Playoffs or bowls? The 'experts' duke it out
Overtures at introducing a miniplayoff system in college football were rejected again this week.
Conference commissioners nixed a plan to turn the current system for deciding a national champ into a four-team playoff.
As we have it, the current Bowl Championship Series system appears to be in place through at least the 2014 season.
Talk of a college football playoff never fails to create debate, especially between a couple of cranky sportswriters.
Sip: A playoff’s not happening any time soon, folks, no matter how loudly fans howl. Ultimately, the folks who matter most — college presidents — simply aren’t interested, and for good reasons.
I could live with a four-team playoff. But here’s the problem: Eventually a four-team playoff would become an eight-team playoff. Then a 16-team event. Then 32. And on and on. That’s what happened in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), which began as a four-team playoff, then grew to eight and now 16. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament expanded from 24 teams in 1974 to 65 today.
And therein lies my biggest concern — college football evolving into something we don’t recognize.
BC: College football is the best thing going in sports, but the continual resistance to a playoff just baffles me.
Hey, I’m fine with the bowl games still being part of the holiday season. But in the name of all things sane and Corso, let’s add at least an eight-team playoff to the mix. If need be, drop the conference championship games the first week of December and play four first-round games that weekend with the higher seeds hosting on their campuses.
Imagine that Saturday for a moment: A quadruple-header with every game having national championship implications.
The biggest gripe against a playoff I always hear is that it will render the regular season meaningless. How exactly is that? There were 119 Division I college football teams last season. To make a playoff field of eight teams, you’d have to be pretty blasted good. And if home-field advantage were involved, the pressure for the top teams to stay undefeated near the end of the season would be huge.
A bunch of suits are standing in front of an idea that excites the masses. When a recent national poll was conducted on the topic of a playoff, more than 70 percent of the fans said they were for it.
Sip: Well, you’re right about one thing (but wrong about essentially everything else). Kudos for acknowledging the overall health of college football. The sport is arguably more popular than it’s ever been. TV ratings and attendance are up. You just saw 80,000 fans at Nebraska’s spring game. And you just want to blow it all up and start over?
I’m not saying a playoff would render the regular season “meaningless.” But I think it’s incumbent upon college football’s brain trust to protect the sanctity of the regular season. College football has the best regular season of any sport going. Maybe an eight-team playoff wouldn’t have much impact on the regular season. However, we both know the playoff wouldn’t stop at eight teams.
Besides, I’m more concerned about a playoff marginalizing the bowl structure, which helps make college football unique.
BC: Yes, college football’s postseason is unique: It’s the only system in sports in which a team’s championship hopes are ultimately decided by numbers spewed out of a computer.
Ohio State last year? Good gosh, man. Given our current system, we put OSU in the national title game only because a bunch of teams in front of them lost for two weekends while the Buckeyes sat on their couches. Wouldn’t it be a lot more fun if you threw LSU, Ohio State, Georgia, USC and a few other friends into an eight-team bracket and saw who really had what it takes on the field?
Sip: Bottom line is, any system — yes, even an eight-team playoff system — would have flaws. With an eight-team bracket, the ninth and 10th teams are going to howl. What’s more, you don’t think teams would bicker about seedings and which team gets the all-important home field? It would be an absolute mess.
Keep in mind that the formula used to compile BCS standings has been the same for the past four seasons. The situation has stabilized. Yes, there has been controversy about the title-game participants in recent years, but it also should be noted that it’s been three years since the last perceived injustice (Auburn).
BC: I don’t know that Georgia would say the current system is stabilized. Arguably the best team at the end of last season, Georgia was left to play in a lame Sugar Bowl game against Hawaii. Anyone who lasted through that blowout should get a free car wash from Beano Cook.
So what if the ninth- and 10th-ranked teams are complaining? You’re right that there will always be complainers. Heck, I’m complaining now. But an eight-team playoff would include all the teams with legitimate beefs.
One more thing: The way it is, we have some serious vote-fixing going on by coaches trying to set up the national title game in a certain fashion.
Just look at some of the final regular-season ballots by coaches, recently pointed out by ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski: Florida Atlantic’s Howard Schnellenberger had LSU at No. 5, Georgia at No. 8 and USC at No. 12. New Mexico State’s Hal Mumme had Hawaii at No. 1, LSU at No. 4, USC at No. 7 and Georgia at No. 9. Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops had LSU at No. 6 ,and he’s even bros with Bo Pelini.
