The War Over a College Football Playoff
"BCS analyst Jerry Palm said it's unlikely the Trojans or Longhorns could do what Oklahoma did in 2003 or what Nebraska pulled off in 2001, when the Cornhuskers lost their final regular-season game to Colorado and still played Miami for the BCS title.
'The formula now is so poll driven that if you lose late in the season you're pretty much dead,' he said."
That piece was pulled from ESPN.com's 11/14/05 online article regarding the new Bowl Championship Series (certainly not Collegiate, as that would imply the guys were debating) rankings that were put up today. The system used to determine which teams play in which big bowl games which determines which two teams play for the mythical national championship. This weird computer system has been in place for a few years now, and everyone seems to loathe it. "You can't trust computers," they say. "It's biased against West Coast teams," others say. "It screwed up my order and didn't give me correct change," others say. (Okay, maybe not.)
What I do follow, for the sake of enjoying listening to columnists and "experts" pontificate, is the ongoing argument that college football does not need a playoff system. A much-shortened version of this argument goes thusly: Because there are 11 games, each is important, with no letdowns. The champion will focus on winning all 11 games. This argument is particularly interesting in that some of those proponents argue that college basketball's championships is flawed because the teams can afford to lose some games and still make the NCAA Tournament.
I want to tie these things together and tell you why a college football playoff is the right thing to do:
1) Losing one game should not make you "pretty much dead": That's an incredibly stupid way of determining the best college football team in the country. If this were the way it worked in the NFL, no one would make the playoffs. The Houston Texans would not ever upset the Indianapolis Colts (they didn't, but work with me here). The best college team in the country could lose early in the season, say the 1st or 2nd game, and then run the table the rest of the way by demolishing everyone. And they'd not play for the national championship because they had a bad day? As if a team can control whether they'll "click" on any given Saturday? That's a ridiculous statement. And it doesn't make any sense.
2) Polls are subjective, and adding computers to the mix to create balance is just as ridiculous: The playoff opponents don't want playoffs because each game means so much. "You can't afford to lose," they scream. Well, that's interesting. If I'm TCU, and I win all of my games (which they didn't but again, work with me), why am I still ranked #12? The subjective aspect of human voting is going to necessitate bias, and that bias is going to allow for excuses, such as "TCU didn't play anybody. You can't say beating SMU is better than beating Alabama." No, you can't. But you also can't control which conference a team plays in, either. Just because Alabama's not in TCU's conference does not mean you can downplay their victory over SMU. Sure, SMU sucks, but so could Alabama. And who's to say that as much as SMU sucks in their conference they could not whip Alabama's foes in the SEC? A majority of polls and "expert" opinion is as swayed by reputation as anything else. Again, the non-playoff folks are scratching their heads, getting ready to scream. For more evidence of the silliness of the polls and the "need" for computers to determine the BCS check out Stewart Mandel's column for SI on the final coaches poll. The piece skewers the coaches for their bias.
3) There's too much time between the end of the regular season and the "big" bowl season: Playoff opponents begin the "They've got to study for finals!" scream here. They do? You've got to be kidding. It's really good for a football team with momentum (they've won at least 11 in a row, week after week) to take 4 1/2 weeks off between games? We're all going to get the best that team has to offer? Sure, injuries heal. That helps. But we need to talk about these games for weeks? And wait? And wait? The guys have to study? Like they've been studying all semester? This is the four weeks between when they're catching up to master Greek Mythology and Basketweaving? C'mon. We all know better. Hell, even the early bowl games in December that don't get any coverage get it over with quick. And the guys still have time to study. Geez, they get to spend Christmas at home.
4) There's too many bowl games already: The playoff opponents love the bowl season. They believe that the University of Kansas belongs in the Human Interest for Kodak's Film Processing Department at KMart Bowl against the University of Toledo on December 13 because, hell, each team won the requisite 6 games against Div I teams. Woo-wee. I'll bet the 17 alumni of each school that care are able to scalp their tickets for just about face value 10 minutes before kickoff. Please don't tell me that approximately 30 bowl games gives the rest of the country the chance to see these teams we've missed all year long. Y'know what? We don't care. We really don't. You don't need a marketing degree and an MBA to realize that the real ratings (and yes, NCAA, the common man knows you're in it for the money) come during the "big" bowl games. Let's quit pretending we're doing these bowl games for everybody. They're a joke.
