December 31st, 2009
No college football playoffs
I know it’s the popular thing to advocate, but I’ve hated the idea of college football playoffs since the first day I heard it. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like the bowl game system; it’s the most interesting post-season format in sports, and it gives non-championship teams a chance to end the season on a high note. The bowl games also help preserve the flavor of a league whose 119-team talent pool is much more diluted than the professional National Football League’s.
I can understand the appeal of a playoff format. Obviously the BCS hasn’t always placed the two best teams in college football’s championship game (In one of my few bright spots writing for The Daily Iowan, I wrote that the BCS is like a government program—invented with good intentions, it fails time and time again, but never goes away). In 2001 the BCS sent a Nebraska Cornhuskers team which didn’t even win its conference championship (it was embarrassed by the University of Colorado in the Big 12 title game, 62-36) to the national championship only to be smacked around in by the Miami Hurricanes, 37-14. That’s what happens when computers get in the way of humanity’s common sense. One reason people don’t run the economy though a silicon processor is that it would be impossible to write a program which correctly weighed the countless tangible variables that dictate the proper allocation of goods and services, and then took capricious human nature into account, so what makes college football fans trust HAL 9000’s ability to decide whether or not USC’s a better team than Florida?
But this doesn’t mean a single-elimination playoff is necessary. A playoff system would take the meaning out of college football’s regular season, where just one loss can sink a team’s national title hopes (a sixteen team-playoff could make three or even four losses non-threatening if a team’s schedule is brutal enough). Without the safety net of a low-seeded playoff berth, just about every game is a must-win match for college football’s title contenders. Even a top-eight playoff scenario would suck the urgency from important games. In 2006, Michigan and Ohio State, the top two teams in the nation at the time, played a thrilling 42-39 game (food for thought: Would they have played as hard if the game wouldn’t have knocked either team out of playoff contention)? Alas, the Fuckeyes won, ending Michigan’s national title hopes. In an eight-team playoff system, the game would have only been a formality. Both teams had performed so well that there was virtually no chance losing the game would have knocked the loser out of the title hunt; in fact, Michigan entered the bowl week that season ranked #3 in the BCS as well as both major polls. If college football had a playoff system in place, one of the greatest games in the rivalry’s history would have been reduced to a warm-up for the post-season.
The same thing occurred when then #1 Alabama hosted #4 Florida in the 2008 Southeastern Conference title game. Florida won an intense matchup, 31-20, dropping the Crimson Tide to #4 in the final polls. In a playoff system, the only drama surrounding the game would have concerned whether or not Florida would lose so bad they would fall out of playoff contention.
I know the playoffs will give a comforting finality to the college football season, but the simple selection of the top eight teams will be as arbitrary as any pair of polls, especially when it comes to deciding the seventh and eighth-ranked teams. Should a 12-1 team from a weak conference be invited over a 9-3 SEC team? What about a team that played a tough schedule and lost three close games versus another 11-1 squad that defeated creampuffs all season, but was blown out the one time they played a ranked opponent? There are 119 teams in college football’s most prolific division, but only twelve or so games in the regular season, which means that schedule strength will vastly differ. A team with an 11-1 record may be worse than a team with a 6-5 one because all the former racked up victories against much weaker opponents. Don’t pretend there wouldn’t be any controversy with a playoff system. After the 2008 regular season, 12-0 Boise State, ranked #9 in the BCS behind a group which included only one other unbeaten team (Utah) would have been left out of a top-eight playoff selection.
Most of all, I don’t want the NCAA to be like the NFL. College football should be distinct from pro football, not just a watered-down developmental league with essentially the same playoff format. The bowl game system helps sustain the atmosphere of college football, because almost every game indeed matters when it comes to the national championship. Which sounds more exciting, the Orange Bowl, or round two of the playoffs at a neutral site? I would rather have a little controversy every so often over deciding the national champion than change the makeup of the entire game, which is what a mechanical playoff format would do to college football. Just think: How many people list regular-season NFL games when asked to name the greatest games ever?
The only real problem with the bowl system before the BCS was that no matter what the circumstances were, the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences had agreed to send their champions to the Rose bowl, even if it created a mess like it did in 1994 by pitting the unbeaten #2 team in the country (Penn State) not against the other unbeaten team (#1 Nebraska) but against a 9-3 champion in a weak year for the Pac Ten (the Oregon Ducks). The Rose Bowl’s exclusive rights to the Big Ten and Pac Ten champions prevented some great de facto title games. Because of the contract, the dominant Washington Huskies and Miami Hurricanes split the national title in 1991, because they had to play lesser, non-unbeaten teams instead of each other in their respective bowls. The same goes for the 1997 Michigan Wolverines and Nebraska Cornhuskers.
A playoff system would only let unthinking fans pretend all of sport’s arbitrary factors can be accounted for. Even then, does anyone really believe the best team always wins in single-elimination tournaments? Were the NFL’s 1998 Atlanta Falcons a better representative for their NFC in the Super Bowl than the 1998 Minnesota Vikings? In college basketball, the 1985 Georgetown Hoyas would have beaten the 1985 Villanova Wildcats, which upset them in a single-game championship, nine out of ten games if given the chance. Can one even truly say the 2007 New York Giants were a better team than the then undefeated New England Patriots, even though they squeaked by the Patriots in the Super Bowl? In college football’s Division I-A right now, every game a team plays is part of the resume for the championship game. In all other sports, the most important part of the season always comes at the end. In NCAA football, every game can potentially end a team’s quest for glory.
As long as there is an intelligent, flexible system for deciding which two teams deserve to play in the championship (sometimes it’ll be close, and there will be arguments over who deserved to be invited—get over it) college football should avoid a playoff system at all costs.