Playoffs? We Ain't Kiddin
Written by Ben Pogany
Another regular season of college football has drawn to a close, and the annual BCS bickering has begun. For yet another year, several teams perfectly deserving of a title shot have been denied, their fates ultimately decided not on the field but by computers in a back room. And so, like every year before it, the pleas for a playoffs ring out, only to be swept under the rug and ignored. Here’s why the BCS is really just Bull Shit with a C.
Myth #1: The BCS makes the regular season unparalleled in its intensity.
The argument goes that because a single loss will likely kick you out of national championship contention, every regular season game is essentially a must-win. And indeed, the college football regular season is perhaps the most consequential in all of sports.
;But creating an
8-team playoff system would not make the regular season games any less dire. Essentially any team that does not play in the SEC, Big 10 or Pac-10 would likely be eliminated from the top 8 with a single loss anyway, so for the vast majority of teams, every game is still a “must-win.” For the big schools, a single loss is not a death sentence, but it makes every remaining game a must-win.
No one is saying that all controversy is going to be eliminated by instituting a playoff system, after all, there will still be plenty of discussion over who gets that 8th spot and who gets shafted. But for heaven’s sake, better that than a team that is arguably the best in the nation being shut out of the national championship (see 2003, USC). As it currently stands, three teams that did absolutely everything that could possibly have been asked of them by winning all of their regular season games will be punished not getting a shot at the national championship. How can anyone look at this situation and see it as anything other than what it is, an out and out travesty.
Myth #2: There’s too much money wrapped up in the Bowl system.
An 8-team playoff system would create 7 must-watch playoff games (4 in the first round, 2 in the second, and 1 national championship game). I don’t know about you, but I barely can bring myself to care about 7 bowl games anymore. There are about 4 really good bowl games a year, and the rest are arbitrary, all-but-meaningless exercises in futility. But fine, I realize that all those sponsorships deals and awards add up to a whole lot a cha-ching, so here’s a compromise: Why not do both? The top 8 teams have their playoff system and the rest of the bowl-eligible teams play their bowls. What is the problem? We can even give each of these playoff games some crappy sponsor name, like the Mylanta Semifinal Game. The NCAA still gets it mammoth television contracts, with guaranteed monster ratings for the playoffs.
Myth #3: There’s not enough time in the schedule for a playoffs.
I’m going to have to call shenanigans on this one as well. As the system currently stands, almost all teams finish their regular seasons by the first week in December. The one fortunate enough to make it to a major bowl must then wait up to four weeks to play again. Firstly, it is beyond idiotic to make a title contender sit out a month before playing in their championship and think that this is a proper estimation of their ability. They’re a month removed from their last match! No matter how much they practice, there is no substitute for the real thing.
The people in charge will tell you that the NCAA is an academic institution first and foremost, and that because the month of December is technically school vacation, these “students” should be home with their families. Please. Do you really believe for one second that these athletes aren’t busting their asses the entire month in preparation for their big game? How about we cut the bullhicky and throw the playoffs into December. There’s exactly three open weeks, one for each round of the playoffs, which means there’s no need to lengthen the season.
I realize I’m not the first person to raise this concern and that the majority of college football fans actually support implementing a playoff. Even our president is down with getting rid of the BCS. Unfortunately, if Obama actually ever did make good on his word of implementing a playoff system, he’d be ripped to shreds by opponents for not concentrating on the supposedly important stuff, like the economy and the two wars we’re currently fighting. (As if anything could really be more important than football.) The entrenched interests like things the way they are, and unfortunately for the rest of us you don’t need reason when you’ve got power.
