College Football Season Capped off by Ridiculous Postseason Format

The college football season will be settled yet again by an arbitrary matchup between two teams we are pretty sure deserve to be there.  While a four-team playoff is on the way in 2014, many of the problems that plague college football’s postseason will remain.

In 1992, the BCS was created out of necessity to pit two teams together in a national championship game.  Since teams and conferences had bowl affiliations, the two best teams would rarely play one another to end the season.  As a result, it was difficult to determine an overall national champion.

The new system was an upgrade, but as we have seen nearly every single year this two-team system remains far too exclusive.  This year, Alabama will play Notre Dame in the National Championship Game.  Alabama is one of five teams in the BCS top 25 with one loss.  Alabama may seem to most people as the best one-loss team, but in reality there is very little that separates them from the others.

What’s worse is that there could have been multiple undefeated teams at the end of the season.  If Notre Dame, Alabama, Kansas State, and Oregon had all gone undefeated, two of those four would have been excluded.  This nightmare scenario happened in the 2004-05 season.  Southern California, Oklahoma, and Auburn were all undefeated.  With nothing to separate the three and with a two-team system, Auburn was somehow excluded.  Just as a quick aside, can you imagine an SEC team going undefeated today and NOT getting a place in the National Championship game?

Somehow, the BCS managed to survive until last season when enough was enough and it was announced the format for the national championship will change into a four-team playoff.  While this is progress, it still does not go far enough.

I know it sounds like I am beating a dead horse by tearing apart a system that has been universally panned, but that’s not the point.  The purpose of this article is not to point out the obvious flaws that have already been discussed ad nauseam, but instead to highlight the fact that instituting a four-team playoff is like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.

Let’s take the top four teams in the BCS standings this year as a hypothetical playoff.  This would give us Notre Dame, Alabama, Florida, and Oregon.  One could argue that all four teams are deserving of a title shot.  This would, however, also exclude one loss Kansas State who I would argue is no less deserving.  You are left with the exact same problem of a two-team system: it still excludes teams just as deserving of a title shot as those selected.

But wait, doesn’t college basketball have the same problem?  Every year experts debate over the most deserving teams and some are inevitably left out of March Madness.  Won’t any system have the exclusion problem no matter how big?  While this is true, the difference is that the 69^th best basketball team in the nation cannot reasonably argue that they are legitimate national championship contenders.  The lowest seed to ever win March Madness was an eight when Villanova won in 1985.  There is a huge difference between leaving out the 69^th best team and the fifth.

Still, the powers that be drag their feet on a full-blown playoff system.  Most people want to see either eight or 16 teams battle it out, but the fans are given the most ridiculous arguments for why this won’t happen.

Since the football season ends at the end of November/beginning of December, a playoff system could potentially interfere with then end of the college semester.  Well, the FCS (formerly I-AA football) has been using a playoff system of eight teams or more since 1981.  Somehow not every FCS football player has dropped out of school.  I promise you the football schedule could be adjusted to accommodate academics.

Another argument is that playoffs would either end the bowl system or diminish their importance.  This is untrue for two reasons.  First, the bowls could be incorporated into a playoff system.  For example, the four current BCS bowls could be converted into quarterfinal games.  Whatever bowls are not incorporated could be played by teams not in the playoffs.  The NCAA could make it work.

Secondly, a playoff system would not diminish bowl games any more than sponsors already have.  Do you think players can say with pride that they are playing in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl?  Or how about the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl?  When I see bowls like the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, it seems pretty evident that people stopped caring about the prestige of the bowl system a long time ago.  Adding a playoff system really won’t hurt, unless of course you’re a big fan of the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (my personal favorite).

Perhaps the most compelling and only real argument there is against the playoff system is that it could diminish the regular season.  I admit, the regular season of college football is the most important of pretty much any sport.  Every game turns into a pseudo “playoff” game for national title hopefuls.  A single loss can end the dream of raising the crystal trophy.

The problem, however, is that the big teams know their season hangs in the balance every week and so they schedule patsies they can beat up on while preparing for conference opponents.  Here are some of the matchups we were given in week 12 of this season: Alabama vs. Western Carolina, Florida vs. Jacksonville State, South Carolina vs. Wofford, Georgia vs. Georgia Southern, Auburn vs. Alabama A&M, Texas A&M vs. Sam Houston State, and Kentucky vs. Samford.  Even the most casual of college football fans can see these are pretty lackluster games.   Almost the entire SEC decided to take the weekend off and THIS is the regular season we have to protect?

