Why College Football Playoffs Are A Bad Idea

From fellow Wisconsin blogger Owen over at Boots and Sabers:

I love college football.  I love it more than pro football.  I love the traditions.  I love the rivalries.  I love the crazy students.  I love the tearing down of the goal posts.  I love packing 90,000 screaming fans into a stadium and watching them pour every ounce of energy and pride into a game.  I love the old alumni who fly half way around the world to watch their team play their rival and cry when they win.  I love it all. 

That being said, I am coming to the opinion that a playoff system would diminish the passion that distinguishes college football from pro football. 

In the current system, every college game counts.  National champions, conference winners, and bowl invitations are based on rankings, which are in turn based on overall records, strength of schedule, spread, and a host of other intangibles.  That 4th-and-1 decision can be as huge in the first game as it is in the last game.  That game against Nobody State is as important as the game against your biggest rival.  In the NFL, games are only important in how they effect a playoff berth.  If you watched the NFL games today, there were a lot that didn’t matter at all.  Teams sat out their starters and some played to test players for next year.  It’s hard to get excited about watching a game when the coaches and players don’t care if they win or lose.

I agree. Plus, football has a greater chance of injury to the players compared to basketball. Leave the current system as it is.

Comments

[Woody]

As indicated by last night's championship game, the process didn't get the best two teams in the country. Oklahoma is in a weak conference and was outclassed by USC, as they were by LSU (an SEC team) last year. Auburn would have had a tough game against USC, but they would have clobbered Oklahoma. How anyone can not let an undefeated SEC team play for the championship is beyond me.

The process also makes too much over points put on the scoreboard rather than just winning. It was said by many a successful coach that offense wins fans but defense wins championships. That was true when the good defensive teams were allowed to play for the title.

Now, the system encourages running up scores rather than playing conservative or taking knees after the outcome is decided. Don't forget, you have to play those same teams next year when they might want to rub your face in it like you did to them.

Get rid of the BCS and put in a system that will give all legitimate contenders a chance.

[Tom McMahon]

Well said!

[Walter]

Playoffs are the Only Choice
In response to Wisconsin blogger Owen’s article “Why College Football Playoffs Are a Bad Idea (Jan. 2),” I disagree. There is strong evidence that leads me to believe that the only way to fairly and accurately decide a national champion is through a playoff system.
In his article, Owen argues that a playoff system would “diminish” the passion and tradition of college football. However, college football is the only major sport not to decide it’s champion via a playoff system. College basketball’s March Madness is overflowing with passion and tradition. Thrilling March Madness games are talked about for ages after they occur. Just watch one game during the tournament and you will see how passionate the fans are about their team.
How can he say that playoffs take away the passion and tradition from the game of college football? College football is full of traditions, yet none of them will be hurt by playoffs. Traditions will continue on such as Notre Dame, or the heated longstanding rivalries between schools. College football is so rich with tradition, most of which have absolutely nothing to do with how a champion is decided. I am not sure if Owen realizes this, but college football’s system for deciding their champion (the BCS) was instituted in 1998. This system has been around for only seven years. To me it takes longer than seven years for something to be considered a tradition.
Secondly, Owen brings up the issue that games will not mean as much to the teams. He thinks that because there is a playoff system teams won’t care if they win or lose. I do not know where he gets that idea. If a playoff system was installed, the most teams admitted into the playoffs would be 16, however, the system would most likely only allow 8. So, the top eight teams are in the playoffs. This year, the team with the worst record in the top eight was Georgia. Their final record was 9-2. If teams play with an attitude where it does not matter if they lose, then they will not be in the playoffs. College football is not going to have a system like college basketball’s (where sixty five teams make it). If a team loses more than two games, chances are they will not be in the playoffs.
The Bowl Championship Series was invented in 1998 as a new way to decide one national champion each year without controversy. Since 1954 there have been eleven co-national champions, one of those came just last year. So the BCS, in just its sixth year of existence shows that it cannot do the single thing it was invented to do, and that is to determine one national champion.

Just how does the BCS work? Judging by how well it works and how many times it has been adjusted, I don’t think anybody really knows. What I do know is that the current system takes three polls: the Associated Press, USA Today/ESPN, and several idiotic computer polls. After this past national championship fiasco, the Associated Press actually removed its poll from the BCS system. How much faith can we as the fans have in a system when one third of the system doesn’t even think it works?
Fans have been asking for a playoff system for many years now. It is obvious that it is what the majority of fans want. In a recent USA Today poll 63% of fans said that they do want a playoff system, 26% said they don’t want a playoff system, and 11% said they don’t care. Since the current system doesn’t work, playoff systems have shown for years that they do work, and fans want a playoff system, why do they not change the format?
There are few things I am more passionate about than football. I don’t care if it is professional or college. I love the game for the tradition, the pride, the competitive atmosphere, and the loyalty to your team. I am tired of seeing the controversy year after year of who deserves to play in the national title game or who should be the national title. The game is too big for too many people for it to be tarnished by a few people who want to keep the BCS. This game is all about the kids playing and the fans watching.

