Dare we dream? A college football playoff might be at hand
The BCS title game: When SEC domination became full-blown overkill. (AP photo)
I’d long since given up on the prospects of a college football playoff. The bowls were too powerful, I told myself. (Note that the word “bowl” comes before “championship” in “BCS.”) For all the hue and cry from the chattering class and the huddled masses, I figured nothing would ever get done.
Now I’m thinking something might.
Might, I said. Might.
I’m thinking the sight of two SEC teams playing for the BCS title was enough to push the leagues that didn’t want any part of a playoff into the we-need-to-reassess camp. I’m thinking that the Pac-12 and the Big Ten, the two leagues who persisted in seeing the Rose Bowl as the only postseason game that mattered, are getting antsy over being marginalized.
(The joke among college football writers has long been that this is the only sport held hostage by a parade. Meaning the Tournament of Roses thingy.)
Back in 2008, SEC commissioner Mike Slive, of all people, proposed a four-team playoff. ACC commissioner John Swofford seconded the motion. The other BCS league commissioners — of the (then) Pac-10, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the Big East — all resisted. So did Notre Dame, that entity unto itself.
OK, that was then. This week Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany told reporters in New Orleans: “Four years ago, five of us didn’t want to have the conversation. Now we all want to have the conversation.”
It’s not just that the SEC has come to hog the BCS title game to the extent that nobody else even got to play in the latest installment. It’s that the BCS has skewed the whole postseason. Attendance was down 2.1 percent through the first 31 (of 35) bowls this season, and anyone who was in Raymond James Stadium for Georgia’s loss to Michigan State in the Outback Bowl could tell something was off.
These were ranked teams that had won divisions in BCS conferences, and attendance was announced as 49,429, which would have ranked as the second-smallest gathering in the 17 years that Outback Steakhouse has sponsored the game. According to the Tampa Bay Times, however, actual attendance was 40,022 — the sort of gate that Georgia fans would mock if it occurred, say, in a regular-season game at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Of those 35 bowls, 33 were carried by ESPN/ABC. The good news is that ESPN/ABC pays big for the rights. The bad news is that much of the bowl season has become a couch-and-big-screen sport. No fans are more rabid than those of big-time college football teams, but those fans have surely begun to ask: Why pay $1,000 to travel to a game that doesn’t even bear the BCS imprint?
Think of it this way: The NCAA basketball tournament includes 68 teams; imagine if 66 of those were summarily demoted to the NIT while the top two seeds got to advance directly to the title game. That’d be a form of madness, all right — just not the March variety.
The BCS “system” claims to enfranchise 10 of the 70 bowl teams, but only two of those 10 get to play a game that really matters. And now, with its latest championship game, the BCS pared the list of “haves” in college football to one: The SEC rules, and everyone else is left to drool.
Great for the SEC, but bad for overall business. While we here in the Deep South paid rapt attention to the doings Monday night in the Superdome, much of the rest of the nation looked elsewhere. Alabama-LSU drew the third-smallest rating of the 14 BCS title games. Apparently not everyone in the world delights in field goals.
(As the web site Awful Announcing notes, ratings for the five BCS games were down 13 percent from last season. And Clemson’s epic loss to West Virginia in the Orange Bowl was the lowest-rated BCS game ever.)
Headed into the 2011 season, it was hard to imagine the SEC consolidating gains. Given that it had won the previous five BCS titles, how could it get any bigger? Well, it did. It didn’t just produce the national champ this time; it also generated the runner-up.
There comes a point, however, when absolute power becomes obscene overkill. Big-time college football could have reached that point. The SEC already has one championship game. (For which, not incidentally, the eventual BCS champ did not qualify.) It doesn’t need another. If the Big Ten, long the most intransigent of the playoff holdouts, is willing to change, then change might indeed be at hand.
Might, I said. Might.
By Mark Bradley
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
214 comments Add your comment
Herb Street
January 11th, 2012
5:13 pm
I’m all for blowing up the entire college football industry. Let the guys at ESPN (who truly represent all fans) dictate how much money schools and networks make off the labor of the student-athletes. Also, ESPN (the fans’ representative) should be the outfit that determines how long the season is and how much time and effort the student-athletes have to exert.
