For the uninitiated, ESPN Radio has a show called Mike & Mike in the Morning, which features ex-NFL’er Mike Golic and ESPN personality Mike Greenberg (a.k.a. “Greeny”) discussing all kinds of sports topics. In a recent issue of ESPN The Magazine, they debated the merits of a playoff in college football and Greeny had this to say.
“I know it’s an unpopluar view, but a playoff would make college football a January sport the way college basketball has become a March sport – and that’s not a good thing. Plus, having a playoff would diminish the one thing that makes college football unique: that every game is essentially a playoff game. I don’t know if the BCS is perfect, but creating a tournament makes the regular season as meaningless as the college basketball, NBA and NHL regular seasons have become.”
Two things: (1) He makes the same point twice and passes it off as two different points and (2) he’s being overly dramatic.
I’ve heard Kirk Herbstreit make the same argument and, simply stated, it’s just not that black and white. Sure, if the NCAA implements a 64-team football tournament, the regular season wouldn’t matter. But could the same be said for a four-team tournament? If the playoff is small and exclusive, there’s still going to be as much pressure to win during the regular season, only we’ll have acceptable closure (not to mention twice the excitement) at the end of each season.
Under the current system, if a team loses an early game, the players, coaches and fans know that it’s a long road back to contention with only a slim chance of getting a shot to play in the title game. In a four-team playoff, those chances are doubled, which would only serve to generate more interest in the regular season. Imagine the intensity surrounding those last few weeks of the regular season when eight or more teams are vying for those four playoff spots. Currently, a number of one-loss teams know they’re not playing in the title game and the best case is a spot in a BCS bowl. Big deal.
Those that argue against a college football playoff need to understand that there are varying degrees of a playoff. Sure, a big playoff – I’m talking eight or more teams – would probably reduce the meaning of the regular season. But a small playoff would take the sport to the next level.
I completely agree JP.
An eight or more playoff system is only going to make the sport better, period. Period!!! The NFL will always be king if the current college football system stays the same.
If the regular season in college football was the playoff system, then why do teams schedule Appalachian State, Texas Southern Methodist and Northville Central High School in their first two weeks? Not too mention, every conference already has fluff teams, so what college football fans really get is three or four “playoff” games during the regular season and that’s it.
In theory, yes, every game during the regular season is a “playoff” because if you lose one or two you’re done. However, as you put it JP, it’s not as black and white as that. What you really have is a bunch of preseason games and as I mentioned before, three or four “playoff” games and that’s it.
College football fans are getting ripped off yearly and schmucks like Mike Green continue to miss that…
Good point about the fluff teams…
So do you want a big playoff (8+ teams) or a small one (6 or fewer)?
With 120 Division I college football teams, I say the more the better – why not? If there’s eight teams, Boise State probably makes it in last year and we finally get to see what they could have done.
The only problem is – and this has been detailed in the past – the more teams you add, the more grey lines are involved in who should be team #8, #9, etc.
To me, having a four team playoff system like they’re talking about implementing in 2011 is bullshit. Yeah, it’s better than what we have now, but only four teams? I think that’s weak…
What would you prefer?
I say start with 4 and go from there. I could make a case for 6 or 8, but I think you start to water down the regular season a bit. An 8-team playoff takes three weeks to complete, so teams would probably cut back on the cupcake games early in the season.
But starting with 4 is a good idea. It will be easier to implement and will keep the dissenting voices to a minimum.
I’m good with not seeing Michigan play Eastern Michigan if I can see them play a playoff game with meaning at the end of the year.
I’d go with a Final 4. I think the TRUE Champion could emerge from that without the controvercies we have had in the past.
And 1
A four team football playoff is ridiculous. You think a team like Louisville or Rutgers is ever going to make it into that tournament? Not as long as there is an opinion poll involved. Just pencil this in for the first 10 years: USC, Michigan, Texas, Florida…with LSU and Ohio State as alternates. The reason we love the NCAA basketball tournament is for the possibility of a Villanova-like upset. You need more than 4 for that to happen.
