college football needs a playoff

[oasis4life2002]

I am so tired of this BCS bullshit!! College football is the only sport that doesn't have a pllayoff and it's crap!!! I'm from TX and I would hope the horns would make it to the title game but with all these possibilitys I think it's only fair that they get the top 8 teams to go at it!!!! I know the BCS creates interest every week but I think enough is enough. Anybody with me?

[vinylmartyr]

Yeah its total BS.

[CalmerThanYou]

i'll second this.

so will my boy barack.

[menikmati]

good luck, college football aint ran to please fans...it's ran by sponsors and television, and I believe ESPN just got the rights to BCS games, so they're not going anywhere...

[Mr. Dylanja]

Unfair, yes but bowl season is great!!

[oasis4life2002]

it pissed me off that if OU wins this Sat that they could jump a TX that beat them 45 to 35 earlier in the season. Maybe I'm just pissed cos it looks like TX may be put out in the cold. But TV does run everything UGH!!!!

[CalmerThanYou]

TV did kill the radio star

[oasis4life2002]

It kills everything!

[dorkfish]

The trick is to lose earlier in the season.

[suprefan]

Watch 1 AA and see their playoff, its seemless. Yet 1A cant adapt this cause they think its stupid...

[dorkfish]

Find the ratio of money floating around the FBS vs the money floating around the FCS.

No way it'll ever change.

[oasis4life2002]

there just needs to be a better system in play. Shit if baseball has adopted instant replay in sure the BCS can do something.

[dorkfish]

ncaaf adopted instant replay, as well. so the same level of change exists in both.

[oasis4life2002]

I understand ur point dorkfish but u agree with the system now? I know the system will prly not change but it's just not right. But money makes college football go round!!

[dorkfish]

No, I'd prefer a 16 team playoff, but the fact remains that people have been asking for this since for years and there hasn't been the slightest budge to suggest that they'd even consider adding a +1 game to decide the National Championship.

[oasis4life2002]

Sports fans could only wish.. Sigh

[mountmccabe]

This sports fan is mostly just upset that they've done so much to ruin what was wonderful about the bowls.

College football does not lend itself well to playoffs.

Tournaments only serve themselves: the winner of the World Series is just the winner of the World Series; MLB playoffs work very differently than the regular season, you need a different team balance and you use different strategies. Winning the World Series doesn't mean that you were the best team in the MLB that season, it just means you won the World Series. I always go back to Sparky Anderson's line, Any team can win a short series.

NCAA Basketball does lend itself well to tournaments... though not the rigorous triple-elimination several month long sort of tournament that actually might shed some light on which team is the best. I love the Big Dance; the first four days are among the greatest in sports... but the winner is by no means the best team in college basketball for that year. They're just the winner of a tournament. I always go back to 1991, when Duke beat UNLV in the semi-final on the Hill's pass and Laettner's bucket. Run that game again and 8 times out of ten UNLV wins it. They were the best team that year, there's really no discussion on the matter. They just caught a really tough loss in a close game against another team that was really good.


The last half of December used to be wonderful; school was out and college football would be on nearly every night of the week; I'd watch every game I could. And this led up to New Year's Day, which used to be the greatest day in sports. There'd be one to four games going on at any given moment for at least 12 hours. It was amazing.

Now the non-BCS bowls have been downplayed and they've spread the BCS bowls out over a week and it's just shit.

So I'm with y'all on the Fuck The BCS mantra but I don't want to progress to another boring bland tournament like every other fucking sport does, I want to regress back to when college football had a wonderful and interesting post-season.

[CalmerThanYou]

excellent post mount

[kitt kat]

Seriously. We may not be headed back to the Rose Bowl this year just because EVERYONE keeps winning. It doesn't matter we've only lost one game...We'll just keep falling the more people win.

If there was a playoff, USC would kick half of these teams to the dirt.

[CalmerThanYou]

youre supposed to say all those teams to the dirt, idiot.

[indietron]

The trick is to lose earlier in the season.

USC lost fairly early in the season but they are probably not gonna go the the National Championship game... And they definitely deserve to be there.

This sports fan is mostly just upset that they've done so much to ruin what was wonderful about the bowls.

College football does not lend itself well to playoffs.

Tournaments only serve themselves: the winner of the World Series is just the winner of the World Series; MLB playoffs work very differently than the regular season, you need a different team balance and you use different strategies. Winning the World Series doesn't mean that you were the best team in the MLB that season, it just means you won the World Series. I always go back to Sparky Anderson's line, Any team can win a short series.

