The Last Straw

Ignoring conferences etc. there was a consensus #1 team in the country – LSU – before the game on Monday.  The eventual #2 lost one game, to the then-consensus #1, on the strength (weakness?) of missed FGs.  Yeah, they <i>lost</i>... And Alabama won the rematch.  Obviously, there are other teams with claims to make that they got screwed – mainly OK State (that never got a shot).  Stanford and Boise State also have cases to make.  In terms of what actually happened, though, the only team that played LSU close all season came back and dominated.  I don't have any complaints about handing 'Bama the title (other than the fact that it's Alabama and Saban); if LSU had won there would be even less room for argument.  In fact the only disaster case – Alabama winning a close one – didn't happen.

All that said, the BCS process is a sham and makes no sense, what between imbalanced schedules, potentially corrupt voting procedures, broken computer algorithms, and so forth.  To say nothing of the Ponzi scheme the bowls are these days.  I'm not trying to defend the BCS as such, I just think that this year's <i>result</i> is actually kind of defensible.

As we get bogged down in an argument about what's fair and what system will produce a true National Champion, we're overlooking a crucial part of sports, it's supposed to be entertaining.

Somebody, years ago after Boise State hit like 18 circus plays to beat Oklahoma, that everyone in the country would be rooting for the Broncos in the semifinal round, except for the fact it didn't exist.

Connecticut wasn't the best team last season until they reeled off six straight and won the Nat'l Champ. Butler wasn't the 2nd best team the last two years, but had everybody rooting for them in consecutive games. March Madness is fun because it produces moments like Bryce Drew and George Mason.

I see no reason a college football playoff couldn't do the same.

Wouldn't a Stanford-LSU match-up have been insanely entertaining to see if Luck & Co. could take down the dominant Tigers? Same with Bama versus Weeden and Blackmon.

Does the regular season still matter? Of course! What if Okie State loses to Oklahoma on the last day and gets knocked out? What if Luck doesn't lead the comeback against USC.

...suffering a crisis of taxonomy.

Notice that 100 years ago when cheap air flight/long distance travel was illogical for a group of 85+ college students, the teams all clustered with like-minded other teams in terms of geography, i.e., conferences.

Today, the masses are arguing for a true national champion but there is really only about 20-30 teams that have any realistic chance at this on a yearly basis.  These teams are now, of course, spread across the nation and are members of various conferences.

The first step to creating national playoff would actually be to eliminate the traditional conferences and re-categorize the FBS into perhaps 4 classes of about 30 teams each.  The Michigans & Alabamas could be in Class1, the MSUs & Auburns in Class2, Northwesterns & Vanderbilt in Class3, etc. 

Then you could easily have a fair & balanced season with a logical playoff that should produce a controversey free champion every year.  In fact, that would 3 or 4 national champions (one from each class) every year.

It would be a very logical yet boring & tradition-striped system that would give up nothing to talk about and virtually no distraction from work.  Playoffs = communists winning !!!  All hail the bowls !!!

The best line in the article: "Now that college football postseason's horrendous structure is hitting the big guys in the wallet, change is coming."

I've ALWAYS believed this very thing.  If you want a timeline towards playoffs, the progress towards playoffs is inversely proportional to the television ratings/revenues.

This season's concomitant dropoff in ticket sales and ratings across the board for the BCS, and especially at the NC level, therefore, represented a BIG step in the right direction.

As long as there is money to be made, playoffs will come.  Not because it's RIGHT, but because it is simply more profitable.  Period.

The home game finally making a southern team play in the cold is long over due.  Maybe a Big Ten team and fans will not have to travel across the country and play in thier opponents back yard for once.

4 to 6 teams should be selected at the end of the year to bash each other over the head with a shovel. The survivor wins the No. 1 ranking, a trophy and all the undisputed glory.

The bowl games were just sad this year. There were empty seats in the Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl this year. That's a complete disgrace.  They've had their day.

If you didn't watch the FCS championship playoffs, you missed some great games.  In the end, North Dakota State 14-1 beat Sam Houston State (14-1) and was voted unanimously the No. 1 team. They settled it on the field in an away game.

I like the idea of having the No. 1 and 2 teams in a playoff with some at large teams, and for the higher ranked teams to have earned home-field advantage. 

and have supported the BCS. This season ended that notion.

I understand that the current system benefits us and the other auto-qualifiers, but it's just too much now. What I would like to see happen is a 6 team playoff: the top two would get a buy week and the other four will play for the right to be in the semifinals. There would be five auto-qualifiers (B1G, P12, SEC, B12, ACC) and one at-large, good luck everyone else. This would preserve the integrity of the regular season as only the conference champ would have the ability to play in the playoff. It would be a nice step, but I don't think the conferences would go for it at this point. 

I would also like to see the concempt the P12 and B1G expanded to the SEC and ACC as well. Let the four major conferences (other than Texas and OU its hard to count the B12 as a major conference on a year to year basis, but I guess you could add them if really needed) and have a four week B1G v. SEC, B1G v. ACC, B1G v. P12 weekly matchup, with all four playing all four. This would NEVER happen, but damn, it would make the season that much better. 