5) The national championship is mythical anyway: I've never understood this. We can't have a playoff to determine a real champion because the championship is mythical. Huh? If there's no championship anyway, why not have a playoff to determine a real champion? Does this make any sense?
There you go. Because of these reasons, we need a playoff. And it should look something like this:
1) The top 16 teams, averaged by the various polls with the BCS system (because we have to use what was given to us), should play over 4 weeks the weekend following the last regular season game. This means the season ends about the same time it currently does, the first week of January. And, let's skip using the division winners to fill the seeds. If you want to keep the emphasis on winning all you can, then you won't let a 7-4 South Florida division-winning team into the tournament. You'll keep them home and let 9-2 Louisville play if they're ranked #16. I hear a lot of rumbling about this already, "WHAT? You're going to leave out a conference division champion?" Yup. If the subjective voting and BCS system says they're not in the final 16, then yes, they're out. They can still play in a bowl game (there's at least 13 others). They just won't qualify for the national championship tournament.
2) The teams are seeded similarly to college basketball, with 1 facing 16, 2 against 15, and so on.
3) The games leverage the current bowl naming system. The Rose Bowl would be the final, and championship, game. The Orange and Fiesta would be the two previous weekend bowls. I'd leave the others to fight it out over the three previous weekends. I've determined the 15 games necessary for 2006. Weekend 1 would include the Sun (in El Paso, TX), Independence (Shreveport, LA), Music City (Nashville, TN), Peach (Atlanta, GA), Meineke (Charlotte, NC), Houston (Houston, TX), Liberty (Memphis, TN), and Cotton Bowl (Dallas, TX) games. Weekend 2 would be the Fiesta (Phoenix, AZ), Capital One (Orlando, FL), Gator (Jacksonville, FL), and Outback (Tampa, FL) Bowl games. Weekend 3 would be the Orange (Miami, FL) and Sugar (Atlanta, GA this year) Bowls. And finally, the championship game would be the following weekend, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.
4) The home team would be the higher seeded team, which over the first two weekends would go to the closest bowl physical location. For example, USC would play Georgia in the Sun Bowl in El Paso.
5) Leave the rest of the bowls alone. Except get rid of the ones that let in 6 win teams. Make 7 wins the minimum. Remaining conference and division champs fill these games. That's 26 good teams if there's enough 7 wins teams to qualify. The rest of the turgid bowl games go away. They must. Please.
Why is this better?
1) Anyone can win: Let's face it, this is what makes March Madness so good. You're saying that an 8-3 Georgia team doesn't deserve a shot at the national title if it can put a run together and beat some really good teams? Why does this eliminate the desire for a team to lose a game or two? Are playoff opponents saying that a 10-0 Texas team would really want to drop it's last game because they could afford to because their seeding was guaranteed? Are you kidding? What athlete sits around and says, "Hell, we can afford to loaf on this one. We're in." Okay, stop thinking about the NBA. Or Major League Baseball once a team has locked up its division.
2) No gap in revenue: Each weekend the games just get better and more intense. Just like NCAA basketball. Who doesn't really want Bucknell to beat Kansas? Who at least doesn't think it's a possibility? C'mon, this is why this is fun. And with the games running each week, the television ad revenue is consistent. No big gaps. And, no more prattling on ESPN for hours at a time to fill while waiting for the weeks to pass until the "big" game.
So, what would this system look like this year? Let's take a look:
Bracket 1
(1) USC
(16) UCLA
(8) Miami
(9) Auburn
(4) Ohio State
(13) Alabama
(5) Oregon
(12) LSU
Bracket 2
(2) Texas
(15) Texas Tech
(7) Georgia
(10) Virginia Tech
(3) Penn State
(14) TCU
(6) Notre Dame
(11) West Virginia
Wow. Now those would be great games for the first round. UCLA gets another crack at USC. Texas and Texas Tech get another crack and play the actual Big 12 championship game. Wouldn't TCU love to prove critics wrong? And wouldn't Penn State love to prove critics right? How about Penn State-Notre Dame in the 2nd round? Or Miami wouldn't relish a shot at USC? Here's a beautiful thing: Let's say Georgia won the whole thing. Who would rightly say they don't deserve to be national champions with two losses? They would have beaten Virginia Tech, and probably Texas, Penn State or Notre Dame and USC to finish 13-2. That's bad?