Mike
January 11th, 2012
5:13 pm
What these rating show is that the general public cares about the matchups. They dont care about Big East vs ACC. They dont care about rematches. They dont care about storied programs barely ranked in the top 15. They want to see the best go against the best.
Personally, I dont think a plus one will solve much. The politics will be centered around spots 3 and 4 instead of 1 and 2. Take this year as an example. Should Stanford be in at #4 without a conference title too? Is it Oregon’s fault they opened with LSU while Stanford played cupcakes?
They need a playoff that removes the politics. The only way to do that is 8 teams using the current BCS rules (6 automatic qualifier conference champs and two at large teams with the mid major and Notre Dame rules intact). No its not perfect, but if you win your conference, your in. This year, Bama and Stanford would be the at large bids since Boise St. did not win the MWC. Here are your matchups:
LSU vs WVU
Bama vs Clemson
OSU vs Wisconsin
Oregon vs Stanford
Yes there are two rematches, but that will happen in playoffs…always has. If Boise had won their conference, they would be in against Oregon instead of Stanford. No politics, just either win your conference or have a good enough season to be in the at large running.
bamaguy
January 11th, 2012
5:14 pm
In addition to some kind of playoff, I would like to see cities bid for the College National Championship game like they do for the Super Bowl. Why couldn’t Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando or Houston host?
Mike
January 11th, 2012
5:15 pm
Forgot to add, I seeded the playoffs by BCS ranking.
Mike
January 11th, 2012
5:18 pm
I would argue that my 8 team playoff shouldnt be seeded by BCS rankings, but you have to give the top seeds some credit for being such. Seeding Bama and Stanford as 7 and 8 would mean LSU and OSU would be playing the toughest first round games which is not a reward for being top 2 conference winners.
ga gator
January 11th, 2012
5:21 pm
Good article Mark, 8 game playoff would require 7 bowl games and 3 extra games for the final 2. Whatever 7 bowls selected to be part of the playoff would certainly be more important than they are now. Use a selection committee of former AD’s or other experts similar to what they do now for NCAA Basketball and then we would not have to listen to coaches polls where you have coaches who vote who don’t have time to watch games but still influence the BSC formula.
ga gator
January 11th, 2012
5:21 pm
Sorry, I meant 8 team playoff.
DP
January 11th, 2012
5:25 pm
To the Dawgs who want an 8 team playoff, the 6 major conference champions plus 2 at large teams that can’t be from the 6 major conferences, imagine this scenario:
Georgia goes 12-0 in the regular season, crushing everybody on its schedule including South Carolina which doesn’t lose another game and ends the regular season ranked #2 in the country. Georgia is ranked #1 in the country from mid September until the SEC championship game.
Georgia Tech loses to Furman out of conference, but rebounds to win its ACC division at 6-2. Georgia beats them 35-0 in the last game of the regular season.
There is a 3 way tie in the West at 5-3 in the conference and LSU, 5-3 and 8-4 overall record with a 3 touchdown loss to West Virginia out of conference, wins the tiebreaker for the West.
LSU beats Georgia 17-14 in the SEC championship game with a Hail Mary pass on the last play of regulation to tie the game and a field goal in OT to win it.
Georgia Tech wins the ACC championship game 14-13 over Maryland and has a 9-4 overall record.
So Georgia Tech and LSU, 9-4 each and conference champions, are in the 8 team playoff for the championship and 12-1 Georgia is out. 11-1 South Carolina is out.
I’m sure all of you would be fine with it.
Paul in NH
January 11th, 2012
5:30 pm
The BCS will likely go to a +1 but that is NOT about trying to find a true champion – it is about protecting the big bowls and the remuneration for the organizers that go with them.
There needs to be a playoff but it will have to be pushed by all of the big 6 conferences for it to happen.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
5:34 pm
To the Dawgs who want an 8 team playoff, the 6 major conference champions plus 2 at large teams that can’t be from the 6 major conferences, imagine this scenario
Nobody said that the 2 at large teams can’t come from the major conferences.
Rico
January 11th, 2012
5:41 pm
“While we here in the Deep South paid rapt attention to the doings Monday night in the Superdome, much of the rest of the nation looked elsewhere.”
