Currently I stand somewhere in the middle. I love college football the way it is. Is it imperfect? Yes of course it is. Is the regular season the most fun three months in sports? By far. What makes the regular season that way? The BCS.
A mentor to me at the Daily Camera Neill Woelk spells out his argument against a playoff and has some pretty good points to back it up using this year's teams as examples. I listened to many discussions about the BCS when I was around college football just about every day while interning at the D.C. in Boulder. The one thing I learned from hearing these comments and discussions from people whose jobs were centered around college football: most people don't fully understand what a playoff would entail or even why they think it's such a good idea.
There are so many important questions to consider: how do you pick the teams who make the playoff? Do you lose conference title games? Do you keep the other bowls? The list of questions is virtually endless.
"It would be so entertaining...I would watch every single game. It would be just like the NCAA basketball tournament. Who wouldn't want to do this?!?" most casual fans say. This may be true but more goes into a playoff than what first meets the eye.
The most common argument is for an eight-team straight up playoff. Some things to think about if an eight-team system were put in place. The difference between the 6th-8th ranked teams who make the final bracket and the 9th-13th ranked teams who don't is basically nonexistent. How do you tell those 9th-12th place teams they don't get into the playoff? I know I would be pretty angry if CU was the 9th or 10th team, or if they missed out because of a loss in the Big 12 title game (if you chose to give automatic bids to the winners of the conference titles). Like Neill says, the more teams you let in, the more potential for controversy. Atleast with the current system there is usually only one team that has a legitimate complaint about not getting into the BCS National Title Game. That one team usually has one major reason they were left out of the title game which lessens the strength of the complaints and arguments. That team still makes boatloads of money and gets to play in a huge BCS bowl game.
If you decide to lose the conference title games to extend the "postseason" as could be needed in the case of a playoff, how do you decide who wins and who loses conferences? A playoff would be flawed from the beginning if spots were given without considering the champion in each confernce. These championship games need to be made the standard in every FBS conference, not done away. This is something the BCS and NCAA need to look at. The fact that conference title games are not uniform across the board (Pac 10 and Big 10) makes things confusing in the current system and would create even more confusion in a playoff system. If a team doesn't win its conference they should not be able to play for the National Championship. That is the way it should work, no questions asked.
For all it's proposed "flaws" the one thing you cannot knock the BCS for is the way it creates a regular season unlike anything else in sports. Compete in a BCS conference and win all of your games? You're basically guaranteed to play for the title. The one catch: that almost never happens. Lose one game and you're automatically thrown in a group of 'maybes' for the rest of the season. Compete in the Mountain West, WAC or Conference USA and go undefeated? You're not guaranteed a spot anywhere in BCS let alone the title game. The current BCS system does not allow for the 'mid-majors' of the world a shot. "Everyone should be allowed to play for a title!!"critics of the BCS complain. How is this unfair? . These mid-major teams don't deserve a shot at a title because they would never sniff any BCS game, let alone the Title Game if they had to compete in any BCS conference week in and week out (Utah). These cinderella stories don't happen like they do in March Madness. I feel it is enough to let these smaller schools play the big boys in a BCS game every year. Once in a while they'll pull off a huge upset and everyone will be happy (except the Oklahomas of the world). Coach Hawkins, the guy who put the king of these schools on with map (Boise St.), would agree. If he didn't why did he leave Boise for Boulder? He knows Boise can be a good team year in and year out, but they will NEVER have the resources, talent or exposure to compete with Texas, Oklahoma or even Nebraska on a yearly basis.
This problem is not going to be easily fixed. As a solution something along the lines of a plus-one system would probably work best and the most amount of fans while still keepeing athetic directors, school presidents and corporate sponsors happy.