Instead of letting teams slug it out in a tournament, we’re using these kinds of numbers to play a factor in what teams get into the national title game.
And then there are some proponents of the current system who take the stance that the controversy is a positive, saying things like: “Well, the current system gets people talking.”
Yeah, gas prices get people talking, too. It doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
Sip: You make some valid points. But playoff-pushers tend to forget some key details as they attempt to save the world.
For instance, consider the fans. Say a certain team is rolling along in the playoffs. Will fans be able to book an airplane ticket in a week’s time? When it’s a one-game bowl situation, fans have a month to find prime ticket rates. How many fans are going to be able to afford to go fill stadiums on short notice?
Think about the two teams that advance to the title game. During the monthlong playoff process, the teams’ coaches would have little-to-no time to recruit, and their classes probably would get raided. Some reward.
Also, I think a playoff, as it continues to expand, would go a long way toward eventually ruining the bowl experience. Again, the bowl experience helps make the college game unique.
I think the bowls do a lot to bolster excitement in programs. Some feel there are too many bowls. But there are a lot of good coaches and a lot of people who work awfully hard in programs. As it stands, a lot of players and a lot of programs are rewarded for hard work.
In a playoff format, do you really think coaches and players would enjoy the bowl “experience”? The must-win nature of a playoff would become a grind. Forget the sightseeing and off-field activities that go along with bowl games. The pressure on everyone involved would be immense.
I make an important distinction. Playoff proponents like to say that the reason you play the season is to win a championship. I say the chance to win a championship is “a” reason to play, not “the” reason.
BC: Oh, the wondrous bowl experience. Every kid’s dream: a trip to Shreveport. OK, OK, I’m not here to bash on the bowls. Keep your sacred PapaJohns.com Bowl. That’s fine so long as we also get a playoff system in place, too. Your let’s-put-a-smile-on-everyone’s-face mentality reminds of a quote Fox Sports President Ed Goren recently gave the Chicago Tribune.
Of the current BCS system, he said, “Five teams go back to campus as champions. If you go into a different system, you have one winner and everyone else goes home a loser.”
C’mon. This isn’t third-grade soccer where everyone gets a Capri Sun after the game. Sixty-four teams leave the NCAA hoops tournament on losing notes. But last I checked, the dance seems to be doing just fine for itself.
Goren acts like the BCS system is doing some great service to these teams when, in reality, it’s actually holding most back.
You don’t think Kansas would have liked a shot in a playoff?
And Georgia sure seemed less than satisfied after winning the Sugar Bowl. A day after season’s end, the Bulldogs were growling about the current BCS system being a joke.
In my suggested eight-team playoff system, you could even use the bowl system as part of the final four (much like the extra-game format that was being proposed this week.) The four losers of the quarterfinal games can certainly play in bowl games, too.
Only two teams would play 15 games. They’d be thrilled to do it. The fans would love the party tour.
Of the current BCS system, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White recently said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
We must have different definitions of broke. I’d consider a system to be lacking when it leaves USC (No. 1 in both polls at the 2003 regular season’s end) out of a shot for the crown, yet welcomed an Oklahoma team fresh off a four-touchdown loss to Kansas State
Or how about 2004, when undefeated Auburn didn’t get a shot at the title? Instead, USC drummed Oklahoma 55-19 in the title game.
Or the 2001 controversy involving Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon?
Or in 2000 when the BCS system landed Florida State in the title game ahead of Miami despite the fact both teams had one loss and Miami had won the head-to-head meeting?
“When I look at it now, I think it should have been Miami and Oklahoma,” FSU coach Bobby Bowden said after his team lost that game to the Sooners, scoring just 2 points.
Right now, we’re often just guessing at who we think deserves a shot in the championship game. This is big-time sports. Stop the guesswork. Start a playoff. Let the scoreboard take it from there.
Sip: With all due respect, we’re starting to go round and round here.
Do you really think college football would hold the line at eight teams in a playoff? Or 16? I think you know better.
I think it’s time to invoke some wisdom from a fellow who knows the college game a little bit.