Make it a 12 team tournament…top 10 plus 2 at-large. Top 4 receive a bye the first week, then it becomes an 8 team tournament. The whole thing takes 4 weeks and you could be done on New Year’s day or the following week if you wanted. This way you give other conferences a chance and you make the regular season mean something. You’ll want that top 4 seeding to get a first round bye which means you’ll need to improve your strength of schedule (no more Ball State, AS).
There’s always going to be controversy no matter what system is in place. But if you’re going to use a poll to determine the rankings, a tournament is the only way to go.
Ridiculous? Compared to the current system? Come on.
I say you start with 4 and expand if necessary. That setup would encourage teams like Louisville and Rutgers (and Boise St.) to schedule non-conference games with the power conferences in order to boost their standings. The power teams would agree because they would be less concerned about a fluke loss and would be more concerned with having a good strength of schedule on their resume at season’s end. This results in better matchups earlier in the season and a better regular season overall.
4, 6 or 8 – I would take any of them over the current system
The silly arguments from Greenie and others are the same kind of crap we heard from geniuses like Bob Costas who didn’t want the Wild Card in baseball.
College football suffers because the system is just too arbitrary and unfair.
The current system is better than the old system, and a 4 team plyoff would be another step in the right direction
I gotta go with T-Bone here…having a four team playoff is ridiculous…the current system is just REALLY ridiculous. The only problem is that there’s going to be discrepancy 5 through 12 on who gets in. If someone can figure out a way to do it, I’d vote “yes” on a 12-team system all day long…
I think everyone who is okay with a four-team playoff is just dying for A playoff system…ANY playoff system. F-that…come on already – make this thing happen already and get fans a real playoff system.
And T-Bone – I hammered Michigan in a backhanded way in my first comment for scheduling App. State…so get off me about Ball State!
I do see the argument that a big playoff system would take the onus away from the regular season, so I think an 8-team playoff is as big as I would go. It allows for some exclusivity, but also allows for an undefeated Boise St. team to make the playoffs. I think teams should be able to have one misstep and still have a shot at the title, but I don’t think we want to include a lot of 2- or 3-loss teams, do we?
AS…my apologies for the ball state reference…AGAIN.
JP…the team that won the national championship last year had more losses and was ranked lower going into the game than the team it embarrassed. I don’t get the comment about not wanting too many 2 or 3 loss teams in the tournament. How do you know which teams are better since the rankings are all based on opinion? I thnk LSU was better with 2 losses than undefeated Ohio State, but we’ll never know because there wasn’t a tournament. After that came, you could argue that Ohio State wasn’t as good as any of the top 10.
Below are the top 12 teams from the final 2006 BCS regular season standings. Hindsight says ND shouldn’t have been there but I wouldn’t have had a problem with any of those teams in a 12 team tournament. You don’t think seeing the bottom 8 in a 4-bowl play-in would be exciting? With how football crazy this country is, I think this could be bigger than the NCAA basketball tournament.
1 Ohio State 12-0
2 Florida 12-1
3 Michigan 11-1
4 LSU 10-2
5 USC 10-2
6 Louisville 11-1
7 Wisconsin 11-1
8 Boise State 12-0
9 Auburn 10-2
10 Oklahoma 11-2
11 Notre Dame 10-2
12 Arkansas 10-3
I would like the current system – BUT to ADD1 …. One more Championship game after what we see now. Sort of a Super Bowl for the NCAA.
But all that does is prove who’s best of the top 4 teams of the opinion poll. Not a big enough sample to determine who really is the best in the country.
Sincerely,
Boise State
The BCS rankings are based on opinion polls and loads of computer rankings, so it’s not just opinion.
