Please, Mr. President-Elect, No Playoff!

Our nation's incoming leader has weighed in on the pressing topic of a college football playoff. It was first mentioned on Monday Night Football on election eve, with a response to a question from Chris Berman -- who was clearly out of his element -- as to what one thing about sports that he would change if elected. It was a popular response, endearing him to the large media contingent that feels the same.

President-elect Obama, having made the case on ESPN, one of the homes of college football, then said the same on CBS, the home of the powerful Southeastern Conference where there may be more than one team laying claim to the national title in college football. Obama snuck in a reference to the need for a playoff in college football during an interview with 60 Minutes, professing the same urgent need for a playoff.

With ESPN just outbidding Fox for the rights to the BCS for four years starting in 2011, the likelihood of this policy issue being changed under President-elect Obama's watch seems slim. This may be a campaign promise that he cannot keep.

Moreover, though, in this writer's opinion, the call for a playoff is misguided. It is misguided not for the traditional reasons given about college athletes missing more class time -- please -- and the logistical problems associated with it. Those logistics can all be worked out, as they are for the Division II college football playoff and for the NCAA college basketball tournament.

College football is a three to four month sport in the nation's sports consciousness. In this time of diluted interest in sports everywhere you turn -- ticket sales, television ratings, merchandise sales, sponsorship deals, etc. -- college football has a leading part in the sports landscape for a third of the year, trailing only the NFL in fan interest over that time frame. This is cause for celebration in these times. There are debates that rage every week on television, radio, and among sports fans everywhere about who the top team is depending on the games of the week, which is exactly what college football wants. There are games every week for a period of two months -- we've had Texas-Oklahoma, Texas-Texas Tech, Oklahoma-Texas Tech, Penn State-Ohio State, Georgia-Florida, etc. -- that get a national media buildup unlike any game would were there a playoff to come later in the year.

A playoff would devalue the season. Games that determine rankings week to week now matter. With a playoff, they would still matter, but far less. Now when a top team loses a game, it is often devastating to their hopes of becoming the champion of college football. With a playoff, a loss would be difficult but not as it would in a playoff.

With apologies to the college basketball diehards, that sport is a one-month sport in our national awareness, largely due to the pending presence of a 65-team playoff we affectionately refer to as March Madness. Prior to that time, there are a few rivalry games that may be interesting but not many on a national scale. We care about college basketball when the brackets come out in early March. We forget about college basketball when the championship game is over in early April. One month.

And don't even start talking about the playoffs in some professional sports where more teams make the playoffs than don't -- the NHL and NBA for starters. Try to get excited about games in December, January and February in those leagues.

We care about college football for almost a third of the year, even if we care for the reason of debating a system perceived to be flawed in how it crowns a champion. While we debate that system, highly important games are being played for three months. College football matters.

With all due respect to the learned opinions of our incoming leader, his suggestion about college football would reduce the sport to a three-week event for attention-deficit sports fans in America. We want games that matter; games that count. They now count every week in college football. Don't screw that up, Mr. President-elect.....

Comments

[greatblue]

In our playoff proposal, every regular season game is still very important, because the top 4 teams would get a first round bye. The problem with the present system is that a late loss matters way too much, so teams schedule non-conference cupcake games.

With a playoff like we propose, if a top team loses its conference championship game in OT, they don't get completely knocked out in favor of an undefeated team that beat some Div I-AA teams or had no conference championship game. For instance, this year, Florida and USC have little chance of playing for the title. We think fans would like to see them and teams like Boise State and Ball State "in the mix."

http://vagreatblueheron.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/a-playoff-proposal-for-the-president-elect/

[Dannydel]

The way the BCS operates, and this years results in the Big 12, are all you have to look at to realize that college players are sick of working their guts out, to be relegated by a few computers and some voters who already have their pre-conceived favorites. Its ALL about the money, honey.

[NeverRepublican]

I have always thought a play-off would be the only way to go. I would like to see an end to the out-of-conference play. All conferences should only play within their own conferences. From there the top teams would begin the sceduling of the bracket system. Each bracket would trade year to year (conference) who is home and who is away. As teams are eleiminated from the bracket series the winners would be placed into the top bowl games. There may still be a need for rankings much like high school or Division II teams.

Right now most teams play 12 and in some cases 13 games for a regualr season. Each team should only play 9. From there the bracket system can be employed including a loser bracket for teams who don't make the initial winners bracket.

I am sure someone can build a bracket system. And once it's in place...the games are to be played no matter how hard the "old-regime" cries.

Put in a system....NOW!!!

PS...instead of putting in a system have you noticed over the last 10 years or so...teams have been adding games AND also adding in a second by week?!! In fact, having a bye week in college is the STUPIDEST idea to date...it elongates the season and the only winners are the cooperations...TV and advertisers.

