Listening to head of the BCS is infuriating. In this 7-minute clip he evades all the questions about how the current system sucks and while he acknowledges that there might be more money in a playoff, he throws out 2 myths about a college football playoff.
Myth #1 Playoffs mean you have to get rid of the bowl system.
I don't understand this one at all. The current bowl system has 34 bowls, but 5 of those games are special BCS bowls. Fine.
Why couldn't the new system keep all the 34 bowls, keep the 4 BCS bowls as the first round of the playoffs, and then create two new semifinals and a new playoff championship.
Myth #2 Playoffs negatively affect the regular season.
This one seems sounder on its face. But I don't buy it.
Let's look at the games in the regular season where having just a 1 vs 2 "championship" helped: Florida vs Alabama. Yes this game had a lot of buildup, as you know that the winner would be playing for a championship. (The game turned out to be a dud, but that's beside the point.)
What about in September when we had #3 USC playing #8 Ohio State. You could argue that this game was helped by the current system because getting a loss could shut you out from a national title...but wouldn't that game be just as important with a playoff? We're only talking about an 8-team playoff. To finish in the top 8 you've got to either finish with one loss or less, or win your conference. A loss by either team would put them on the brink of missing the playoffs. (OSU did lose that game, but won their conference and finished 8th).
But aren't there also cases where a playoff would increase the excitement in the regular season? Think about the Cinci/Pitt game last week. Not many people outside the region cared because we knew the championship was already decided: SEC vs Texas. But if I knew that Cinci was fighting for a playoff spot...and if they didn't win, that their spot would go to a team like Georgia Tech...now you've got me interested. That's drama.
And what about the TCU, Boise State seasons...each of their games would have increased drama if we knew they, as undefeated teams, were playing for a playoff spot and one loss would lock them out. I think it would only add to the excitement of winning your conference and trying to make sure you get into the top 8.
Think about the NFL. Their regular season captivates the nation week in, week out. The playoff race is probably the best part of the season, and one of the things that fans love, is that for a good chunk of the season, they think their team could go to the playoffs. Which right now is simply not the reality in college football. Even when Illinois won the Big Ten in 2001 with only one loss, we never had a national championship hopes. But every game would have been a hell of a lot more exciting if we thought that we were fighting for one of only 8 playoff spots.
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And to put it another way, right now there is a 2-team playoff in college football. For 120 or whatever teams. Baseball has 8, football as 12, and the NBA has 16. And those leagues all have about 30 teams. College hoops has 64, which corresponds to the number of college teams.
Now I think that NBA has too many, football gets it just right, and there's nothing wrong with being strict in baseball. But baseball the strictest league there is, still puts 26.7% of teams into the playoffs. College football puts in 1.7%. An 8-team playoff would mean 6.7%. Don't tell me that the regular season will be negatively affected by such an increase.
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