What if College Football was like College Basketball?
Today, the college basketball brackets are being announced and teams across the nation will begin their quest for the championship. With all of the hoopla (haha, look at my funny pun) surrounding March Madness and the relative fairness of the system, many are questioning why college football doesn’t do something similar. I can see a number of arguments for a top 16 play-off system:
- The current system is not fair. Every year, the national champion in college football will be disputed. Every. Year. The way they determine which teams play in which games isn’t exactly fair, and there will always be a bunch of teams that think they deserved one of the top spots. When there’s problems like that year after year after year, that means that there are inherent issues of fairness with the system.
- A playoff system would help to boost the lesser conferences. Sure the possibility for a playoff game will make things more competitive in the SEC, Pac-10, and so forth. However, this will hopefully boost the level of play in some of the lesser conferences, since their games will matter on a national level. More national exposure means more spectators, which in turn means more money. When a school’s football program is making more money, they can afford to invest more into said program for better coaches, better recruiting, and so forth. I’m all for more competition on all levels.
- This is a good idea overall for helping the NCAA earn more money. Right now, one of the biggest problems with a playoff, as the NCAA big-wigs see it, is that it won’t make as much money. Right now, there are like, a million “bowls,” so mo matter how mediocre your team, chances are that they’ll make it to a bowl, and your fan-ness is what makes them money. Or so they think. In actuality, they’re running maybe ten good bowls (the major ones and a few others that are good games) and the rest of the bowls aren’t really worth the money it takes to run them. If they ran a playoff system with 16 teams, that’s 15 bowl-quality games that REALLY mean something. Its a much better option.
I can also see major problems with a playoff system, especially a 16-team system like some people are talking about:
- Until some of the smaller conferences build up their programs, there will be a few teams every year who have no business playing with the big boys. In fact, this will probably be the case most years. That means that there will be some deserving teams left out in order to make room for other conferences.
- It will add up to four extra games to the season for some colleges. That’s a lot, especially because this is when college is supposed to be on break. Football games are much longer and more demanding than basketball games. I’m not saying that it is a harder sport - it isn’t - but adding a few basketball games to a season is different than adding a few football games.
- It commercializes the sport. Football, even at the college level, is already pretty commercial, and having a playoff system throws even more corporate America into the mix. I like the easy-going nature of NCAA football and would hate to see it get more like the NFL.
So, there are arguments for both sides and personally, I’m still on the fence. How do you feel about college football having a 16-team playoff system?
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