Wrong – I live in the Deep South and didn’t watch a single snap. I fell asleep the first time those two teams played. Why would I want to try watching them again?
South Carolina DAWGS
January 11th, 2012
5:45 pm
I will have to SEE IT to BELIEVE it – I like it just the way it is personally – One Dance and both the girls are DIXIE BELLS!!!!!!!!!
Sting_em
January 11th, 2012
5:45 pm
Go to 16 team playoff. At large teams no more than two a conference and have to be in different brackets.
South Carolina DAWGS
January 11th, 2012
5:45 pm
Enter your comments here
Alphare
January 11th, 2012
5:50 pm
LADawg,
“I used to think the BCS was a mythical championship. Now, I’m sure the SEC is a mythical championship”.
Actually BCS Champ holds more water than SEC Champ.
While BCS tries its best to pick 2 best teams, SEC doesn’t care about its 2nd best team at all. Actually this year SEC pits #1 SEC team LSU against #5 SEC team UGA.
If SEC picks 2 best teams, it would be LSU vs BAMA instead of LSU vs UGA in the SEC CG, which would make this year’s BCSCG less contraversial.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
5:53 pm
Mark,
There is no doubt the plus one is happening. The others( Big 12, Big 10, Big East, PAC 14) all realize they have one shot at this ( to stop the SEC from dominating without due process) for the next 6 years. The problem they all see is the money generated by the SEC and this year the money will be at it greatest all time.
Money and Embarrassment has formed this one plus scenario.
DP
January 11th, 2012
5:54 pm
GTTroll, “Beast from the East”, who I believe is a Florida fan, thinks only conference champions should be in the playoff and I’ve read numerous Dawg fans on various AJC blogs who have taken the same position lately, though they believed differently in 2007.
crazy
January 11th, 2012
5:56 pm
Its about time..
Nativebird
January 11th, 2012
5:59 pm
If the championship game is between two same-conference teams again, or if the winner is an SEC team again…it WILL change. Count on it.
Michigan football looking forward to taking on national champion Alabama – Detroit Free Press | Global Sports Insiders
January 11th, 2012
6:00 pm
[...] pegged …2013 College Football BCS National Championship Odds and PredictionsBleacher ReportDare we dream? A college football playoff might be at handAtlanta Journal Constitution (blog)College Football Nation: SEC-reign-120111ESPN (blog)South Bend [...]
Alphare
January 11th, 2012
6:00 pm
On another thought:
1. If SEC picks highest ranked East team vs highest ranked West team, it’d be LSU vs SC.
2. If SEC picks teams with best records in its own division, it’d be LSU(5-0) vs SC(5-0) as well.
3. If SEC picks 2 best ranked team in the conference, it’d be LSU vs BAMA.
Instead, SEC uses a weird formula, as a result, 5th best SEC team UGA got into this year’s SEC CG.
DP
January 11th, 2012
6:02 pm
Good points Alphare. It’s amusing to see Dawg fans who pretend like they finished 2nd in the SEC because they didn’t play the best 3 teams in the conference during the regular season.
Alphare
January 11th, 2012
6:05 pm
4. If SEC uses overall record plus tie-breaker, it’d be LSU vs SC as well.
Sam Robards, Dawg Fan
January 11th, 2012
6:06 pm
I think you can use the current poll/bowl structure to facilitate an 8-team playoff.
Let’s face it: we both love and hate the polls, so you take the top 8 teams from the final BCS poll and put them into a playoff.
The first round would take place in the 4 current BCS bowls (Sugar, Fiesta, Orange and Rose), then have your semi-finals and championship at those same stadiums (rotating the semis and championship location annually).
I don’t think it should be limited to conference champions because there are some really good teams that, while they didn’t win their conferences (Bama this year, UGA in ‘07 for starters), still deserve a shot at the title.
What’s so wrong with that system? Heck, the big bowls would love it because they (potentially) get twice as much revenue than a standard year.
And the field of teams is so small that it would require an extremely good season to get into the top 8, hence maintaining the regular season.
Too bad it won’t happen. Oh well.
Go Dawgs!