No thank you...we want play-offs for college!

[kroenung58]

I have a lot of trouble being sympathetic to a system that pays coaches 10 times more than the actual instructors at the school. Everyone needs to arrange their priorities.

[MorganWick]

Here's the thing about college basketball... ranking within the field of 64 really does matter. If you're a 1 seed, you get a scrub team in the first round; no 1 seed has ever lost to a 16. If you're a 4 or 5 seed, you're courting disaster in the first round, and if you're in an 8-9 game, more 9 seeds have won that game than 8 seeds. So why do people talk like the college basketball regular season doesn't matter? Why isn't there intense interest in finding out how high a seed any given team can get?

(The real problem may be the glut of major teams getting at-larges; basically, as long as you schedule a bunch of scrub teams out of conference and do mediocre in conference, you can get a tournament bid.)

Is the whole "regular season doesn't matter" argument just trotted out by playoff opponents without factual basis, or is there a genuine concern that even if rankings mattered in reality, people would focus on who was just in the playoff, regardless of ranking, in their perceptions?

[devaluecom]

There would be a HUGE difference between a 64-team playoff, like in basketball, and an 8-team playoff. With fewer teams in the post-season there would still be pressure-packed, intense games in the regular season. So your notion that college football would become just like college basketball doesn't make sense.

[Laprawler501]

Under the current system a team's potential for a BCS Championship is predetermined, but their schedule. A team could go unbeaten throughout the season, but have no shot at a BCS title because their schedule was deemed too easy. The current system is in place to reward the Big Name schools with yearly guarantees that they will at least have a shot at the BCS, while the smaller schools are left with the idea that regardless of what they do, they are not in control of their own fate.

[MorganWick]

Utah this year is a perfect example of this. They're in as close to a BCS conference as a mid-major is likely to get, with three Top 25 caliber teams (Utah, TCU, BYU) and one team that's close to it (Air Force) and they go undefeated despite that, AND they beat a team that looked like it might sneak into the Rose Bowl for a good part of the season. But even without the madness in the Big 12, they'd probably be bypassed by USC or Penn State without a second thought. It begs the question, can the mid-majors really be considered part of the FBS if they can't compete for the FBS championship?

[IQ]

Clearly you have financial and career self interest in mind when it comes to Sport in general and college football specifically. Obviously you never played the game therefore you haven't the slightest idea what ''Champion" means to a participant.

Fans gladly invest in their teams ultimate glory or agony. But win or lose all fans value the momentary purity of physical and emotional human potential reached resulting in a Championship. This idea that 'willful disorder and confusion' adds to the appeal of any human endeavor is garbage. Peoples lives are too often filled with uncertainty and upheaval. We need our 'distractions' to be as free of BullSh** as possible.
.
Man in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

TRoosevelt

[platesinmyface81]

First, I question your argument that a playoff would "devalue" the season and decrease sustained season-long interest in college football . Finishing in the top-8 (assuming a 8 team playoff) is not an easy task, and the same debate that surrounds the top 2 would be expanded to the top 8. People will always discuss and debate the top 3 or 4 teams, but a playoff scenario will garner interest about teams ranked in the 4-12 category that may make the playoffs. Ultimately, it puts more teams in the picture for the national championship. I hardly see how this will decrease interest.

Second, if your argument is that people will care less about regular season games, try telling the Texas or OU fans that they won't care about their annual rivalry because of some new playoff system. Furthermore, you forget that every week fans pour into stadiums to cheer on teams that have no chance of winning a championship. College football loyalties run much deeper than where the team will finish at the end of the season.

Finally, you ignore how unfair it is that certain conferences like the SEC and Big 12 have conference championship games while Pac 10 and Big 10 do not. Or that teams intentionally avoid difficult schedules to increase their chances of BCS contention. These conferences will always vary season by season in strength, structure and schedules. Why not allow a playoff to allow these differences to be settled on the field?

[Paz3]

I think that the point made about how interest would diminish in NCAA Div. 1 Football (still holding out for that term over "BCS" Division) is misguided. The current computer ranking system could, or probably should, still determine the top eight. This would leave a strong interest in any traditional rivalry games if the teams or one of the teams involved were ranked in the top eight before any of said games.
It's hard to believe that if a 13th ranked Michigan were playing a 7th ranked Ohio State with a chance to knock the Buckeyes out of the playoffs that there wouldn't be tremendous interest in such a game. In fact, given the fact that most rivalry games take place late in the season, under the current system a 7th ranked OSU wouldn't have a chance to go to the championship game, win or lose, unless *all* of the teams ranked ahead of of them lost badly - not likely, as we all know.

