In a few hours, it will be announced on national TV which bowls will host which college football teams this year. And it will be announced which teams have been chosen, through computer rankings and poll ratings, to play for the national title.
For a long time, it has seemed to me that we needed a genuine playoff system to resolve the question of who is the best team in college football.
After all, all of the other NCAA sports have some sort of playoff mechanism in place to crown a national champion at the end of the season.
The BCS was created, in large part, to end the possibility of having divided championships. But, as the BCS is “tweaked” after every season, it just seems to get worse each year.
And this season, with its many upsets and directional shifts, has dissolved into “chaos,” as ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit said last night.
In case you missed it, #1 Missouri lost the Big 12 title game to #9 Oklahoma. And #2 West Virginia lost to unranked Pitt. So now, we’ll have to see which two teams are blessed, via the computer analyses, and get to play each other for the national title.
Most experts believe Ohio State will be one of the two, but there seems to be a good case to be made for many teams, such as LSU, Oklahoma, Georgia, USC. No matter which teams are selected to play for the national championship, you can bet there will be at least three or four other teams, maybe more, who will argue that they deserved to be there.
And who’s to say they’re wrong?
Jennifer Floyd Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says it all adds up to an argument for an ”honest-to-goodness, 16-team, NFL-style, winner-take-all playoff.”
I’m inclined to agree.
In sports, you have to earn the title on the field. I know the bowl system is solidly entrenched, but I see no reason why the site for the national title couldn’t rotate each year, as it does now, and the rest of the bowls be used for the earlier round games.
Money is what the bowls are all about, anyway. Bowl games that match teams with a chance to play for the national title will create interest -- and interest is what brings people to sporting events. As it is now, only a school's fans have any real interest in any of college football's postseason games -- except the last one between #1 and #2.
But the early games will have as much interest as the late games because of the opportunity they represent. Because the dream, however tenuous, still lives for each school. Even if most of them probably don't have a realistic chance of winning it all.
Sure, it might take us deeper into January, or require scheduling that would overlap with final exams for the fall semester in December, but we already have a basketball playoff system that keeps its participants involved during spring break in March, and we have a baseball playoff system that requires players to compete during final exams for the spring semester and keep playing into June.
Those sports don’t have “mythical” national champions, but football always does.
It’s way past time for college football to do the smart thing.
Even though Ohio State is generally picked to be one of the two teams playing for the national title, there are people out there, like The Sporting News' Matt Hayes, who say that Oklahoma and USC should play for the championship.
If that comes to pass, you can expect to hear arguments to the contrary from Ohio State, LSU, Georgia, Virginia Tech, probably a few others.
And until college football crowns a winner of a real playoff system, we can expect more of this.
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2 comments:
David, I respectfully disagree. I see the frustrations, but there could be a little tweaking that could make it work as it is.
First of all, it is erroneous to say there isn't a playoff -- it is just called the regular season. When I figured this out, it changed my entire perspective. Unlike any other sport, each and every college football game is of incredible importance, especially when compared with the pros. That the Ravens and Eagles almost beat the Patriots meant nothing other than 1972 Dolphin bragging rights as the Pats have already captured their division title. On the other hand, that Georgia lost to Tennessee and USC lost to Stanford meant everything.
Secondly, an easy solution would be a plus-one scenario where if there happened to be legitimate disagreement (like undefeated Auburn being forced to the sideline), then there could be one extra game. That would lead to a HUGE payout, so money is not a problem there.
Third, the bowls work because alums and fans can plan and afford to go to one game. If there are undetermined sights where teams qualify late Saturday night, who can afford airfare, getting off work, gas, etc., to travel to all these games? The playoffs work in the pros and in D2 and D3 because they play at each other's home sight. In D2 and D3, if folks don't travel to the game it is not big deal -- they only draw a few thousand anyway!
Another tweak that would be easy and would work: If your conference is so big that not all teams play one another, you must have a conference championship. Thus the Big 11 and the Pac-10 must have a playoff to be eligible. That doesn't mean they have to win the darn thing (a 12-0 team might lose to and 8-4 team and still be a top team), but at least PLAY IT ON THE FIELD instead of sitting around stuffing your face with leftovers while OU is stuffing Mizzou!
When you compare the incredibly rich regular season tradition of college football with the college basketball season, it even becomes more clear: Should the basketball Tar Heels lose to Davidson, which almost happened, it would have been of zero consequence; a Wisconsin loss to Duke has no consequence; a Kentucky loss to Carolina has no consequence. We can chose to watch or not watch these early games. Really, I don't even watch college hoops until conference play begins, and I can't wait until March Madness. I love it, but it makes basketball a must-watch sport for only about a two month season. College football is an every game must-watch season.
A playoff in college hoops is necessary as there are so many teams with so few players -- one or two great players can give a Marquette or UW-Green Bay a legitimate shot at a title. Football isn't that way, and I hate to say it but the Boise State ride of last year is the anomaly (and OU was overrated to begin with, imho (that is coming from a Mizzou alum)).
Comparisons to any other college sports are red herring, as football and basketball are the only ones that really matter!!!!
Kyle, you make some good points, but I still feel a playoff system is really the best way.
And I think you could get some arguments from hockey fans and baseball fans about football and basketball being the only college sports that matter!
But I do think there is some merit to requiring conferences that are so large that members don't play everyone during the regular season to have a championship game. I think that's been an unfair advantage for some conferences that don't hold conference championship games. Look at the teams from such conferences who have been in the national title game in recent years. In just the last two years, one such team -- Ohio State -- has been placed in the title game. Before that, it was Southern Cal.
Keep arguing, though. I see good points in your arguments. Just not enough of them yet to make me change my mind!
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