Well, it is if they were hoping to pass that Greek Mythology class during the holiday break. I wonder if one of those guys would take a National Championship over a passing grade?
'The formula now is so poll driven that if you lose late in the season you're pretty much dead,' he said."
That piece was pulled from ESPN.com's 11/14/05 online article regarding the new Bowl Championship Series (certainly not Collegiate, as that would imply the guys were debating) rankings that were put up today. The system used to determine which teams play in which big bowl games which determines which two teams play for the mythical national championship. This weird computer system has been in place for a few years now, and everyone seems to loathe it. "You can't trust computers," they say. "It's biased against West Coast teams," others say. "It screwed up my order and didn't give me correct change," others say. (Okay, maybe not.)
What I do follow, for the sake of enjoying listening to columnists and "experts" pontificate, is the ongoing argument that college football does not need a playoff system. A much-shortened version of this argument goes thusly: Because there are 11 games, each is important, with no letdowns. The champion will focus on winning all 11 games. This argument is particularly interesting in that some of those proponents argue that college basketball's championships is flawed because the teams can afford to lose some games and still make the NCAA Tournament.
I want to tie these things together and tell you why a college football playoff is the right thing to do:
1) Losing one game should not make you "pretty much dead": That's an incredibly stupid way of determining the best college football team in the country. If this were the way it worked in the NFL, no one would make the playoffs. The Houston Texans would not ever upset the Indianapolis Colts (they didn't, but work with me here). The best college team in the country could lose early in the season, say the 1st or 2nd game, and then run the table the rest of the way by demolishing everyone. And they'd not play for the national championship because they had a bad day? As if a team can control whether they'll "click" on any given Saturday? That's a ridiculous statement. And it doesn't make any sense.
2) Polls are subjective, and adding computers to the mix to create balance is just as ridiculous: The playoff opponents don't want playoffs because each game means so much. "You can't afford to lose," they scream. Well, that's interesting. If I'm TCU, and I win all of my games (which they didn't but again, work with me), why am I still ranked #12? The subjective aspect of human voting is going to necessitate bias, and that bias is going to allow for excuses, such as "TCU didn't play anybody. You can't say beating SMU is better than beating Alabama." No, you can't. But you also can't control which conference a team plays in, either. Just because Alabama's not in TCU's conference does not mean you can downplay their victory over SMU. Sure, SMU sucks, but so could Alabama. And who's to say that as much as SMU sucks in their conference they could not whip Alabama's foes in the SEC? A majority of polls and "expert" opinion is as swayed by reputation as anything else. Again, the non-playoff folks are scratching their heads, getting ready to scream. For more evidence of the silliness of the polls and the "need" for computers to determine the BCS check out Stewart Mandel's column for SI on the final coaches poll. The piece skewers the coaches for their bias.
3) There's too much time between the end of the regular season and the "big" bowl season: Playoff opponents begin the "They've got to study for finals!" scream here. They do? You've got to be kidding. It's really good for a football team with momentum (they've won at least 11 in a row, week after week) to take 4 1/2 weeks off between games? We're all going to get the best that team has to offer? Sure, injuries heal. That helps. But we need to talk about these games for weeks? And wait? And wait? The guys have to study? Like they've been studying all semester? This is the four weeks between when they're catching up to master Greek Mythology and Basketweaving? C'mon. We all know better. Hell, even the early bowl games in December that don't get any coverage get it over with quick. And the guys still have time to study. Geez, they get to spend Christmas at home.
4) There's too many bowl games already: The playoff opponents love the bowl season. They believe that the University of Kansas belongs in the Human Interest for Kodak's Film Processing Department at KMart Bowl against the University of Toledo on December 13 because, hell, each team won the requisite 6 games against Div I teams. Woo-wee. I'll bet the 17 alumni of each school that care are able to scalp their tickets for just about face value 10 minutes before kickoff. Please don't tell me that approximately 30 bowl games gives the rest of the country the chance to see these teams we've missed all year long. Y'know what? We don't care. We really don't. You don't need a marketing degree and an MBA to realize that the real ratings (and yes, NCAA, the common man knows you're in it for the money) come during the "big" bowl games. Let's quit pretending we're doing these bowl games for everybody. They're a joke.
5) The national championship is mythical anyway: I've never understood this. We can't have a playoff to determine a real champion because the championship is mythical. Huh? If there's no championship anyway, why not have a playoff to determine a real champion? Does this make any sense?