[Jeriat]

The current BCS system is only good for the teams that are always on top (USC, Ohio State, Texas, the SEC, and the big 3 Florida teams) each and every year. This system is just too flawed and unfair. That's why I beleive that college football needs playoffs. I've come up with a playoff system, myself, that includes the top 2 teams of every conference, 2 Individual schools, and 5 extra teams and the losers of any game would still go to a bowl game. And if you're worried about college football losing its passion and its "every game counts" status, don't be. Even with a playoff system, every game would still count because you're school would have to be in the top two of every conference to make it in, and unlike basketball, where a school could lose 10 or 11 games and still make it in the tournament, the most you could lose is 2 games in order for you to make it. The National Championship should be decided by a fair head-to-head tournament, not by polls and computers, but the teams themselves.

[Brian J grewe]

THE REGULAR SEASON

All conferences must have a championship game or a valid champion (one who has played all of its conference opponents). There a couple ways this could happen within a 12-game regular season:

1. All BCS conferences must have 12 teams: the Big Ten could pick up a twelfth team (Notre Dame, or possibly a strong MAC or C-USA team), the PAC-10 opens up its doors for a couple strong WAC or Mountain West teams, and the Big East finds four teams from the C-USA, MAC or Independents (Marshall, Ball State, Navy, Army, and etc.). In this case, all teams would play 8 regular season conference games, 3 non-conf. games and four teams per conference would play a ninth (the conference championship game and “battle for third” game—I’ll explain later).

Or…

2. Big 12, SEC, ACC would play 8 conference games (with four teams per conference playing a ninth conference game), the PAC-10 would play nine conference games, the Big East (needing to pick up only two teams) would play nine conference games, and the Big Ten would play 10 conference games and everyone would still play three non-conference games (except for the Big 10, which would only play two non-conf. games).

Now, in either event, there will be a number of teams that only play eleven games since only two teams per 12-team conference play in the conference championship. I would suggest that along with a conference championship, a “battle for third” game would be played between each division’s second-place teams. This would allow four teams per BCS conference to qualify for the playoffs, and if you aren’t in the top 4 of a BCS conference you should not be worried about trying to get into the playoffs (sorry Tennessee).

A stipulation would be that each team’s “regular” season starts on the Saturday before Labor Day and end on the Saturday before Thanksgiving (which would allow for one bye week). Championships for all conferences are held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (which, I think, would become a hugely popular tradition). The six BCS conference champs would be granted automatic entry into the playoffs.

Regarding non-conference games: out of the three non-conference games at least two must be against teams that finished in the top 40 of the BCS on average over the last five years. One of the two Top-40 games must be against a team from a BCS conference.

In the Big Ten’s case, if they didn’t pick up a 12th team or drop a team (it would be best if Penn State jumped ship and joined the Big East, which would instantly increase the credibility of that conference), they would have to play 10 conference games to determine a valid champion and therefore would only have two non-conf. games, but would still have to adhere to the non-conf. game scheduling parameters. Don’t feel too bad though, they still get to play Northwestern, Illinois and Indiana every year.

This schedule would leave less room for cupcake games (really, only one per year, which would allow some “tradition” games to be played, like ND vs. Army) and would help voters see how teams truly stack up against other conferences while also allowing non-BCS conference teams the chance to beef up their resumes. And remember, the opponents need only to average a Top 40 BCS ranking from the immediate five preceding seasons, which means more than 40 teams will meet this criteria (probably 45-48).
THE BCS RANKINGS
Currently, the BCS only ranks the top 25. Obviously the BCS formula would have to be adjusted to rank the top 50 or 60 teams so that teams could get into the “Top 40.” Computer polls already rank all Div. I teams and the human polls would be adjusted as follows:

Since it is too hard for coaches (who are legitimately biased, anyway) to figure out a top 25, the coaches’ poll would be replaced by a 25-person committee that would rank the Top 50. This committee would be composed of venerable sportswriters, ex-players, ex-coaches, ex-refs and etc.. Each committee member would be paid a stipend-salary. The playoffs will make a TON of money, so paying 25 people $20,000 to rank teams for 3 months a year seems feasible, especially because it will be the committee’s JOB to rank the Top 50.