NCAA Basketball does lend itself well to tournaments... though not the rigorous triple-elimination several month long sort of tournament that actually might shed some light on which team is the best. I love the Big Dance; the first four days are among the greatest in sports... but the winner is by no means the best team in college basketball for that year. They're just the winner of a tournament. I always go back to 1991, when Duke beat UNLV in the semi-final on the Hill's pass and Laettner's bucket. Run that game again and 8 times out of ten UNLV wins it. They were the best team that year, there's really no discussion on the matter. They just caught a really tough loss in a close game against another team that was really good.

At least in this situation UNLV was given the chance to compete for the championship. Great teams such as USC may not even get that chance. It would eliminate all of the bias of the ranking system, since it is really impossible to compare teams because of the variety of scheduling. The NFL does the 8 team playoff, and nobody complains about that.

The only problem I see with a tournament is the fact that there is only 6 conferences, leaving 2 extra spots. The selection of those 2 wildcard teams would be extremely difficult with the variety of conferences, and may have to resort to the ranking system again...

[TomAz]

I am so tired of this BCS bullshit!! College football is the only sport that doesn't have a pllayoff and it's crap!!! I'm from TX and I would hope the horns would make it to the title game but with all these possibilitys I think it's only fair that they get the top 8 teams to go at it!!!! I know the BCS creates interest every week but I think enough is enough. Anybody with me?

I agree with this.

This sports fan is mostly just upset that they've done so much to ruin what was wonderful about the bowls.

College football does not lend itself well to playoffs.

Tournaments only serve themselves: the winner of the World Series is just the winner of the World Series; MLB playoffs work very differently than the regular season, you need a different team balance and you use different strategies. Winning the World Series doesn't mean that you were the best team in the MLB that season, it just means you won the World Series. I always go back to Sparky Anderson's line, Any team can win a short series.

NCAA Basketball does lend itself well to tournaments... though not the rigorous triple-elimination several month long sort of tournament that actually might shed some light on which team is the best. I love the Big Dance; the first four days are among the greatest in sports... but the winner is by no means the best team in college basketball for that year. They're just the winner of a tournament. I always go back to 1991, when Duke beat UNLV in the semi-final on the Hill's pass and Laettner's bucket. Run that game again and 8 times out of ten UNLV wins it. They were the best team that year, there's really no discussion on the matter. They just caught a really tough loss in a close game against another team that was really good.


The last half of December used to be wonderful; school was out and college football would be on nearly every night of the week; I'd watch every game I could. And this led up to New Year's Day, which used to be the greatest day in sports. There'd be one to four games going on at any given moment for at least 12 hours. It was amazing.

Now the non-BCS bowls have been downplayed and they've spread the BCS bowls out over a week and it's just shit.

So I'm with y'all on the Fuck The BCS mantra but I don't want to progress to another boring bland tournament like every other fucking sport does, I want to regress back to when college football had a wonderful and interesting post-season.

I disagree with this. While the winner of the World Series may have just 'won a series', there is a community consensus, agreed to well before the season ever starts, that the team that wins the world series will be considered MLB champions. Your position that this is not the same as "best team in the regular season" is both correct and beside the point. The point is that everyone involved as agreed 'this is how we will determine the champion' and the process is considered relatively equitable by all.

Your argument, John, basically boils down to "why do we need to have a championship at all?". And the answer is, we don't need one but many people involved would prefer to have one. And you could extend the logic of your implied question further: why bother to have a Big 10 and a Big 10 champion? Why bother to have a Rose Bowl? Why bother to even keep score? People like competition; they like the fact that one team wins and another loses; and (in other sports) they like that there is a well defined process for a team to be named champion. In college FB, most fans, and many coaches and players, dislike the process to be named 'champion' because it is subjective and not decided on the playing field.

At least in this situation UNLV was given the chance to compete for the championship.

A key point. One reason people dislike the current system so (and disliked the older system even more) is that it goes against our basic sense of fair play. Utah will go undefeated this season, and even if they win a bowl game against a highly ranked opponent, they have zero chance of being named national champions. None, zero, zilch; this was written into the script from the very beginning of the season, and it pisses people off. Ask the Utah coaches, players, and fans if they would like the opportunity to compete for the national championship on the football field by participating in a playoff system, and they're all going to answer "hell yes".

There is a sense that the current system is being perpetuated by the economically powerful at the expense of the less powerful. Hell, the only reason Utah will get to a BCS bowl at all is that the non-BCS schools filed a law suit to be allowed in to play. There is also a suspicion among the more cynical fans (myself included) that a conference like the Big 10 favors the current system because it allows them to wield economic might rather than actually proving merit on the football field.