It all depends on how watered down you want the regular season to be. In your example, Arkansas gets in the playoff with three losses. I don’t feel like they belong. They already proved they couldn’t beat USC, LSU or Florida, and two of those games were at home. If a team knows going in that they can drop three games and still make the playoffs, it starts to chip away at the meaning of the regular season, which is exactly what anti-playoff people are afraid of. Like it or not, college football has always crowned a national champion that was the best for the entire year, not the best for the month of December. A smaller playoff (4 to 8 teams) would continue to do that.
Boise St played three non conference games in 2006: Sacramento St., Oregon St. and Wyoming. Had they scheduled another power conference game or two (and won) they would have been ranked higher.
I definitely think a 12-team playoff would be exciting, but if it makes regular season games less meaningful, then it hurts CFB as a whole.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Start with 4 (to keep the naysayers relatively happy) and expand as needed. It might eventually get to 12 teams, but I don’t think we should start there.
So when Duke loses twice to UNC, should they even be invited to the basketball tournament? Or do you think the ’85 Villanova or ’83 NC State teams are less deserving champions because they weren’t great during the regular season? I know it’s a different sport, but the logic is the same.
I understand your point about the regular season but when teams like Ohio State are playing 3 out-of-conference patsies, how meaningful is it to begin with? They would never touch teams like Boise State because it doesn’t guarantee them half of their bowl eligibility.
There are so many things wrong with the NCAA and the current bowl system that we could debate this for years. No system will ever be perfect but putting something in place that already needs to be fixed isn’t the way to go either. I’d rather have more teams involved than not enough. At least you can find a real champion that way, not the champion of the chosen few.
I don’t buy the basketball analogy. There are three times as many games per season, so individual losses don’t count as much. Besides, the anti-playoff people point to college hoops and say that, as fun as March Madness is, the regular season doesn’t matter – understandably, they don’t want that to happen to college football.
Re: OSU, if you make it a 4- to 8-team playoff, the power conferences are more likely to schedule some competition up front to enhance their resume. Right now, they know they basically need to run the table and they’ll be in the big game – why would they schedule a Boise St? There’s no upside under the current system. They HAVE to run the table or they’re not sniffing the title game. In a 4-team playoff, a couple of early season victories over good non-conference opponents might offset a late season loss to Michigan.
I don’t think a 4-team playoff “needs to be fixed.” I think it’s do-able and most everyone can agree that it’s a step in the right direction. If problems arise, you re-evaluate. There’s no way the NCAA goes all willy-nilly and implements a 12- or 16-team playoff. It just isn’t going to happen.
Run the table? Florida didn’t run the table and won the championship. Michigan didn’t run the table and if it wasn’t for Tressel abstaining from his vote, they would have played for the chamionship (there’s how much power the opinion poll has). You’re playing for seeding so teams are going to try to win as many as they can but using the BCS rankings, they’ll need to consider their strength of schedule.
I can see 8 teams but using 12 teams where the bottom 8 play in gives you a better shot at finding the best teams. You’ll have an occasional upset but the cream should rise to the top and the upsets would create the cinderella factor and make for a great tournament. This would also help make the bowls relevant again because right now, there’s only 1 that matters.
I wasn’t talking about Florida; I was talking about Ohio State. They know that a late loss to Michigan will spoil any hopes of playing in the BCS title game, so they don’t see the point of scheduling any competition early in the season. Under the current system, they have to run the table to play in the big game, so that’s why all the cupcakes are on the schedule. Most years, if OSU runs the table, they make the title game.
The SEC is different – the schedules are tougher, so it’s OK if there is a bump in the road. Plus, they have the SEC title game, which gives the winner (usually a BCS title game contender) a little umph at the end of the season. And everyone knows that the SEC year in and year out is the strongest conference, so the polls are biased towards the conference leader.
At this point, I don’t know what we’re arguing about. You want a 12-team playoff but I think that takes the onus away from the regular season. We’re both right. You’re right that a big playoff would be exciting, and I’m right that the regular season isn’t going to be as important if the playoffs are so inclusive.
Agreed. It was good give and take though.