The Case for a Playoff

In a departure from my usual commentary on politics and foreign affairs, I'm devoting a few lines to the debate concerning a playoff system for NCAA college football. This may not be as important a topic as taxes or national security policy but the NCAA has stoked the fires yet again and it deserves some scrutiny.






For 139 years, organized major college football in the United States has steadfastly resisted a playoff to determine the national champion, relying instead on coaches' polls, sportswriters' polls, some combination thereof or, since 1998, the Bowl Championship Series. Despite conducting 91 championships for 37 other sports it oversees, the NCAA refuses to establish a true playoff system for Division I-A football, the sport that generates the highest attendance, revenue, television ratings and public interest. It seems a screaming contradiction that the NCAA's biggest sport should be left to twist slowly in controversy for fourteen decades, especially given that the public appears to favor a playoff so strongly, but as with most issues, a real college football championship can be boiled down to one word: Money:



a) The presidents of the elite football universities stoutly refuse to accept a playoff system because of the threat it poses to their income. A team chosen to play in a lower-rung bowl game like the PapaJohns.com Bowl can make $300,000 for their school while the major bowl games - the Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar Bowls - pay out $17 million to their participants, which equates to a huge incentive to keep things exactly where they are, the fans and the general public be damned.


b) The bowl games themselves make huge sums from ticket sales, merchandising, television and sponsors, and the host cities count on bowl game revenue as well. Airlines, hotels, car rentals, restaurants, nightclubs, all make money when college football comes to town.


c) The TV networks and sponsors like the present system because they can showcase each bowl individually rather than as one game of a series. A playoff system would threaten the specialness of their games and the income thereof.


Aside from the money, the NCAA likes to excuse the lack of a playoff because of "tradition." This is how "tradition" has worked before:

• 13 November 1993: Florida State, unbeaten and ranked #1 in the country, plays Notre Dame, also unbeaten and ranked #2. In an epic contest in South Bend, Notre Dame prevails 31-24 and replaces Florida State as #1. Strangely, Florida State only drops to #2 even though Nebraska (ranked #3) remained unbeaten in their game. The next week, Boston College beats Notre Dame on a last-second field goal. Florida State resumes #1 but in a departure from the previous week's precedent, Notre Dame drops to #3 while Nebraska assumes #2. On New Year's Day 1994, Florida State beats Nebraska 18-16 in the Orange Bowl to claim the national championship while Notre Dame edges Texas A&M 24-21 in the Cotton Bowl and finishes the season in second place, despite having beaten the Seminoles fair and square. This arouses suspicion that Florida State - having lost the previous two national titles - received special consideration, first in dropping no lower than #2 after their loss to the Fighting Irish and second, in not having to play them again.

• 23 November 2001: Previously unbeaten and #1 ranked Nebraska is crushed by Colorado 62-26 but is nonetheless invited to play Miami in the BCS title game. The Hurricanes easily defeat the Cornhuskers 37-14 in the 2002 Rose Bowl, casting doubt on the decision to invite Nebraska as a worthy contender for the national championship.

• 06 December 2003: In a near repeat of the 2001 season's debacle, previously unbeaten and #1 ranked Oklahoma is routed by Kansas State 35-7 in the Big 12 Conference championship game but is invited to play in the Sugar Bowl against LSU nonetheless, the NCAA citing Oklahoma's "overall strong record." The Tigers beat the Sooners 21-14 to claim at least a share of the national title. Because the decision to invite Oklahoma was driven by computer calculations of a team's overall record, strength of schedule and wins over quality opponents, the NCAA drops those considerations prior to the 2004 season in favor of more human opinion, hoping to avoid another embarrassment. It doesn't work. In the 2005 BCS championship game, the first-ever meeting of two Heisman Trophy winners (Jason White of Oklahoma and Matt Leinart of USC), Southern Cal humiliates the Sooners 55-19, once again calling the validity of inviting Oklahoma into question, as well as the BCS system itself.

• 30 November 2008: Oklahoma is selected to play in the Big 12 Conference championship against Missouri, despite having finished the regular season tied with Texas and Texas Tech with identical records (7-1 in the conference and 11-1 overall) and despite having been defeated by Texas 45-35. Texas, having defeated both Oklahoma and Missouri, is ignored, their chances for playing in the BCS championship game all but erased, raising suspicion yet again that the fix was in.

The NCAA established the Bowl Championship Series in 1998 as a means of short-circuiting a true playoff system and maintaining the status quo for as long as possible, never intending that an actual national college football tournament should ever be established, for reasons already mentioned. As awkward, confusing and stupid as it is, as unfair and unpopular and illogical as it may be, the BCS has served that purpose ably. However, pressure is building across the country to scrap the BCS - as much as I disagree with Barack Obama on nearly every other issue, we share common ground here - and the NCAA would be better served to develop a playoff scheme themselves than to wait for a scheme to be imposed upon them. In that vein, here is the system I propose:

1. Limit the regular season to eleven games, period. Start the first weekend in September and finish by Thanksgiving weekend. This would put every Division I-FBS university on an equal footing.
2. Eliminate conference championship games. They consume an extra week that could be devoted to a playoff and are unnecessary since conference championships were determined for 75 years without them.
3. Cast a wide net. Select not four teams or eight but sixteen. This would ensure a wider array of talent, it would eliminate the pressure to go undefeated since teams with one or two losses could still be chosen and teams at the lower tier would still have a legitimate shot at the national championship.
4. Copy the basketball model again by establishing an NIT-style playoff for lower-ranked teams from #17-#25. Teams with three losses could still play in the postseason, it would provide coaches with ammunition for recruiting, minor bowl games could still be used and generate revenue and fan and media interest would be preserved.
5. Divide the competition into regionals of four teams each across the country. Force warm-weather teams like Miami and Southern Cal to play in Lincoln and Columbus in December, mix it up so teams are forced to adapt and the strongest teams emerge, while leaving lower-seeded teams a chance for an upset.
6. No byes. Every team plays every week until a champion is determined. Sixteen teams equals four games with the championship game played on New Year's Day and the college football season not extended even one week longer than usual.

This plan would not diminish the value of the regular season as the NCAA has warned, as a team's performance would determine rewards like seedings and home-field advantage. The season would conclude at the same time it always has been, and the championship would be legitimate, earned on the field and not by computers, opinion polls or personal agendas. Any coach or university president who objects to a true playoff system like this one, who prefers the skulduggery of the current mess to proving their team's mettle on the gridiron, who prefers politicking their way to the national championship over winning it fair and square, is not worthy to be considered.