With all due respect to the FCS, people are not glued to the TV when the best conference in the nation decides to hold a series of scrimmages in the middle of the season.  The nonconference schedule for many teams is becoming a joke because the margin for error is so small.  I personally would rather see postseason games against the best teams in the country instead of Alabama’s backups blowout Western Carolina midseason.

Don’t despair though, a larger playoff format is not far behind.  The fact is that college football is dominated by money.  If you don’t believe me, go back and re-read the names of the bowls I listed.  It won’t take long for people to realize that more playoff games between the best teams in the nation will mean more money.  It’s a simple equation.  What’s not so simple, however, is determining a fair system that can finally include all the true national title contenders while keeping all the decision-makers happy, but that’s an argument for another day.

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ACC’s Football Future in Jeopardy?

For the past few years, the college football landscape has changed dramatically as schools continually realign in an attempt to secure their program’s future.  Schools abandoned their traditional conferences and heralded rivalries with a look to the future.  Now we are left with the daunting task of sorting through all the changes and what they will ultimately mean.  Amid the chaos, the ACC seemed to be in a good position.  Syracuse and Pittsburgh decided to leave the Big East for the ACC, then the league stood pat, seemingly above the chaos, satisfied by their 14 members.  The recent agreement between the SEC and the Big 12 to match their champions in an annual bowl, however, is a clear sign that the ACC’s future as a major football conference remains very much in doubt.

In the BCS era, six conferences were given automatic bids into the BCS games.  The conference champions of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, and SEC were all guaranteed to receive a bid to one of the five BCS bowls.  Now that college football appears to finally be headed towards a playoff system, it is unclear what the BCS bowl games will mean.  By agreeing to a bowl matchup with one another similar to the relationship we currently see between the Big 10 and Pac 10 regarding the Rose Bowl, the SEC and Big 12 have cemented a relationship between two of the major conferences in the nation.  The implication is that the top four conferences have distinguished themselves and turned their backs on the weaker ACC and Big East.

Conference realignment and the end of the BCS system is a turning point for the ACC.  The league has long been criticized as weak with a 2-13 record in BCS bowl games.  The new playoff system is expected to be a four team format and in the past 5 years only one ACC team would have qualified, Virginia Tech in 2007.  The ACC must get better if it is to compete nationally or its best teams could leave.

Just last week, there were rumors floating that perhaps Florida State was seeking to leave for the Big 12.  While Florida State shot down those rumors, it did show the precarious position in which the ACC now finds itself.  With little prestige to speak of, should one of the ACC powers decide to leave it could start a mass exodus.  Should Florida State leave, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Clemson could all seek to leave as well or other conferences could attempt to lure them away.  The ACC cannot afford to lose its few prominent teams or it may be forced to seek out other unlikely teams like the Big East did in their talks with TCU, Boise State, and Houston.

Should the ACC respond to these other matchups with a Big East Bowl matchup?  That would not really help anything.  In fact, it would probably cement the perception that both conferences are second-tier.  One other possibility for the ACC is that they could attempt to woo Notre Dame.  Notre Dame of course is one of the most storied programs in the nation.  They have for years scorned all attempts to bring them into a conference, but previously there was no need for them to join a conference with their special relationship with the BCS.  That status, however, is now in jeopardy.  Should the playoff format require each of the top four teams to be conference champions as some have suggested, where would that leave Notre Dame?  If they must seek a conference, the ACC would be a distinct possibility.  The Notre Dame program is extremely profitable and the school is reluctant to share that money among conference members.  The ACC does not have a revenue sharing agreement which would allow Notre Dame to keep its money even with its conference affiliation.

For those of you dreaming of a rekindling of the “Catholics and Convicts” rivalry between Notre Dame and Miami, don’t reserve your tickets just yet.  This is a long-shot.  Even if Notre Dame is not the Notre Dame of old, a playoff format without some sort of special provision for them is almost inconceivable.  They will not join a conference unless they absolutely have to and it is unlikely that they ever will.

For now, the ACC is best served to remain where they stand and see what happens with the new playoff system.  To try and build around a playoff system that has not even been finalized yet is putting the cart before the horse.  Syracuse and Pittsburgh have yet to make their ACC debut, both may thrive in the new conference.  The new agreement between the Big 12 and SEC is not necessarily cause for panic, it only confirms what we already knew.  Right now, the ACC is second tier.  With two new teams and a new playoff system, the ACC may find a new identity and finally establish itself as a major conference.  If not, they may have to seek other teams to bridge the gap.