Say Anything Blog

As tends to happen his time of year, controversy has made its appearance in the land of college football.  The annual calls for a college football playoff have begun.  While I would love to see a playoff system developed, I don’t think that it will be without controversy.  The only thing that would change is what the controversy is over.

The biggest source of argument would be about which teams should be in the playoff.  People don’t like the current system, so someone will have to develop a new one.  It won’t be easy because everyone has a different opinion about what a system would need.  For the sake of this argument, let’s assume that a ranking system can be developed that people like.

Next, a playoff bracket will need to be developed.  Since it seems to be the most commonly-expressed opinion, I will use 8 teams.

Now, how do we decide which teams get in?  Here’s where the problems really come in.  To get this system to work, the current BCS conferences would need to buy into it.  The only way for that to happen is to guarantee them a spot.  Without that guarantee, what incentive would they have to change from the current system?  They are looking for a piece of the pie.

I suppose a solution would be to evenly divide any money the playoff takes in amongst all the conferences.  In exchange, the top 8 teams from the ranking system would get the berths in a playoff.  Unfortunately, the conferences would likely not go for that.  There is too big of a risk that a conference could be shut out of the playoff and viewed as inferior.  For example, if this year’s BCS rankings were used, the ACC and the Big-12 would both be shut out.  The Big-10 would be the biggest winner with three teams in the top 8.  Is that fair?  I don’t know, but I do know that the conferences won’t like it.  It also won’t stop the controversy.  Instead of arguing about who should be number 2, the argument will be about who is number 8.

Given that, let’s assume that we have a system with the 6 conference champions getting berths.  That would leave 2 open spots for at-large teams.  Well, Notre Dame won’t sign off on a playoff unless they have some kind of provision to take care of them, so there will be a rule somewhat like the current BCS rule that guarantees Notre Dame a spot.  We would have to do the same with the smaller conferences since we have those same rules.  Since a large number of schools are in those conferences, their agreement would be important.

Given all these likely components of a playoff, it is entirely likely that a good team could get left out.  Just look at this year.  Had Notre Dame not lost to USC, they would have found themselves in a position to get their guaranteed spot in the playoff.  If that had happened, then only one of either Michigan or LSU would have made the bracket despite both teams being in the top 5 in the rankings.  There’s a big dollop of controversy right there.

The solution might be to expand the number of teams to 12 or 16.  This does allow more teams, but it does cost another week to pull off.  It also won’t change the bickering because there will still be arguments about who should be in and who shouldn’t be.  Look at the basketball tournament.  They have 65 teams and every year we have to listen to a bunch of whiny people complaining that their 15-14 record is really a great record.  With fewer teams, the whining will be louder.

Next, we have to seed the teams for the playoff.  This would be the easiest part.  If we use their ranks out of the ranking system, we have a pretty good bracket.  People will still argue about who should be number 4 or number 5, but it won’t be as bad.

Everyone would love a playoff system.  I know I would.  I think it would produce some awesome games.  What it won’t do is reduce controversy.  As long as there re sportswriters and sportscasters, there will be controversy.  It will just be in a different form.