While I certainly accept Florida as the top college football team in the nation, I believe we need some sort of bowl-playoff hybrid. This is a big step for me -- I've been one of the longest holdouts for the bowl system (though I think the BCS should be reworked). I like that the college football season is like no other sport: With no playoffs, the season is the playoffs. As such, each game is of utmost importance.
Contrast that with college hoops, which I love with the drama of March Madness. But who really cares about any preconference game? So what if UNC beats Michigan State...it has no bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the championship. And even the conference play has less at stake. If you go .500 in the ACC, you're in the Big Dance.
I have to admit, that some modification is needed for a true college football champion. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of Pete Carroll's annual whining. If the Pac-10 were any good -- and if it had a championship game -- his tears would have more impact. So just to shut him up (and because we need something different) let's try something new.
For starters, one has to be realistic about what is possible. The bowl games are extremely lucrative for the sponsors, the schools, and the conferences. Thus, they have to stay. Because I'm sick of stretching the bowls out past New Year's Day, let's put them back to that traditional date and use them. We'll have the top four winners of the bowls -- a Final Four, if you will -- play at the end of the bowl season. This year, we'd have Florida, USC, Texas and Utah in the Final Four. Match them up, and let them play the week after New Year's to get to a Championship Two. Then the next week, they play for the title. If we did it that way, we would add only 2 more games for two teams, and they could finish before the Spring semester starts. The bowls remain lucrative and we get an undisputed national champion.
If we don't, I suggest Pete Carroll go coach at Northwest Missouri so he can have the opportunity to win a playoff for a national championship. If we do, it makes me wonder what sports talk radio would scream about?
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The only modification to your suggestion that I would offer is to suggest that the top eight teams play in a playoff. That could permit the BCS to select the eight finalists, who would then play their way in to a Final Four.
You could, but is there any need (no real argument about 5-8 deserving a shot this year) and does it solve maintaining the bowls as they are (which is the main sticking point)?
My argument is to not change the bowl system, but use them to get the Final Four. The bowl system weeds out media hype on who the really tough conferences are. We heard all year about the Big 12 South, but they fizzled in the bowls, winning only one with less than a minute to play. We'd never know that a mid-level SEC team (Ole Miss) would thump one of those believed to be a Top 8 team (TTech).
One of the big problems with a playoff is logistics and fan travel. It can get quite expensive for spur-of-the-moment travel, and can be very difficult to find hotel rooms. With a Final Four playoff, only four schools are affected, making it much easier. And everyone keeps making their money.
You make good points.
Why couldn't we use the existing bowls as playoff sites?
Using only the top four teams still leaves too much room for arguments.
And, it seems to me, one of the primary reasons for a playoff would be to eliminate as much of that as possible.
In the NFL, no matter who wins next weekend's conference championship games, there will still be mid-level teams (the NFL equivalents of Ole Miss) that beat the teams that make it to the Super Bowl -- especially in the NFC, where the two surviving teams both finished below .600.
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