EDIT: Thinking more on the playoff format, the games should be played at the home field of the higher ranked team with only the championship being played at a neutral site, probably rotating the location like is done now (but substitute the Fiesta for the Cotton). The games were empy this year. I was at the Sugar Bowl and there were LOTS of free seats. If the games were to be played at home the games would be sold out. Sure, it's cold usually in the north in December and January, but that's an advantage northern teams should get like the southern teams now get every single year with where the current bowls. 

The number of bowls should be reduced, 35 is simply too many. I thing the big bows could remain in this format, you have the second place teams play in the traditional matchups with only the six teams playing outside of the 'bowl system.'

The FCS championship examples since 1978 have been interesting, like having both Georgia Southern and Furman football teams fly all the way out to Tacoma, Washington to play in the title game (1985).  5,000 people were present for that game.

I'm sure that wouldn't happen for an FBS championship game. But as a neutral site,Michigan stadium holds 110,000+ fans for crying out loud.  It would have been killer to have LSU play Alabama in the Big House for the national championship. 

going to a bowl game is almost exactly like going to a pro football game. totally corporately monetized, bland stadiums, just two teams that only have the football game in common playing each other.

as for the BCS tourney thing, it rarely affects michigan, (although i hope it does moreso in the future), so my main concern is how it affects gameday and regular season games, and a four team tourney won't really, so whatever.

There are 11 conferences. Give one spot to each team that wins their conference and one independants spot (forces ND to join a conference too. yay!). Simple. If teams from the pits of conferences aren't close to competing for a national championship, then they should no longer be in the FBS. Cut out any non-conference games which decreases the schedule. 

Since the advent of the BCS, most years there have been 2 or 3 teams that deserved to be considered possible national champions before the MNC game, based solely on their regular seasons (and conference championship games).  (One year ['05?] it could have been argued that five teams could make such a claim.  But that's rare.)  This past year, only LSU could have legitimately made such a claim.

If you expand the field to four, most years someone is going to get in who does not deserve to be considered national champions, based on their regular season (and CCG).  But, in my opinion, this is better than leaving a 3rd and possibly 4th team out who does have a legitimate claim.

When the field expands to four, and a team winds up being considered 5th, they should, instead of whining, ask themselves if they really deserved to be considered the best team, not the fourth-best team.  Same goes for the #9 team in an 8-team field.

Under that test for legitimacy, I don't see that there would ever be a need to expand beyond a 6-team field.

I think what we want is a playoff and an undisputed national champion.  Except where the hell do we get "undisputed" without neutral sites, etc?

I don't think we care about the "best team of the year" anymore, because of the scrapheap of history has so many examples where it just didn't matter: I mean, just look up this list of teams why don't you: 1968 Ohio State, 1971 Michigan, 1978 Penn State, 1982 Georgia, 1983 Texas, 1983 Nebraska.  

So Alabama won the BCS title game in 2012. They knocked off the undefeated No. 1 team in the country and hey are called the BCS national champion.  

This is nothing new for the last 50 to 60 years of Div. 1 college football. I agree it's disappointing, but it's interesting that we're suddenly sick of this.

I don't consider Alabama is the best college football team of 2011-2012.   In the same way that I don't consider the 1983-1984 Miami Hurricanes to be the best  football team in the nation that year either.  If Nebraska had won that game, they'd be 13-0 and finished No.1 and I still don't believe that 1983 Nebraska team was the best team on the field that year.

Actually it may have actually been Auburn (11-1) that played a much tougher schedule than Miami or Nebraska. Auburn's only loss was to Texas at home by 13 pts.  But the Tigers beat #5 Florida, #7 Maryland, at #4 Georgia, at #19 Alabama, and vs #8 Michigan in the Sugar Bowl in succession.

It's too flimsy man.

Only with a playoff gauntlet with neutral sites can we say that teams have a more or less equal opportunity to obtain an undisputed championship.  But nobody wants to do this.  We have to watch these rinky-dinky-nobody-cares bowl games.

I'm starting to think that all we want is a  national champion, because "undisputed" seems impossible.

While that could be a concern, the amount of money to be made is going to far outweigh whether there will be some empty seats in the semi-finals. 

Heck, a lot of people might try to go to the semi's because they know if their team makes the Championship game tickets will be really hard to get.  If the Championship game is at an 80,000 seat stadium, each school is probably only going to get 20-30,000 tickets. 

fwiw some interesting comments here from the ncaa convention. like the "ncaa-run playoff with money going to cover cost of living for all student athletes." angle. wouldn't that be nice

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/16830030/reforms-are-coming-for-college-football-and-bcs-might-not-be-immune

I hate the SEC more than ever now.

But why isn't the playoffs just the conference champions plus a few at-larges.

Big 12

B1G

PAC 12

SEC

ACC

Big East

At large 1

At large 2

That's eight teams - all conference champs plus two for the ND/BYUs/Boise States and/or Conference #2 at larges.

Boom!  What am I missing?