a room. What was it that Cady Heron said in «Mean Girls»? «Have you walked up to people and realized they were just talking about you? Have you ever had it happen 60 times in a row?»

Well, what if it happened 80,000 times in a row? What if that uncomfortable encounter with your former loved one, that person whom you so publicly skewered then immediately returned the favor, was nationally televised? With a trophy as a backdrop?

Welcome to college football's Championship Weekend 2023, the apex of awkwardness. The final, unavoidable culmination at the end of a season when everyone has, for the most part, been able to ignore the pigskin-covered elephant in the room.

Not anymore.

Starting Friday night in Las Vegas, there will be 24 consecutive hours of conference championships won, College Football Playoff berths earned and more uncomfortable handshakes than a Roy family reunion on «Succession.»

Let's start right there, in the world's largest Roomba, located adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip. Allegiant Stadium is where Oregon and Washington will fight for the final Pac-12 championship. No matter where the conference goes from here, it will never be the same, as this will most definitely be the last night of the league as we've always known it, anchored by the big box schools of Los Angeles, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest.

The loser of that game will immediately