From the
Upper Deck
It's Time For
A Playoff
By Jim Steele
steele@mckenziebanner.com |
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I used to be an advocate of the college football bowl
system.
Generally falling in that "traditionalist" category, I
harbored strong affection for the good ol' days, the
days when Michigan and Ohio State would play Southern
Cal or UCLA in the Rose Bowl; when Texas and Notre Dame
would hook up in the Cotton Bowl; When the Sugar Bowl
was host to many a northern power's dismantling by a
southern team; when Oklahoma or Nebraska ruled the
Orange Bowl; when it was a big deal that the Fiesta Bowl
invited someone besides Arizona State; back when Barry
Bonds was skinny; back when MTV actually poisoned us
with music instead of this anti-social crap they pass
off today.
But it was a horrifically imperfect system. No. 1
Southern Cal might play No. 4 Ohio State in Pasadena
while No. 2 Alabama took on Penn State in Miami or New
Orleans. There were conference tie-ins back then (the
Cotton took the Southwest champ, the Orange took the Big
8/12 champ, the Sugar took the SEC champ and the Rose
was all locked up between the Big 10 and the Pacific 10)
and often those champs didn't often meet another team as
highly ranked. There were exceptions: the 1970 Orange
Bowl pitted No. 1 Nebraska vs. No. 2 Alabama and the
1978 Cotton Bowl hosted No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Notre
Dame, to name a few.
In 1984, Brigham Young of the Western Athletic
Conference was tied in with the Holiday in San Diego.
That year BYU was the only unbeaten team in the country
and ranked No. 1. It played and barely edged unranked
Michigan, who entered the game at 6-5, to win the
national title. The post-season landscape started to
change. It exploded in 1986 when the totally-independent
Fiesta Bowl pitted Miami and Penn State, the top two
teams in the nation, for the national championship. It
even moved the game to Jan. 4, 1987. Overnight, the
Fiesta established itself as one of the majors.
The wheels started to turn among the elitists of
college football. They developed the Bowl Alliance, a
precursor to the ever-suspect Bowl Championship Series.
It's time for a playoff folks. When a computer ranks
Miami of Ohio as the No. 4-ranked team in the nation,
then why are we listening to computers?
The BCS snubbed No. 1-ranked USC, a conference
champion, and opted to invite No. 2 LSU vs. No. 3
Oklahoma, a conference runner-up, in the Sugar Bowl.
If you like controversy, if you like raves, if you
like Somalia's form of government, if Afghanistan seems
like a fun vacation spot, then the BCS is for you.
Let's face facts: it's time for a playoff and it's an
embarrassment to the Division 1 college football world
that there isn't one.
How would one go about devising such a plan that
wouldn't wreck the bowls?
Forget about incorporating the bowl games into the
playoff system directly - except for the title game of
course. Even CBS college football guru Tim Brando likes
my idea. Brando was a broadcast instructor of mine and
remains a pal to this day...maybe he's being nice...or
possibly it's that I know where he lives.
Anyway...
Here's how it would work: There are between three and
six wasted weeks between the last regular-season or
conference title game and the bowls. In some cases,
teams waited 41 days between the end of their seasons
and their bowl game.
Use those weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years to
play a quarterfinal. The four first-round losers would
play in the two bowls that most recently held the
national championship (for example, this year's
quarterfinalists losers would play in the Rose and
Fiesta Bowls). Then your semifinal winners would play in
the BCS championship bowl game -which is the Sugar this
year - and the semifinal losers would play in the
Orange, next year's title game.
The remaining bowls (and let's face it, many of them
need weeding out) could be used like the NIT in
basketball - you didn't make the dance, so this is
consolation reward for having a good year. You preserve
the bowls, TV gets some attractive match-ups, not to
mention a huge windfall, and everyone makes out
financially.
And I have a vacation for two to Kabul. |