Keep it how it is
January 11th, 2012
6:07 pm
Playoff will just draw out more crybabies en masse
DP
January 11th, 2012
6:08 pm
Alphare, I hadn’t thought of it this way previously, but in the regular season Georgia didn’t play the 3 best teams in the SEC, lost to the 4th best team and beat SEC teams from 6-12 in a year when the SEC was as top heavy and as weak on the bottom as it has ever been.
xroyalx
January 11th, 2012
6:12 pm
so much for bowl week 830pm. should play 4 the sat b4 new years day and 4 On new years day. i never have understood why college football waits a month after the last game to play its championship
OopsSee
January 11th, 2012
6:21 pm
Clemson should be thankful that the Orange Bowl was the lowest-rated BCS game ever!
Tony in Johns Creek
January 11th, 2012
6:27 pm
Now the commissioners are on board huh? what about the education they’ll miss and the extra games that aren’t good for them? blah blah blah… they are losing MONEY now.. because they’ve heard the collective yawn that is now spreading through the country that this “system” or whatever it is they call it (different every year with the criteria it seems) is a joke. Bowl games are meaningless exhibitions. The SEC championship game is really what my season comes to. They know how much a playoff would bring in terms of ratings over these silly bowl games… take the conference champions, ask the players what their opinions are re: a playoff. They deserve a voice in this. Not just the suits and the big wig millionaire coaches. The coaches shouldn’t be allowed to vote. That’s absurd, ignorant and borderline criminal.
Dare we hope? A college football playoff might be at hand | Mark … | Antalya Football Travel Blog
January 11th, 2012
6:29 pm
[...] Link: Dare we hope? A college football playoff might be at hand | Mark … [...]
Crimson Crush
January 11th, 2012
6:40 pm
Sam Robards, Dawg Fan
January 11th, 2012
6:06 pm
________________________________________________________________________
Bingo ! .. play out the top 8 ranked regular season … FORGET the “conference champ auto qualify” routine … that is simply a ruse to allow weaker conferences a chance to water down the field with scrubs hoping one year they can hit a 2 game hot streak . ( Hell the Pac 12 could have easily been sending a “champion” into a that style playoff this year that lost six frigging gamesin the regular season )
Most people screaming for a playoff don’t really want to see the strongest teams in college football play it out … they want THEIR team to have a shot to get in … even if the standards and regular season both have to be weakened to do it .
If an expanded playoff was to be , what you wrote is what I have been espousing for a while now verbatim .
Saban Never Sleeps
January 11th, 2012
6:47 pm
A few comments
1. Sorry some of the other nation decided not to watch..NOW, YOU WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT REAL WINNERS LOOK LIKE and the SEC is not going to come down to your level, you must rise to ours.
2. Not all conferences are equal so a playoff must consider rankings and not conference champions. The Big 12 no longer even have a conference championship.
– The larger conferences and invest more, created more branding and have more fans. Why should they be penalized. If the MWC gets 1 team then the SEC gets 4 into a playoff.
3. The Big 10 and PAC 12 need to cut the ties to the Rose Bowl and open it to all. What a bunch of crap. The southern team were cut out and now they are crying like little whiners. To add to that now they are starting to schedule regular season games against each other. Kind of like how when a loser gets his a(!) kicked all the time he crys and will not play anymore. Sorry, uga but you cqan now see how much you embarassed the conference with that lackluster display.
4. AND THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT
ROLL TIDE ROLL, 2011 NATIONAL CHAMPS. Held a team to 92 total yards and 5 1st downs. DOMINATING. You can run but you cant hide.
GssiT
January 11th, 2012
6:56 pm
When a team that neither wins its division nor its conference plays in the big game, that tells me that big money is making all the decisions. After all, “it is all about the money” to quote an ACC athletic director.
David
January 11th, 2012
7:11 pm
This just in! The LSU football team is stuck in New Orleans and has been unable to leave. Seems some unruly Bama fans painted a 50 yard line in front of their bus…………..
Sharkman
January 11th, 2012
7:12 pm
It’s about darn time!
Born2Buzz
January 11th, 2012
7:21 pm
There was an Orange Bowl this year? I missed it. Was there a Sugar Bowl or Cotton Bowl? Missed them too? If they aren’t going to play the bowl games on New Years Day then they can just get rid of them.
8 team playoff, now!