[arbouler]

USC lost fairly early in the season but they are probably not gonna go the the National Championship game... And they definitely deserve to be there.

no they do not (not this year at least)

[faxman75]

I agree 100% with Johns assessment of NCAA March Madness. The opening of that tournament is the greatest thing in sports.

I would watch College Football if they had a playoff. I do agree with John that it was certainly better 10 years ago or so than it is now. I used to enjoy bowl week all leading up to games on new years day. Now I could give a fuck and don't watch any games at all.

[Hopeless Semantic]

While Mount made some interesting points, I disagree with his overall view of tournaments. Yes, the first few days are brilliant during March Madness and that perhaps the tournament awards the hottest team, but to no have the opportunity to produce a Kansas-like championship game or a N.Y. Giant-like run through a 16-team playoffs in NCAA football is foolish. You would get 5-6 top notch games at the end of the year in which you'd pit the likes of 'SC vs. Texas, Florida vs. Oklahoma, Oklahoma vs. Alabama, 'SC vs. Florida, etc..etc...The real travesty is that the NCAA, a NAZI-esque ran institution, doesn't give a damn about us the fans and will only care about the money it can pocket off amateur athletes.

[paganman7]

The bowl system is outdated and has lost its luster in the past decade, principally because of corporate sponsorship. Who the fuck cares that the 7th team in the WAC gets to play the 4th team in the Big ten in the Playtex Bowl at Union High School field in Gnome Alaska?

[TomAz]

The bowl system is outdated and has lost its luster in the past decade, principally because of corporate sponsorship. Who the fuck cares that the 7th team in the WAC gets to play the 4th team in the Big ten in the Playtex Bowl at Union High School field in Gnome Alaska?

Are you suggesting that without corporate sponsorship people would care about that game?

[Hopeless Semantic]

The bowl system is outdated and has lost its luster in the past decade, principally because of corporate sponsorship. Who the fuck cares that the 7th team in the WAC gets to play the 4th team in the Big ten in the Playtex Bowl at Union High School field in Gnome Alaska?

I'd watch that game on the hopes that a polar bear would run wild on the Minnesota Golden Gopher's cheer squad. That would probably be the only reason I'd tune into the Playtex Bowl. I'd sure as hell turn the channel before they brought out Tammy the Tampon for the Dr. Pepper 5,000 Dollar String-Pull Halftime Contest.

[kreutz2112]

"hell yes" Tom

While I do agree the BCS sucks. it does have it's benefits. Going along with Johns point, I believe the BCS championship really does provide a platform for the two best teams in college football to battle it out and determine the true champion. A playoff system would benefit the non-BCS conferences though, which I would support, but it wouldn't really determine a true champion. Would non-BCS conference teams such as Utah, Ball State, Boise State be able to compete in a 16 game playoff with the top teams from the big 12 and SEC? Probably 1 out of 5 times. But if a team like Ball State won it outright they are not the best team. They just beat a couple teams who had bad weeks.

oh and kitt kat. USC fucking blows. The PAC-10 blows. How they are above Utah, Texas Tech, and Penn State boggles my mind. dorkfish brought up a good point. "The key is to lose early" That's exactly what happened to USC, same with Florida (although I think florida deserves to be where they are.) Utah has beat two teams which at the time were ranked in the top 15. They also beat the potential PAC-10 champion, which really isn't saying much, but hey it's BCS conference so they are automatically better than any non-BCS conference right? Wrong. The voters may think that's the case, but the Mountain West went 6-1 against PAC-10 teams this year. The Utes deserve to be ranked higher than USC. That is all.

[Hopeless Semantic]

There isn't a Utes bias in the last post at all... Again, this is all speculation on who'll be whom and without a system in which allows a good majority to participate, nothing perfect will ever come from the BCS. The bottom line is what makes the networks and the NCAA money. No way in hell are the powers-that-be excited one iota over a Utah vs. Cincinnati Fiesta Bowl. Well, except maybe the state of Utah and Ohio. I don't even think they're all that keen on an Oregon St. vs. Penn St. rematch. I wouldn't be surprised if Oregon beats the Beavers this weekend in the Civil War though USC in the Rose Bowl would elicit yawns since it would be the 4 time in 5 years that the Trojans were involved with the Rose Bowl.

I don't think Utah, Boise St., and Ball St. are teams capable of beating the top 5. They're not the the Urban Meyer and Dan Hawkins coached teams. I would be surprised to see them beat any team besides the Big East/ACC champions this year in the BCS Bowl travesty.