Since the top 50-60 BCS teams are the only ones that need to be analyzed, this means that only 25-35 games must be watched thoroughly (considering that some top 50-60 teams will be playing non-top 50-60 teams). Each committee member would be required to watch and thoroughly evaluate four games; these games would be randomly picked according to schedule (i.e. all 1 pm EST games are split amongst the members, and etc.) and assigned to each member. This would create an overlap of 3-4 committee members per game.

Not all games are televised (but MOST are) and so thoroughly analyzing all 35 meaningful (Top 50 BCS) games might not be feasible every week. But, each committee member will have their “games to watch” schedule weeks before the beginning of the season and could speak with local media, scout the conference that teams are from, or even arrange to have trusted sources scout the game for them. Of course there are going to be discrepancies, they are unavoidable, but this committee would produce a much more educated, credible and equitable ranking system than the Coaches’ Poll.

I would recommend the committee get into the same room on Monday afternoon to hammer out the rankings and educate fellow members about the games they missed. The actual rankings would be a poll from among all 25 members (to be published each week) and would not come out until Wednesday of each week in order to allow the most time for deliberation from the committee.

Harris Poll voters would have to rank their Top 50 as well, though the Harris Poll should get less weight in the BCS formula, as their rankings will not be as concise or informed as the committee poll.

Neither human poll is to start until after the fourth week of the season (hint: don’t schedule a bye or a cupcake in the first four weeks of the season), so the first BCS Top 50 poll would not be published until the Wednesday after the fourth week of the season (invariably, the last Wednesday of September).

The breakdown of the BCS formula will be 40% BCS Committee Ranking, 30% Harris Poll, and 30% Computer Poll Average (top and bottom computer scores dropped, all computer polls must factor margin-of-victory up to 21 points).

Regarding a team’s five-year average: if a team received absolutely no votes of confidence from either human poll then their final regular season computer poll average would still be used to calculate their BCS ranking for that year. The final BCS poll would actually rank every single Div. I-A team since the computer poll average would always create SOME kind of BCS ranking. Also, this would allow us to retroactively figure out each teams’ five-year average for scheduling purposes.

NOTRE DAME

I know you thought I was going to neglect the Notre Dame situation, but I’m not. If you look at past BCS rankings, it becomes clear that the current BCS conferences usually have 3-4 Top 25 teams in the final standings (further supporting the automatic entry rule for BCS conference). Even the ACC finished with three Top 25 BCS teams this year. If that field were pushed out to 50, it would show that the BCS conferences field at least five Top 40 BCS teams (over a five-year average), which means BCS conference teams are, on average, playing four BCS Top 40 teams per year. And since each team is required to play at least two other non-conf. Top 40 BCS teams in order to qualify for the playoffs that brings the magic number to six.

If Notre Dame (or any other independent) declined to join a BCS conference they would have to schedule at least six teams which were ranked in the Top 40 BCS (over a five-year average), two of which must average in the Top 20 BCS (over a five-year average) in order to be eligible for the post-season. Notre Dame’s current schedule holds two Top 20 teams (UM, USC), one Top 25 team (UCLA) and three teams that might have averaged Top 40 over the past five years (Penn St., Purdue, Georgia Tech).

Looks like Charlie might need to start scheduling some tougher teams, huh? Well, that’s been the argument against them all season, so guess what? This year Notre Dame might not be eligible for the playoffs. Of course, according to the rules, hardly anyone would qualify for the playoffs, as no one scheduled two non-conf. games against BCS Top 40 teams (except USC). Who knows what might have happened had Notre Dame scheduled Tennessee instead of North Carolina? At any rate, the bowls wouldn’t need all the revenue that a Notre Dame game would bring since EVERYONE would watch the playoffs, no matter who was playing. You know why? Because it would be the PLAYOFFS!

THE PLAYOFFS

After the 12-game regular season six automatic entries would be granted to the BCS Conference Champions into the 12-team NCAA DIV. 1A Football Playoffs. The other six slots would be filled by at-large teams who would earn a spot in the playoffs according to the final BCS rankings. Now, in some cases, one (or possibly two) BCS conference champions would not be in the top 12 of the final BCS standings and in that case, the team ranked 12th (or 11th) in the final BCS would be left out.

This system also provides a smooth transition to a 16-game format (without adding any weeks to the schedule) should “bubble” teams like WVU, Virginia Tech, Rutgers and Tennessee feel left out.

But, I would take issue with the argument that some team is always going to feel left out. Here’s the thing, if you go out and schedule good non-conf. games, you can afford to lose one or two conference games. But WVU, Va. Tech and Rutgers had horrible non-conf. schedules, and Tennessee lost three conference games (too many!) can they really make a solid argument that they should be in the playoffs?

The playoffs would be structured similar to the NFL Playoffs, teams being seeded by the BCS rankings and with the top four in the final BCS standings being given a bye in the first round.

