ROLL TIDE

On Thursday January 7^th the 2009-10 college football season came to an end. It was a very competitive matchup even though Texas lost its QB on the first drive of the game. Alabama will be crowned the national champion by virtue of winning this championship game. While I agree they should be the national champion I think a few other schools have a very good argument. I have been saying for years that the only fairest way to decide the national championship is to have a playoff. While this year seems to have worked out fairly I think this system is still flawed and still want to see a playoff. This is the article that I posted last year about a college football division 1 playoff and I will post it every year until I see a playoff. Happy New Year everyone.

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There are many (including myself) who would like to see a playoff system decide college football. People who oppose the playoff system site several reasons. The first reason against a playoff system is that it would make a very long season longer. College football is one of the most expensive sports to maintain. Adding time to already costly season would be devastating to most programs. The second thing to consider is that the student athlete would be affected by extending the length of the season. Another reason against a playoff system is that the money generated by a playoff would not equal the money generated by the bowl games. Yet another argument is that having a playoff would reduce the importance of the games at the end of the year. Having said all these things I still think there is a way to have a meaningful play off and still have some remnant of the bowl system. Here is what I would do.

I would start the season 3 weeks later. August 28 is way too early to start the football season. I would play 10 games with one bye and every conference plays a championship game. That gives every one between 10 and 11 games and the regular season would be done by the first week of December. The next thing I would do is cut the number of bowl games. There are just way too many. I would have enough minor bowl games to play a game or two every day between Christmas and New Years Eve. We could still have the same number of bowl games but keep in mine we are going to play 8 more playoff games at the end of the year.

On New Years Eve play the Cotton and Gator Bowls. On New Year’s Day play the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta Bowls. After that I would have the top 8 teams play in a single elimination playoff. This would take 3 weeks. I would also assign the first round games to regions of the country. I would have a game in the Southeast, a game in the Midwest, a game on the west coast, and a game in the northeast (in a dome of course because it is January). When the final 2 teams were done playing we would have a definitive national championship.

This system I think would have many merits. First we would have a definite national. A champion that was decided in games and not by a bunch of computers and writers. Second it would get rid of all the cupcake games at the beginning of the year. It may also encourage coaches to schedule competitive games at the beginning of the year. In the current system there is no reason for a team in a power conference to play a tough opponent in the beginning of the year. Teams are currently in a system where two losses completely eliminates a team from the national title picture. In a playoff system it would be advantageous to schedule a tough opponent in the beginning of the year to give your team tournament experience. Also an early season loss wouldn’t completely ruin your national championship chances as it does in the current system.

The second advantage to this system is that every bowl game could affect the outcome of the national championship picture. In the current system the BCS game is the only one that really affects the outcome of the national title. If teams were playing their bowl games to get one of the 8 playoff positions every game would mean something. All of a sudden that garbage bowl on December 28 with the #9 team in the country is a HUGE game with national championship implications. The bowl games are more important not less with a playoff system.

We still have all the tradition and pageantry of the bowl games. The bowl people are making money. The season isn’t any longer because we cut the beginning of the season. We could be done by the time most schools opened for the spring semester. We replaced non competitive games that didn’t really matter with meaningful ones. TELL ME WHY THIS CAN’T BE DONE!!!!!!