There you go. Because of these reasons, we need a playoff. And it should look something like this:
1) The top 16 teams, averaged by the various polls with the BCS system (because we have to use what was given to us), should play over 4 weeks the weekend following the last regular season game. This means the season ends about the same time it currently does, the first week of January. And, let's skip using the division winners to fill the seeds. If you want to keep the emphasis on winning all you can, then you won't let a 7-4 South Florida division-winning team into the tournament. You'll keep them home and let 9-2 Louisville play if they're ranked #16. I hear a lot of rumbling about this already, "WHAT? You're going to leave out a conference division champion?" Yup. If the subjective voting and BCS system says they're not in the final 16, then yes, they're out. They can still play in a bowl game (there's at least 13 others). They just won't qualify for the national championship tournament.
2) The teams are seeded similarly to college basketball, with 1 facing 16, 2 against 15, and so on.
3) The games leverage the current bowl naming system. The Rose Bowl would be the final, and championship, game. The Orange and Fiesta would be the two previous weekend bowls. I'd leave the others to fight it out over the three previous weekends. I've determined the 15 games necessary for 2006. Weekend 1 would include the Sun (in El Paso, TX), Independence (Shreveport, LA), Music City (Nashville, TN), Peach (Atlanta, GA), Meineke (Charlotte, NC), Houston (Houston, TX), Liberty (Memphis, TN), and Cotton Bowl (Dallas, TX) games. Weekend 2 would be the Fiesta (Phoenix, AZ), Capital One (Orlando, FL), Gator (Jacksonville, FL), and Outback (Tampa, FL) Bowl games. Weekend 3 would be the Orange (Miami, FL) and Sugar (Atlanta, GA this year) Bowls. And finally, the championship game would be the following weekend, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.
4) The home team would be the higher seeded team, which over the first two weekends would go to the closest bowl physical location. For example, USC would play Georgia in the Sun Bowl in El Paso.
5) Leave the rest of the bowls alone. Except get rid of the ones that let in 6 win teams. Make 7 wins the minimum. Remaining conference and division champs fill these games. That's 26 good teams if there's enough 7 wins teams to qualify. The rest of the turgid bowl games go away. They must. Please.
Why is this better?
1) Anyone can win: Let's face it, this is what makes March Madness so good. You're saying that an 8-3 Georgia team doesn't deserve a shot at the national title if it can put a run together and beat some really good teams? Why does this eliminate the desire for a team to lose a game or two? Are playoff opponents saying that a 10-0 Texas team would really want to drop it's last game because they could afford to because their seeding was guaranteed? Are you kidding? What athlete sits around and says, "Hell, we can afford to loaf on this one. We're in." Okay, stop thinking about the NBA. Or Major League Baseball once a team has locked up its division.
2) No gap in revenue: Each weekend the games just get better and more intense. Just like NCAA basketball. Who doesn't really want Bucknell to beat Kansas? Who at least doesn't think it's a possibility? C'mon, this is why this is fun. And with the games running each week, the television ad revenue is consistent. No big gaps. And, no more prattling on ESPN for hours at a time to fill while waiting for the weeks to pass until the "big" game.
So, what would this system look like this year? Let's take a look:
Bracket 1
(1) USC
(16) UCLA
(8) Miami
(9) Auburn
(4) Ohio State
(13) Alabama
(5) Oregon
(12) LSU
Bracket 2
(2) Texas
(15) Texas Tech
(7) Georgia
(10) Virginia Tech
(3) Penn State
(14) TCU
(6) Notre Dame
(11) West Virginia
Wow. Now those would be great games for the first round. UCLA gets another crack at USC. Texas and Texas Tech get another crack and play the actual Big 12 championship game. Wouldn't TCU love to prove critics wrong? And wouldn't Penn State love to prove critics right? How about Penn State-Notre Dame in the 2nd round? Or Miami wouldn't relish a shot at USC? Here's a beautiful thing: Let's say Georgia won the whole thing. Who would rightly say they don't deserve to be national champions with two losses? They would have beaten Virginia Tech, and probably Texas, Penn State or Notre Dame and USC to finish 13-2. That's bad?
Well, it is if they were hoping to pass that Greek Mythology class during the holiday break. I wonder if one of those guys would take a National Championship over a passing grade?
posted by Toronto McKee at 11:30 AM
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