So, how does Tom Osborne feel about a playoff system?
“Well, right now we’re looking at an awful lot of teams playing 14 games,” he said. “If you go to a plus-one (format), you’re at 15 games. We’re really asking a lot out of student athletes.”
Osborne remembers the days of nine-game regular seasons. Back then, he said, offseason training programs for players weren’t as extensive.
“Now players are involved in some kind of training almost year-round, and they’re trying to go to school,” Osborne said. “They have normal progress rules academically that they have to meet that they didn’t have back then. … There’s just so much being put on their plate.
“I really question the wisdom of a playoff. … Right now, the season is the playoff. That’s the thing so many people don’t grasp. They look at the professional model where you can maybe lose 40 percent or even 50 percent of your games and still qualify and win a championship. Right now, the way it is, every game is important. You can’t really take a Saturday off. Strength of schedule is important.
“Maybe we can tweak the system. Maybe you can have your computer ranking on one thing or another, and have a different format in selecting the teams. But I just know that no matter how you do it, you’re not going to have something that satisfies everybody.”
Bingo.
By the way, BC, what do you have against Shreveport?
BC: I really don’t think an eight-team playoff takes any drama out of the regular season.
Just look at it this way: If there were an eight-team playoff last year, Kansas would have barely made it despite having its best season in school history. And West Virginia would have gone from being a possible top seed to out of the playoffs because of a bad late-season home loss to Pittsburgh.
Under an eight-team system and using the final BCS rankings after the regular season, last year’s first-round games would have included: Kansas at No. 1 Ohio State, USC at No. 2 LSU, Missouri at No. 3 Virginia Tech, Georgia at No. 4 Oklahoma. That would have been a fabulous weekend of football, and the excitement generated would have been something the current system can’t touch.
College football will always be great because of the passion that surrounds it. But put in a playoff and it will be football heaven.
Sip: OK, I’ve heard enough. My ultimate fear is these emotion-driven, idealistic and grandiose playoff notions will someday severely damage a sport that, by virtually any measure, is thriving.
BC: All I know is someday I’ll be watching a college football playoff with cheese dip on my shirt and a smile on my face. Perhaps in another six years I’ll convince you.
Conference commissioners nixed a plan to turn the current system for deciding a national champ into a four-team playoff.
As we have it, the current Bowl Championship Series system appears to be in place through at least the 2014 season.
Talk of a college football playoff never fails to create debate, especially between a couple of cranky sportswriters.
Sip: A playoff’s not happening any time soon, folks, no matter how loudly fans howl. Ultimately, the folks who matter most — college presidents — simply aren’t interested, and for good reasons.
I could live with a four-team playoff. But here’s the problem: Eventually a four-team playoff would become an eight-team playoff. Then a 16-team event. Then 32. And on and on. That’s what happened in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), which began as a four-team playoff, then grew to eight and now 16. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament expanded from 24 teams in 1974 to 65 today.
And therein lies my biggest concern — college football evolving into something we don’t recognize.
BC: College football is the best thing going in sports, but the continual resistance to a playoff just baffles me.
Hey, I’m fine with the bowl games still being part of the holiday season. But in the name of all things sane and Corso, let’s add at least an eight-team playoff to the mix. If need be, drop the conference championship games the first week of December and play four first-round games that weekend with the higher seeds hosting on their campuses.
Imagine that Saturday for a moment: A quadruple-header with every game having national championship implications.
The biggest gripe against a playoff I always hear is that it will render the regular season meaningless. How exactly is that? There were 119 Division I college football teams last season. To make a playoff field of eight teams, you’d have to be pretty blasted good. And if home-field advantage were involved, the pressure for the top teams to stay undefeated near the end of the season would be huge.
A bunch of suits are standing in front of an idea that excites the masses. When a recent national poll was conducted on the topic of a playoff, more than 70 percent of the fans said they were for it.
Sip: Well, you’re right about one thing (but wrong about essentially everything else). Kudos for acknowledging the overall health of college football. The sport is arguably more popular than it’s ever been. TV ratings and attendance are up. You just saw 80,000 fans at Nebraska’s spring game. And you just want to blow it all up and start over?
