Last week Connecticut beat Super-Cinderella Butler in what has been described as one of the worst basketball games ever. I wouldn’t know, I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoy any other basketball game. Uconn’s national title, as a 3 seed spawned the internet to ask this question, “Is Uconn really the best basketball team in the nation?” which last week existed as, “Are Butler, VCU, Uconn, and Kentucky the four best teams in the nation?” These questions were asked almost exclusively by fans of traditionally good teams that had been eliminated earlier in the tournament.
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| Reason for poor shooting performance against Uconn? Boogers. |
Furthermore, this argument only seems to surface when a 1 seed doesn’t win the NCAA Tournament. The Green Bay Packers were the wildcard and the San Francisco Giants weren't the number 1 seed in the National League. The Chicago Blackhawks weren’t the NHL’s best team a year ago, but they and the other teams mentioned were their league champions, and yet nobody seems to have a problem with that.
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| "But were they really the best team?" *nerd voice, sniffles, glasses push* |
So what’s this got to do with college football? Well for one, it’s well documented that college football uses a two team playoff whose participants are decided by computers, schedule strength, and conference politics. It’s not the worst way to determine a national champion (that was the old pre-BCS system), but it’s far from the best. Think of all the excitement we’re missing out on by only having one true playoff game. Consider that an 8 team tournament would deliver 8 teams, all capable of winning a playoff game, battling it out in true and meaningful postseason play through seven intense games (I think my math is correct there). I don’t understand how any fan of college football wouldn’t love to have that.
Once a playoff is adopted these years we currently live in will be looked back on not in a fond-nostalgic sense, but as the dark ages of college football, the “why did it take so long to go to a playoff” days of college football, the “what were we thinking” days of college football.
Proponents of the BCS generally spout the same arguments and each one has a very easy solution. I will try not to bore you with my own ideal playoff alignment, but for the sake of consistency, assume we’re operating under an 8 team playoff, and I’ll address each of these as they come.
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| This is what a BCS fan looks like |
“The regular season will be ruined. Look at college basketball, nobody cares about the regular season.”
An unintended consequence of the 64 team tournament in basketball is that people generally don’t pay attention to the regular season because the games are less important. For a lot of top tier programs the regular season is a 4 month waiting period until the tournament. I won’t argue that fact at all. That’s very true. I also won't argue that the college football regular season is unbelievable and that every week is important. What I will argue is that basketball and football are two very different sports, and that a playoff wouldn't do any damage to the regular season.
I don’t see football’s regular season being affected in any way by the addition of a playoff. One, all of the anit-climacticy of basketball’s regular season is due to the large number of teams that get into the tourny and the high number of regular season games they play. Football will never play a 30+ game schedule or hold a 64 team tournament. The football tournament will be far more selective and as a result, regular season games will still matter. Two, if you limit playoff selection to only conference champions, then the regular season will be just as important. I like the idea that you shouldn't be able to win a national championship without winning your conference championship.
“The schedule would be too long”
Right now they play 12 games, and then a conference championship game, and then a bowl game, so 14 games in all. With an 8 team playoff replacing the bowls, the schedule would grow to 16 games…for two teams. Two out of the 100 something division 1 teams will play 2 additional games. That’s not bad at all.
“They’re college athletes, what about their studies? A playoff is one more step towards professionalism.”
Thanks Gordon Gee. Let’s not pretend that high level college football cares about the scholarship of its players. This point is often trumpeted by college presidents because they can hide their desire to earn money through the current bowl system under the guise of fear that the student athletes’ academics may be compromised.
Further, if we can send our basketball players around the country for four consecutive weekends (during finals, might I add), then why can’t we do the same with our football players?
“We’d still argue about the last team picked, just like we argue about who is number 2 now.”
Yeah, but the number 3 team in the country often has a very legitimate gripe on not getting a shot at the national championship. Does the number 9 team? I’d feel a lot better about denying a shot to the 9th best team than I do the third best team, who is often excused only because of strength of schedule (which scheduled years in advance is out of their control), and conference politics (also out of their control). The 2004 undefeated Auburn team that got snubbed from the National Championship game comes to mind.
“We’d lose the tradition of the bowls”
Newsflash, the tradition of the bowls is gone. That died with the addition of the BCS, and it was given a final blow when the National Championship became a separate game unto itself. Not a single bowl game means anything anymore. We like to think they do, but really they’re all meaningless exhibition games. Each and every one, from the Rose Bowl to the Kraft Bullshit Bowl, is all for naught.
If you really want to keep bowls around then you can still play them, but with teams outside the tournament, a veritable football NIT, if you will. Or, you use the major bowls as preliminary rounds of the playoff, with an alternating schedule for the national championship game.
All I know is, I watched the basketball tournament, and excluding a disappointing title game, saw the parity and excitement that comes with deciding the champion on the field of play. How any fan of college football wouldn't love to have that is beyond me.
There you have it. If you agree, disagree, or have thoughts of your own. Share them with us at sportshatemeSHM@gmail.com OR follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/SeanofUnionBlue
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