[MorganWick]

By the same token, if a 4th ranked Michigan were playing a 2nd ranked Ohio State with a chance to knock the Buckeyes out of the National Championship Game in our current system, there would be just as much interest in such a game, maybe more because Ohio State would have a decent chance to actually win the national title, as would Michigan for that matter. In an 8-team playoff, there would be interest just because it's a playoff preview, but much of the importance, other than for ranking, would be lost. Food for thought.

[Elderlady]

In the Big XII south, there are three teams with (1) loss.

Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The BCS rankings decide who plays in the championship game against Missouri.

This is one place there should be a playoff.

The computers, the lobbyists, the sportswriters should not make this decision.

It should be decided on the football field.

[Wilburrr]

Get rid of the BCS. What a pathetic bunch of hypocrites THAT has turned out to be... If a school does not have the fan base AND the command over a large television audience, forget it; there is very little chance that school will see a championship game. Keep corporate entertainment in the pro's.... get it out (as much as possible) of college sports.

[footsore]

Sure, why not a college playoff? Lets just call NCAA football what it really is; A farm team system for the National Football League. That's the point of the BCS, so that a whole lot of division I & II teams can have national exposure. Thereby increasing the field of available draftees into the Pros. Sure, why not keep the charade of "amateur" sports alive with a new round of money making games for the NCAA and the few elite schools that will benefit from the playoffs.
footsore

[ReasoNseeKer]

NCAA football is not a minor leage for the NBA. Even without pro football, college football would still be huge.

[Wilburrr]

You are so right, ReasoNseeker.... very few college football players ever play a minute of pro basketball.

[indianabob]

Just for argument, let's consider the other extreme. There are 119 div I college football teams. If we allowed every team to play, the eventual winner would have to win 6 or 7 games. If there was a 10 game regular season schedule, then 2 teams would play 16 or 17 games, however, most would play 11 or 12. The rankings, coaches, and computer would set up the seeding, and the higher seed would host the lower seed.

The NFL plays 16 games and 2 teams play 4 more. That is 20 games with a 55 man roster. Most very good college teams that would go deep into the playoffs have over 100 players on the team, 85 scholarships and walkons.

Thanksgiving weekend would start things off, with many games being played during the holiday break, so class time would not be impacted (and once again, most teams would be done before finals week).

This may be an absurd idea, but it is no less absurd than having a bunch of computer geeks and sportswriters, many who have never played football, picking who the champion is. I actually shutter when I hear it called the "BSC National Championship Game". It isn't. It is a mythical champion and nothing else.

This year is shaping up to be another perfect storm of how dumb it is to have our present system.

[CharlottesvilleVA]

Limiting just two teams, arbitrarily selected by computers and so-called voters (if coaches actually voted, and writers actually watched every game by all top teams in the less-than 24 hours between the Saturday games and the Sunday voting, that would change things slightly), is absurd. I'm watching USC right now, dismantle Notre Dame. Every game I've seen USC play this year they've looked virtually unbeatable - except the Oregon State game, which they lost.

The same, I'm sure, can be said for the other 1-loss teams. Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Florida, and Penn State have had truly excellent seasons. Yet it's going to likely come down to Alabama and 1 of several 1-loss teams - unless Florida beats Bama next week, in which case we'll have a slew of 1-loss teams. Pick two. Justify your selection. Can't do it. Can't be done.

[Andrew Brandt - Huffpost Blogger]

I get the points and understand my position is not a popular one. I do think the relative importance of college football would diminish over the four-month period from September to December with the knowledge that things will get worked out in a playoff.

[Donald-Iowa]

And you really don't think the relative importance of college football has been diminished by the addition of more and more "commerical" bowls each year ? There have been several years recently when there have hardly been enough schools with winning records to fill all the bowls. With the downtown in the economy the average fan will no longer be able to travel to far reaching parts of the country to see his team play in some inconsequential non-prestege bowl sponsored by MotorOil-Is-Us.com. The TV network benefits, the school benefits, the city benefits. The only people who don't benefit at the fans and the players.

All the BCS system has done is to create games where coaches are forced to run up the scores to get "style points' from the computers and poll voters. What does an athlete learn by playing on a team that gets whipped 70-7 ? Is that sportsmanship ? Maybe Ball State or Boise State isn't the best in the country, but shouldn't they be given the chance to prove it ?

The myth about college football being a farm club for the NFL should be put to rest for once and for all. We should be looking at the fact that Universities are betraying their players by forcing them into taking puffball classes which keeps them academically eligible but totally worthless after graduation. It's all about the MONEY for everyone except the athletes themselves.

[MorganWick]

The BCS forbids the computers from including margin of victory in their formulae. Getting "style points" by running up the score only works with pollsters.