Ahhh, but so in lies the beauty of the playoff system. Ask yourself, "Why do you watch March Madness?" Because like most of us we love a good upset. Look at professional football, who wants to see New England win every year. The better you play during the year determines your seed in the playoffs. If LSU would have a 10-1 record then that means that they are consistent at winning and should go deep in the playoffs. Now if AU has a 9-3 record but is on a roll then sure they might catch an LSU napping. Remember the BoSox. They were a wild card team. MLB just started a wildcard not that long ago. Did they deserve to win it all. I say bring on the playoffs.
I personally don't care for a play off system either. The problem with the bowls are they have too many. Does it really matter in the scheme of things who is the number one.( oh brother I can't believe I said that here). As long as you have a different champions every year and your team is consistently competing in the top 5 or 10 you will get the talent out of high school. The stadiums will be full. Atmosphere will be charged. That is what I like about college football anyway. The who is number 1 talk goes on from year to year and keeps NCAA football alive. Is amyone tallking about who won the basketball tourny last year. Not where I am at. Its over. However the debates for college football routinely go into the following year. I would like to see the standings go more to the computers. Just my thoughts, but I am probably right. :thumb: Now lets go to Death Valley. Back the Tigers, enjoy the Golden Band from Tigerland and beat Bamma.
We won't get a playoff real soon I'm afraid, and the big reason is because the college presidents of the Pac-10 are most adamantly opposed to it. They almost didn't sign on for the BCS, because they want their precious Rose Bowl protected just for them at any cost. I believe it will happen eventually. Common sense, the need for the market to give the fans what they want, and GREED will eventually prevail. It's just gonna take some time. Question is, what kind of playoff do we want. I notice most on this thread who want a playoff endorse the Nick Saban Plan; which is, after all the bowls and the BCS are concluded, play one more game. That's an okay idea, but in my opinion, is just a transition phase, because the playoffs will inevitably expand. Once the fans and the networks get just a small taste of playoff atmosphere and dollars, they will want more. That's why the NCAA basketball tournament is now at 64 teams. Me, I want it all. I want a 16 team tournament throwdown. I want March Madness on grass. My idea has always been; 16 teams, in a seeded bracket divided into four regions, using the existing bowls as the neutral playoff sites, with the national semi-final and final rotating between three bowls; Rose, Sugar, and Orange. 12 automatic bids (11 conference champs and the best independent) plus four wild cards based on some sort of power rating formula (existing BCS ratings maybe?). It would not make the regular season meaningless; 16 out of 122 D1-A teams is a pretty exclusive group. If you are not in a Big Five (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10) conference, you had better win your conference championship or you have no shot. If you are in a Big Five league, any more than two losses and you are guaranteed nothing. Any more than three losses and you are screwed. Much better than the current system which punishes you for even one loss.
.. We have already walked away from the history and tradition of the bowl games. The BCS killed the Cotton and no New years game is the same as it was. History and tradition is a poor argument. Football is like anything else. It has to change and evolve or risk getting stale.
A couple of notes The Cotton killed itself long before the BCS was involved as the Fiesta saw the big opening in the the Bowl Tie-ins and offered big bucks to Penn St and Miami I believe, thereby becoming the other major Bowl. The Cotton lost out by having it's tie in with the old SWC. Their lucky they even had a team that wasn't on probation that could play in a bowl game by the end. Any playoff scenario will have to include 10 teams becuase of the threatened lawsuit by the non-BCS schools(Tulane) and 10 teams just does not work in a playoff format. So the plus one with the top 2 teams as seeded after the 5 other bowls, by the BCS would appear to be the best scenario. And they could not only have the plus one game in seasons when it was needed, the logistics would be way to hard for TV, stadiums, cities, etc. A nightmare.
Based on this logic, I guess you're against playoffs in any sport and on any level. I guess we should just use human polls to decide the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL and more, just giving the two highest ranked teams at the end of the regular season a chance at the title, eh? :dis: Not having playoffs to make a team prove their the best by playing other good teams is, hell, un-American in my book.
I don't see that logic in the post you quoted. In fact, he didn't mention pro sports at all. I'm not saying you are not correct in your post though, I enjoy playoffs as much as the next guy. I just don't see the need for one in college football. And we all know that even with a playoff there will be rankings. Does anyone really think that if a playoff is used in college football that they will somehow get rid of the human polls? Some fans might say that a college football playoff is un-Amercian. :wink: Anyway, some of us support the bowl system and it seems we are in the minority here, one of the reasons is that we don't want college football to become NFL-lite. Every team sport has a playoff except major college football, and those of us who enjoy both the college bowl system and NFL playoff system are basically happy with both systems. Of course I don't want to see the NFL, MLB, or NBA take on a rankings bowl type system . . . it wouldn't make sense because the overall goal of pro sports is to make money (as much as possible). I don't want to see college football become college basketball, even though I enjoy March Madness. To me, college football and basketball are too different things. I enjoy each differently. I follow college football every single week, even watching plenty of games that have meaning to LSU, however with college basketball I only really watch March Madness. I don't claim to be a diehard college basketball fan though. I don't need a playoff to enjoy college football, it seems some do. One thing that I see posted more and more, is this dream that BCS conferences could end up with 1 or more teams in the playoff format, while the nonBCS teams will only have 1 spot available for those who win their conference (in the 16 team format). That's not fair, and it's really not much of a playoff. Why should a team who couldn't win their own conference deserve a shot at the NC? The reason pro sports keeps adding more and more teams to their playoff format is for money, not the enjoyment of fans. Some pro sport fans even think the current playoff system using wild card teams actually waters down the playoff and take away the meaning of winning division titles. Of course it is subjective, there is no perfect system for any sport. The trick is to have as many playoff teams as possible without ruining the purpose of the regular season. If we are going to fix the current system and go directly into a playoff format, let's do it right by fixing the problems we have today. I assume under the 16 team format, we will still have conference title games, so if we do keep things like the SECCG why should any team in the SEC who doesn't win the SECCG deserve a shot at the NC. As a fan of LSU and the SEC, I'd like to see as many SEC teams as possible have a chance, but that doesn't mean it is fair. Fans have wanted a college football playoffs for decades, this is not some new thing discovered by new fans. And while it is true that the PAC10 and BIG10 university presidents don't want to break from the Rose Bowl and are against a playoff . . . it's not just those conferences. The only conferences that are really begging for a playoff are the non-BCS schools, since they feel that will be the final hurdle in making the entire system fair. I'm sure the playoffs wouldn't have as many supporters if it turned out that a 9-2 LSU team that doesn't win it's conference would miss the playoffs for a 7-4 Tulane squad that wins C-USA. That could happen under a playoff format, at least it is possible.
The point of my "playoff" system, if that's what you wanna call it, is that with the top 4 BCS teams playing each other in the regular bowl games, it guarantees no more than 2 undefeated teams left to play each other for the championship. So even if 4 teams were to be undefeated (like this year potentially), then Wisconsin would play USC and Auburn would play OU, and the winners play for the grand prize. I still think Wisconsin will surpass Cal in the BCS polls after they play Iowa.
The probem I see with that is this... Look back to Last year was 2 loss Michigan really all that much better than 2 loss Texas? I think based on their bowl games we can say with a little more confidence who the better team was. Before the bowls it was a judgement call. A playoff in college football would not define a clear champion. There are too many teams involved.