The first round (Seed 12 vs. 5, 8 vs. 9, 7 vs. 10, 6 vs. 11) would be played on the second Saturday of December, which is anywhere from Dec. 9th to 15th (would play on third Saturday in one particular instance when Thanksgiving falls on the 29th, the latest possible date for Thanksgiving). This is a solid 6-10 days before most college exam weeks fall so this would allow the “student-athletes” ample time to study and read up on Voltaire.

The second round of the playoffs would be one week later (a range of December 16th through 22nd); currently there are seven bowls scheduled to be played between Dec. 19th and 24th.

The third round (or Final Four) would be the week after Christmas (at least 10 days after the 2nd round), always rotating around New Year’s Day in a range of the 30th thru the 4th. The Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and Orange would rotate these two Final Four games and the NC game.

When not hosting a playoff game the BCS bowl left out hosts a New Year’s Day game between the two highest BCS-ranked teams that did not make the playoffs. This year it would’ve been Notre Dame versus WVU; are you gonna tell me you wouldn’t rather see a close, high scoring game between these to offenses than the slaughtering LSU is gonna give the Domers?

Then the National Championship Game (not the BCS Championship Game!) would be held on a Monday night game over a week later, which would be Jan. 7th thru 13th to avoid conflicting with the NFL playoffs.

After all of this scheduling, there is still room for lower-tier bowls for teams that finish outside of the playoff bracket, especially if they want to fill in gaps over the New Year’s week, which will only have 3 bowls scheduled (I’ll get to specifics later).

Under this scenario the following teams would be playing on December 9th in the first round of the playoffs: Boise St. vs. Auburn, Wisconsin vs. Oklahoma, Louisville vs. Arkansas, and USC vs. Wake Forest.

Who wouldn’t want to see if BSU actually has what it takes against a seemingly superior SEC middle-of-the-packer? Or watch Wisconsin try to prove that they can beat a “quality” opponent while Oklahoma tries to lay to rest all of the whining over the Oregon game? Or how about two high-octane offenses like Arkansas and UL exchanging TDs like Christmas presents? And if UCLA can beat SC so could Wake.

Also, within this bracket there exists no possible outcome where there are more than four rematches out of the 11 contests (although, because of the new stipulation that teams play Top-40 non-conf. games more rematches are likely to result in the post-season).

If you look at who would make the playoffs there is only one three-loss team (Arkansas) and they might not have made it had WVU, Rutgers or Va. Tech (2-loss teams) scheduled better non-conf. games and boosted their strength of schedule. I contend that this playoff system would not de-value the regular season because you still need to win at least 10 games just to get into the playoff conversation. You really think anyone will be taking a Saturday for granted if they feel like 10 wins might not be enough?

THE FINANCES

One of the major hurdles to overcome is the college presidents of the BCS conferences who would not want to lose precious bowl dollars. Here’s what needs to happen to appease them:

All the college presidents and bowl chairmen from each bowl will negotiate for the eight opening round playoff games. 16 bowls would rotate hosting a playoff game two out of the four years, moving from first round, off, to second round, then off again (wash, rinse, and repeat).

11 of the 32 bowls that are played each year would host a playoff game. The 20 remaining bowls (eight of which will host a playoff game the next year) will select 40 non-playoff teams to play in their bowls. The remaining bowl is the BCS bowl left out for that particular year between the two highest-ranked playoff teams.

Now, I am no socialist, so I do not propose splitting all of the bowl money equally over the 119 Div. I teams. I simply propose that all TV money generated for ALL bowls be put into a pot and split equally among ALL bowl teams’ conferences. To elaborate: A total of 54 teams will play (40 non-playoff teams, 12 playoff teams, plus the 2 highest-ranked non-playoff teams) so if the SEC has seven bowl teams they would receive 7/54 (13%) of the total TV money for all Bowls. If the WAC has two bowl teams, they would receive 3.7%. This also means that Notre Dame no longer gets such a disproportionate amount of bowl money (1.85%, which is a whole lot better than the 9.17% they’re getting this year).

Bowls would still make money on ticket, sponsorship and ancillary sales (MORE money, in fact). In this scenario there would be at LEAST 12 meaningful bowl games. How many meaningful bowls are there this year? Six? Seven at most? The bowls wouldn’t worry as much about how well teams “travel,” because fans will travel for a legitimate playoff game, not for the Sun Bowl presented by Minute Maid. Plus, playoff bowl games (16 bowls that currently don’t cause much of a stir) would surely get higher-profile sponsors: I’m sure Pepsi would jump at the chance to host a playoff game every other year that was GUARANTEED to sell-out and be a legitimate television event.