For years, I have been an advocate for a national playoff in college football, as it simply is unfair to many teams to be left out of the mix because of nonsense like “strength of schedule.” When you schedule 11 games, and your kids win them all, what elese can they do? Run up the score to encourage poor sportsmanship?
However, I have decided today that I am against a playoff system. To work fairly, it would take too many weeks, and I don;t think we need to spend another 6 weeks distracting from other student activities. Like class, for example.
When I was a kid, I remember watching the Rose Bowl parade and the Rose Bowl, and Keith Jackson was covering it then, too (how many if you are aware he is in the Rose Bowl HoF?)> At any rate- maybe it is my proximity to Ohio State and Penn State, but winning the Rose Bowl was something. Something big. I assume the same thing is true for other regions- I know the Sugar Bowl and the Cotton Bowls always stick out in my memories from the 70’s and 80’s, as well as the Citrus Bowl.
My suggestion? Get rid of the whole concept of #1 in the nation, as there is no way to verify this with any realistic system. LEt the people vote, and you can cover it if you want to, but what should be listed next to the AP TOP 25 are the actual top 3 teams by record for each conference. Then set it up in a revolving manner that different winners of each conference play the winner of a different conference every year. Those conference matchups could be the Rose, Orange, Citrus, etc. And that would be it. The smaller bowls could invite whoever the hell they want.
There is no way to determine the national champion. Let’s quit pretending there is, and return to the good old days- when winning the Cotton Bowl meant something,.
JohnO
I’m in favor of a national playoff. First, you only would take the top 4 teams. Sure, there would be disagreement about whom should be in the top 4. But at least a team in the top 4 that wins 2 has more right to the “National Champion” designation then someone with a favorable schedule that needs only to win 1 game.
They’ve already strung out the Bowl games over a week. What’s an additional week to make the championship more equitable?
Scott Chaffin
How come nobody gives a hoot about distracting the kiddies during the conference championship week and March Madness?
I’d like to see the Cotton Bowl be worth a bucket of warm spit again, too, but I’d rather see a bracket of the top 8 or sixteen. The month of December is wasted as it is, and it might even make the FloorWaxDessertTopping Bowl meaningful.
Ralph Gizzip
I’d expand it to the top 8 teams. That would encompass all the undefeateds as well as most of the “one-loss” teams. These seven “bowl” games could be played over 3 weekends culminating in a true National Champion. All the rest of the “bowl eligible” teams could play in the rest of the bowl games whenever they want to schedule them.
jeff
I think the BCS is screwed up and i’m all for a playoff (i think four teams is enough, although had that happened this year, Texas may have gotten screwed. BTW, where are all the “Cal deserves to be in a BCS bowl more than Texas people now), but it’s not gonna happen because the game is popular as ever.
Every December and January people bitch about the BCS, and then every September 100,000 people fill stadiums in Knoxville and Ann Arbor and State College (even with the dreck JoePa’s been putting out lately) and Columbus.
The ONE team that has a legitimate gripe about getting screwed this year is Auburn, since they went undefeated in the best conference in the country and can’t play for the title, but there are still gonna be 85,000 people filling their stadium next year.
Steve Malynn
John is correct. Bwahahaha.
CadillaqJaq
It’s all a bunch of crap…
I quit putting any credence in college football voting back in ’66 when two first place teams, Notre Dame and Michigan State, (one rated 1st by AP, the other rated 1st by UPI) played to a 10-10 tie in East Lansing.
Y’all know how that ended: Notre Dame du lac, whose Coach Ari Parsegian played to tie, not to win during their final drive, was subsequently voted 1st by BOTH AP & UPI, dropping MSU to 2nd place in both polls. Go figure.
Like most everything else; it’s politics not talent.
So the loser in Tuesday’s BCS game will drop to #2? And Auburn, who barely won last night will be #3? What about 34 Texas? They barely beat a #11 UofM in the Rose Bowl.
The best team I’ve seen all week was Utah in the Fiesta Bowl over Pitt: the best game was Iowa’s win over LSU and turncoat Coach Seban. What a total jerk he is.
He took the Million dollar bonus last year and told everyone how much he loved LSU. But then, he “loved” MSU as much when he was the Spartan’s head coach. What loyalty.
Humbug!
JimC
I totally agree with the original post. Get rid of the the phony BCS championship game. All it does is reduce the stature of the other bowl games, which were always enjoyable to watch in their own right. It’s enough of a “championship” to watch the PAC-10 champ battle the BIG-10 champ for bragging rights in the Rose Bowl. I long for the old days.
CadillaqJaq
Another day, another BCS has passed into history… how silly must those sports types that voted Oklahoma into 2nd spot must feel today… talk about an ass-whupping.
Suggestion: put the eight best college football teams in the same stadium, the same day, pairing them up as fairly as possible and let ’em play one quarter of college overtime rules elimination football until one team is left standing. It’s no sillier than to believe that the best two teams played last night.