I’m not saying a playoff would render the regular season “meaningless.” But I think it’s incumbent upon college football’s brain trust to protect the sanctity of the regular season. College football has the best regular season of any sport going. Maybe an eight-team playoff wouldn’t have much impact on the regular season. However, we both know the playoff wouldn’t stop at eight teams.
Besides, I’m more concerned about a playoff marginalizing the bowl structure, which helps make college football unique.
BC: Yes, college football’s postseason is unique: It’s the only system in sports in which a team’s championship hopes are ultimately decided by numbers spewed out of a computer.
Ohio State last year? Good gosh, man. Given our current system, we put OSU in the national title game only because a bunch of teams in front of them lost for two weekends while the Buckeyes sat on their couches. Wouldn’t it be a lot more fun if you threw LSU, Ohio State, Georgia, USC and a few other friends into an eight-team bracket and saw who really had what it takes on the field?
Sip: Bottom line is, any system — yes, even an eight-team playoff system — would have flaws. With an eight-team bracket, the ninth and 10th teams are going to howl. What’s more, you don’t think teams would bicker about seedings and which team gets the all-important home field? It would be an absolute mess.
Keep in mind that the formula used to compile BCS standings has been the same for the past four seasons. The situation has stabilized. Yes, there has been controversy about the title-game participants in recent years, but it also should be noted that it’s been three years since the last perceived injustice (Auburn).
BC: I don’t know that Georgia would say the current system is stabilized. Arguably the best team at the end of last season, Georgia was left to play in a lame Sugar Bowl game against Hawaii. Anyone who lasted through that blowout should get a free car wash from Beano Cook.
So what if the ninth- and 10th-ranked teams are complaining? You’re right that there will always be complainers. Heck, I’m complaining now. But an eight-team playoff would include all the teams with legitimate beefs.
One more thing: The way it is, we have some serious vote-fixing going on by coaches trying to set up the national title game in a certain fashion.
Just look at some of the final regular-season ballots by coaches, recently pointed out by ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski: Florida Atlantic’s Howard Schnellenberger had LSU at No. 5, Georgia at No. 8 and USC at No. 12. New Mexico State’s Hal Mumme had Hawaii at No. 1, LSU at No. 4, USC at No. 7 and Georgia at No. 9. Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops had LSU at No. 6 ,and he’s even bros with Bo Pelini.
Instead of letting teams slug it out in a tournament, we’re using these kinds of numbers to play a factor in what teams get into the national title game.
And then there are some proponents of the current system who take the stance that the controversy is a positive, saying things like: “Well, the current system gets people talking.”
Yeah, gas prices get people talking, too. It doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
Sip: You make some valid points. But playoff-pushers tend to forget some key details as they attempt to save the world.
For instance, consider the fans. Say a certain team is rolling along in the playoffs. Will fans be able to book an airplane ticket in a week’s time? When it’s a one-game bowl situation, fans have a month to find prime ticket rates. How many fans are going to be able to afford to go fill stadiums on short notice?
Think about the two teams that advance to the title game. During the monthlong playoff process, the teams’ coaches would have little-to-no time to recruit, and their classes probably would get raided. Some reward.
Also, I think a playoff, as it continues to expand, would go a long way toward eventually ruining the bowl experience. Again, the bowl experience helps make the college game unique.
I think the bowls do a lot to bolster excitement in programs. Some feel there are too many bowls. But there are a lot of good coaches and a lot of people who work awfully hard in programs. As it stands, a lot of players and a lot of programs are rewarded for hard work.
In a playoff format, do you really think coaches and players would enjoy the bowl “experience”? The must-win nature of a playoff would become a grind. Forget the sightseeing and off-field activities that go along with bowl games. The pressure on everyone involved would be immense.
I make an important distinction. Playoff proponents like to say that the reason you play the season is to win a championship. I say the chance to win a championship is “a” reason to play, not “the” reason.
BC: Oh, the wondrous bowl experience. Every kid’s dream: a trip to Shreveport. OK, OK, I’m not here to bash on the bowls. Keep your sacred PapaJohns.com Bowl. That’s fine so long as we also get a playoff system in place, too. Your let’s-put-a-smile-on-everyone’s-face mentality reminds of a quote Fox Sports President Ed Goren recently gave the Chicago Tribune.