How would the system work? Automatic bids for conferences would be lost, so the winners of the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange would be re-ranked by the BCS and the top two teams would play for everything roughly one week after the final game. Using this year's teams Florida and Oklahoma would have finished the regular season 1-2. Assuming USC would have won the Pac-10 championship game (which would be made standard) they would probably have finished 3. Texas would be at 4, Utah, Alabama and two other schools would have rounded out the final eight. The bowls would choose schools the same way they do now, but there would be one fewer game with a guaranteed spot (BCS title game would be undetermined). So say Oklahoma barely squeaks by Alabama in the Fiesta Bowl. USC dominates Penn St in the Rose. Florida beats Texas in the Sugar and Utah takes down either Ohio St, VT or Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl. After the final game the BCS computer, voter and coach rankings come out again. It might look something like this: #1 Florida, #2 USC, #3 Oklahoma, #4 Utah and on down the line. So you would end up with Florida and SC playing for all the marbles the next week. Don't get me wrong I don't think this system would solve every single situation. Wouldn't OU still have the right to be #1? Yes and no. This system would only work if a few things happened. You would have to place much more emphasis in the computer and in the voting criteria on winning the bowl game, points for, points aganist and overall quality of opponent for these BCS games than you would a regular season game. You could also heavily factor in how each team's fellow conference members did in their bowl games. As Coach Hawk once put it when explaining a plus-one system: "you would say to yourself after the bowls 'these two teams probably deserve it' and would then play for it all". I think that would prove true in my hypothetical bowl season here.
As far as I see it you can't do away with the bowls or the timing of the entire operation. Both of which would change in a playoff system. Like any potential change to the current system my suggestion could solve some of the scenarios but it could invite more controversy. In the end I think people need to enjoy the excitement that college football creates and think a little bit before they just blurt out "we need a playoff".
My bowl picks for the 2008-09 season:
The picks are in no particular order, high and low confidence in the picks is noted.
Winner Loser
Texas Tech vs Ole Miss
Louisiana Tech vs Northern Illinois
Boston College vs Vanderbilt
Troy vs Southern Miss -- Troy gave LSU a battle on the road during the reg. season.
Missouri vs Northwestern – My lock of the 2008-09 bowl season.
UCONN vs Bufffalo
USC vs Penn St – It would be a cool way to end Joe Pa's career...upset USC in the Rose Bowl, then gimp into the locker room and throw in the towel. Don't think it will happen here because USC will dominate on defense and score enough points to win in a low-scoring affair.
Rice vs Western Michigan
Oklahoma St vs Oregon – The Holiday Bowl is always a good matchup. I don't know that this game will be the shootout most people predict. Ok St. will hopefully show the Big 12's depth in this game.
TCU vs Boise St. – Low confidence on this game. Minus the Mormon schools (Utah and BYU) this is the game that doesn't have a school from a BCS conference. I went with TCU because they played stronger competition during the regular season.
E. Carolina vs Kentucky –I made the mistake of not going with ECU last bowl season.
Ball St. vs Tulsa –Low confidence on this one too. I didn't see Tulsa play but have heard good things. I did see Ball St. play and they are not bad. They'll win this one thanks to the motivation of blowing their conference title.
Air Force vs Houston
Miami (Fl) vs California
Georgia Tech vs LSU
Nebraska vs Clemson
Florida St.vs Wisconsin – High confidence in this one. The Big 10 was bad this year and Florida St. is a solid football team.
Oregon St. vs Pittsburgh – Jaquizz Rogers is the best frosh in the Pac-10 and Oregon St will have a strong showing after barely missing out on the Rose Bowl.
Kansas vs Minnesota – Fairly low confidence in this one. Have not seen Minnesota play, KU is pretty good. Just something about this game says "upset" to me.
Arizona vs BYU – An upset special here. Arizona is better than people think
Notre Dame vs Hawaii – I just don't think the Irish will lose this game, Charlie Weiss gets a win to make the Irish 7-6.
Wake Forest vs Navy
Maryland vs Nevada
Fresno St. vs Colorado St.
Virginia Tech vs Cincinnati –Low confidence in the Orange Bowl pick. Cincy is well-coached and may pull off the upset. I think VT's defense will be too fast.
WVU vs UNC – Low confidence in this game. I think WVU will get a win over a good UNC team to end a disappointing season for the Mountaineers.
NC State vs Rutgers
Iowa vs S. Carolina
Central Michigan vs Florida Atlantic
Georgia vs Michigan St. – High confidence in this game. Georgia looks to make up for a disappointing season with a blow-out win.
South Florida vs Memphis – High confidence in this pick.
