Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel is as fed up as the rest of us.
He's published a column making his case for the playoff system in our beloved sport.
I have thought long myself, as many have you, that the sport is ready to incorportate the system of its lower levels (FCS, II, III). Wetzel brings up some fantastic points and has a well-crafted piece.
He's also put together a bracket of what a playoff would look like assuming the season ends today. There's a method to the madness that includes conference winners from all conferences and five at-large bids. At the risk of rewriting his piece, just go check it out (link above).
Click the picture for a larger version.
Comments (6)
Hey, I see a team missing, but I understand it is for a point, and I agree with it 100%. I still say the ratings would be huge. Two games on a Thursday night, two on a Friday and a huge quadrupleheader on Saturday...followed by another huge quadrupleheader the next week.
As for the missing part, I have to stick up for my guys, right?
It was the first thing that crossed my mind as well...
The thing is...someone always gets jobbed. This year it would be schools like ASU and Illinois.
Adam, If they had 32 teams, team 33 would scream...I was just breaking chops naturally, but they need to get a playoff, then you would also see better non league games, just like in basketball, and maybe then, you won't have teams begging out of game, lke I believe Michigan State begged out of a game at Hawaii this year. Or maybe Troy can get a 2-for-1 series with a (insert power team here).
I'm not in favor of a playoff system at all. Like I said before, last weeks Kansas Mizzou game wouldn't have been very interesting if both teams were making the playoffs anyway. The outcome of this weeks WVU - Pitt game wouldn't matter at all for National Championship purposes (except for seeding maybe).
Plus, who's interested in seeing Mizzou - Central Mich? or WVU - Troy?
Forget it.
I'm not saying there shouldn't continue to be additional tweaks and adjustments, but I'll take all the buzz the FBS and BCS gets by having the current model and it's attendant debates. It's like no other system, and it works.
You're right, Troy-WVU and Mizzou-Central Mich wouldn't draw a whole lot of buzz. But neither do 1 vs. 16 games like Kentucky-Drexel or Duke-Middle Tennessee St in basketball -- and that doesn't prevent people from going nuts over March Madness every year.
Of course some games are going to be duds, but the idea is to create a system that has a greater mass appeal than a horde of bowl games which have no consequence except to the teams who play them.
If you're a Va. Tech fan for example, what reason do you have to watch the Chik-Fil-A Bowl unless you are a huge college football fan? The game has no consequence to anyone else. But if those same two teams played in a game that actually impacted the potential national champion, then you'd better believe people would care. It's the same reason people from New York will watch an 8-9 matchup between UAB and Arkansas -- you know that the winner gets to play a No. 1 seed in the next round, and could potentially upset the national champion.
Is it fair that the top hoops teams have to win six playoff games to clinch a National Championship after a two- or three-loss season? Maybe not. But what it does guarantee is that the best team almost always wins. (And we all know that does not happen in college football -- this year may be a perfect example.)
By forcing teams to go through a gauntlet of top teams, you're creating interest and excitement that has only been matched by the greatest 1-2 matchups in history (like USC-Texas in the Rose Bowl two years ago).
For the long term health of college football, and for the added benefit of creating interest in areas like New York, where there are thousands of people who couldn't care less about college football, I think the playoff system is the better way to go.
Mike C.
Not that you don't make good points, but it's going to take more than a playoff to get the NY metro area interested in CFB.
However, as we all know on here, that's their loss.