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
7:21 pm
I can guarantee you that winning the conference championship will have nothing to do with getting into the plus one or playoff position.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
7:22 pm
The automatic qualifying option will be gone, and the SEC will be able to get more than 2 teams into BCS bowl games.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
7:34 pm
I can guarantee you that winning the conference championship will have nothing to do with getting into the plus one or playoff position.
How exactly can you guarantee that? Even if you are Mike Slive you can’t guarantee that. If they created a playoff where most of the teams are SEC teams then College Football as a business will tank even more.
Big Crimson 75
January 11th, 2012
7:47 pm
Bring it on.
4 teams, 8 teams, whatever.
As long as they pick the best teams, no matter what conf. Do it
It’s only gonna prove the superiority of the SEC
whats a three point shot worth ?
January 11th, 2012
7:50 pm
most all of America watched something other than the champ bcs bowl…..this means the sec is only important to trailer dwellers in the south
DP
January 11th, 2012
7:56 pm
I remember 1974 when North Carolina, NC State (with David Thompson) and Maryland (with Tom McMillen, Len Elmore and John Lucas) were 3 of the 4 or 5 best teams in the country all playing in the ACC. Only the conference tournament champion got in the 16 team NCAA field, but the champions of the Ivy League and various other conferences got automatic bids. Maryland lost the ACC championship game to NC State in OT 103-100 and didn’t get into the NCAA tournament. Here’s a video on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nJpPGBa-Ic
If college football goes to a plus one or 6 or 8 team playoff, it should be the highest ranked teams even if that means multiple teams from a conference, or if taking a team that didn’t win its conference championship over one that did (like Stanford over UCLA this season had 6 loss UCLA upset Oregon in the Pac 12 championship game).
Tech Engineer
January 11th, 2012
8:00 pm
They should eliminate the BCS and let the bowls compete for teams. The AP and coaches polls would then vote for the national champion. They would do a better job than the BCS, and it would provide much more interest. Realignment would go away, since conference affliation would not matter.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
8:01 pm
If college football goes to a plus one or 6 or 8 team playoff, it should be the highest ranked teams even if that means multiple teams from a conference
Yes, we all can’t wait for this tournament setup:
1. LSU vs 8. Georgia
2. Bama vs 7. South Carolina
3. Arkansas vs. 6. Auburn
4. Florida vs 5. Oklahoma
That would be really exciting.
JAC
January 11th, 2012
8:03 pm
Playoff could start next year, it’s simple. Just have the 4 highest ranked Conference Champions play each other in a New Years day bowl. The next week have the 2 winners play for championship. This keeps the regular season and conference championship games meaninful, and keeps the fun of the BCS rankings intact.
Gman84
January 11th, 2012
8:07 pm
Just never got around to watching Clemson-WVU. Guess I missed a lot of….just doesn’t matter.
Playing the BIG game on a random Monday in January was just a stupid as making the Orange Bowl must see Wednesday night TV or whenever it was played.
I enjoyed Baylor Washington and 58 minutes of UGA-MSU. Other than that, I don’t recall a single play from any other game. If your team isn’t playing it’s increasingly hard to GAS.
Roy Drinkard
January 11th, 2012
8:22 pm
One additional point to your point about traveling to a bowl game is why invest money and time to go sit in the end zone to watch a game when you can watch it in HD on the 50 yard line. The seats the schools recieve for the most part are awful seats.
1/11/2012 Evening Edition | collegefootballnewswire.com
January 11th, 2012
8:23 pm
[...] Deserves A Good Look MONSON: University Of Utah Should Drop The ‘Utes’ Nickname BRADLEY: Dare We Dream? A College Football Playoff Might Be At Hand MARSHALL: Auburn’s VanGorder A Throwback KING: Bowl Games And Those Who Watch MANDEL: [...]
Orange11
January 11th, 2012
8:33 pm
When do student athletes stop being students? When a playoff system is put in place.
DP
January 11th, 2012
8:42 pm
GTTroll, shouldn’t you be getting ready to watch Tech at NC State in basketball on TV tonight? I know you guys weren’t much in football, but this is basketball and Tech is……
Never mind, I just remember that I watched Alabama slaughter them at Tech’s home away from the home the other night and Tech’s basketball team is even worse than its football team.