Alabama vs Utah – Bama wins this game easily if they are focused and know Utah has the ability to beat them. If not Utah could pull of the shocker of the Bowl Season.
Oklahoma vs Florida – I will be behind the Sooners in this game in because I will always support the Big 12 in a National Title situation. I also don’t want to see the Gators win another title, their 2nd in 3 years. The Big 12 has gone 1-2 (OU 0-2) in the last two hugely hyped Natl’ Title games. OU was blown out by USC in 2005 and Texas took down the Trojans in the best football game I’ve ever seen in '06. The game this year has the makings of what could be a classic game.
If I had to bet, my bet would be on the Gators to win straight up. I think their speed, coaching and Tim Tebow’s ability to control the tempo of the game will prove to be the deciding factor. I have worries about OU missing it's best and most versitale athlete in DeMarco Murray. I'm also concerned about the 2005 blowout suffered by the Sooners as well as OU’s upset loss to W. Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl earlier in 2008. Is Stoops really a great at prepping a team for bowls, or were these two games just a fluke? We'll find out for sure on Jan. 8 2009.
The game may be a shootout like everyone hopes, but it also could be a game in the 20s where special teams, blocking and tackling and turnovers win the game. Personally I would prefer to see game that is lower scoring, and played at an incredibly high level. If it is a shootout, Oklahoma wins. But if it is more or a low-scoring game Florida will win a game with a score of someing like 31-23 or 30-17.
One final tangent for me...Notice one thing about the bowl teams from the state of Colorado. Air Force got into a bowl thanks to a strong season and Colorado St even finds themselves bowling this holiday season. No Buffaloes from Boulder included in the bowl party.
The 2008 campaign for CU started out incredibly promising. 3-0 with a win over W. Virginia (A win that proves now to be as big now as it was when it happened). At that point 7-5 or atleast 6-6 seemed easily possible. An incredibly tough schedule, bad luck with injuries and a team that was younger and much more inexperienced than most people realized created what I believe was the 'perfect storm' to end the season.
Most critics of the program put the blame solely on the coaches. They cite lack of improvement in players, play calling, and the inexplicable up-and-down ride in performance from week to week. I will be honest and say all of these criticisms are valid from a fan's perspective. But if you look at it from an outsider's perspective I think the story is a little more clear. I'm still very confident in the program coach Hawkins runs and the players he has brought in to this point. It just may take a little bit longer to accomplish the things he and CU fans know are possible. But if you really think about it, even my personal expectation that the Buffs can compete for a Big 12 North title next season seems a little rushed (although the Big 12 in incredibly wide open with the Mizzou losing lots of key players). Coach Hawkins is building the program player by player, workout by workout. This takes time. A solid (and not necessarily highly ranked) recruiting class this winter will hopefully add depth at a few key positions (D-Line, DB and WR) and hopefully a solid option at quarterback in Clark Evans.
A few things to point out with this all being said:
--The players that came to CU with coach Hawk in 2005-06 will be seniors next season. (This was, and is in almost every situation, a make-shift recruiting class due to the changes and transers). But this also means that all but a few players in the program will be Hawk recruits. Players (seniors or not) like Ryan Miller, Josh Smith, Scotty McKnight and, starting QB or not, Cody Hawkins will be the leaders of the program.
-- I'm a little concerned about the recent behavior and grades of a number of CU players under coach Hawk. I was honestly surprised to see the number of incidents during last offseason. I know Hawk treats these things very seriously, and will straighten them out for the future. Needless to say CU fans will keep a close watch on this sort of thing during the offseason. We simply cannot afford to lose kids that can contribute because they can't keep grades up or because they are arrested for a bad decision. I know these things happen to all programs, but these sort of things fall on deaf ears for those with eyes directed at Boulder.
-- Before the season I thought losing some of those key players for any number of reasons would prove to help the Buffs depth in the future. This will only be true if we can get the kids in question healthy, eligible and out of trouble in 2009 and beyond.
-- I would not want to be a CU player participating in offseason-workouts this winter. I heard they were brutal in 2006, but helped to spur the Buffs in the right direction in 2007. The fact that CU missed a bowl this year will hopefully prove to be a blessing in disguise for 2009.
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