Of the current BCS system, he said, “Five teams go back to campus as champions. If you go into a different system, you have one winner and everyone else goes home a loser.”
C’mon. This isn’t third-grade soccer where everyone gets a Capri Sun after the game. Sixty-four teams leave the NCAA hoops tournament on losing notes. But last I checked, the dance seems to be doing just fine for itself.
Goren acts like the BCS system is doing some great service to these teams when, in reality, it’s actually holding most back.
You don’t think Kansas would have liked a shot in a playoff?
And Georgia sure seemed less than satisfied after winning the Sugar Bowl. A day after season’s end, the Bulldogs were growling about the current BCS system being a joke.
In my suggested eight-team playoff system, you could even use the bowl system as part of the final four (much like the extra-game format that was being proposed this week.) The four losers of the quarterfinal games can certainly play in bowl games, too.
Only two teams would play 15 games. They’d be thrilled to do it. The fans would love the party tour.
Of the current BCS system, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White recently said: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
We must have different definitions of broke. I’d consider a system to be lacking when it leaves USC (No. 1 in both polls at the 2003 regular season’s end) out of a shot for the crown, yet welcomed an Oklahoma team fresh off a four-touchdown loss to Kansas State
Or how about 2004, when undefeated Auburn didn’t get a shot at the title? Instead, USC drummed Oklahoma 55-19 in the title game.
Or the 2001 controversy involving Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon?
Or in 2000 when the BCS system landed Florida State in the title game ahead of Miami despite the fact both teams had one loss and Miami had won the head-to-head meeting?
“When I look at it now, I think it should have been Miami and Oklahoma,” FSU coach Bobby Bowden said after his team lost that game to the Sooners, scoring just 2 points.
Right now, we’re often just guessing at who we think deserves a shot in the championship game. This is big-time sports. Stop the guesswork. Start a playoff. Let the scoreboard take it from there.
Sip: With all due respect, we’re starting to go round and round here.
Do you really think college football would hold the line at eight teams in a playoff? Or 16? I think you know better.
I think it’s time to invoke some wisdom from a fellow who knows the college game a little bit.
So, how does Tom Osborne feel about a playoff system?
“Well, right now we’re looking at an awful lot of teams playing 14 games,” he said. “If you go to a plus-one (format), you’re at 15 games. We’re really asking a lot out of student athletes.”
Osborne remembers the days of nine-game regular seasons. Back then, he said, offseason training programs for players weren’t as extensive.
“Now players are involved in some kind of training almost year-round, and they’re trying to go to school,” Osborne said. “They have normal progress rules academically that they have to meet that they didn’t have back then. … There’s just so much being put on their plate.
“I really question the wisdom of a playoff. … Right now, the season is the playoff. That’s the thing so many people don’t grasp. They look at the professional model where you can maybe lose 40 percent or even 50 percent of your games and still qualify and win a championship. Right now, the way it is, every game is important. You can’t really take a Saturday off. Strength of schedule is important.
“Maybe we can tweak the system. Maybe you can have your computer ranking on one thing or another, and have a different format in selecting the teams. But I just know that no matter how you do it, you’re not going to have something that satisfies everybody.”
Bingo.
By the way, BC, what do you have against Shreveport?
BC: I really don’t think an eight-team playoff takes any drama out of the regular season.
Just look at it this way: If there were an eight-team playoff last year, Kansas would have barely made it despite having its best season in school history. And West Virginia would have gone from being a possible top seed to out of the playoffs because of a bad late-season home loss to Pittsburgh.
Under an eight-team system and using the final BCS rankings after the regular season, last year’s first-round games would have included: Kansas at No. 1 Ohio State, USC at No. 2 LSU, Missouri at No. 3 Virginia Tech, Georgia at No. 4 Oklahoma. That would have been a fabulous weekend of football, and the excitement generated would have been something the current system can’t touch.
College football will always be great because of the passion that surrounds it. But put in a playoff and it will be football heaven.
Sip: OK, I’ve heard enough. My ultimate fear is these emotion-driven, idealistic and grandiose playoff notions will someday severely damage a sport that, by virtually any measure, is thriving.
BC: All I know is someday I’ll be watching a college football playoff with cheese dip on my shirt and a smile on my face. Perhaps in another six years I’ll convince you.
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