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
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214 comments Add your comment
Reality
January 11th, 2012
8:47 pm
We can dream…..
Dreamer
January 11th, 2012
9:10 pm
If College FB had a playoff, I would cry tears of joy…so would Boise St
Auburn Jacket
January 11th, 2012
9:15 pm
Take the 6 automatic qualifier conference champions and 2 at-large bids into an 8 team for a 3 game playoff. Quarters and semis are on campus the weeks following the conference championship games and the National Championship game can be rotated among the top bowls. The teams eliminated can still be slotted for New Year’s Day bowls.
gbal
January 11th, 2012
9:16 pm
gasit – NO – What it tells you is that all the voters and computers show that the other confrences are so weak and play such a weak schedule; that a stronger confrence has multiple teams that are stronger than these weaker confrences,
Are you suggestin that the ACC # 1 is deserving or good enough to get in the NC game over the SEC 2 or 3 just because they win their weaker confrence?
BS
gbal
January 11th, 2012
9:20 pm
JAC = BS This thought must come from a democrat. All shout have an equal chace regardless of the effort they put into being the best. This would deam confences useless.
gbal
January 11th, 2012
9:24 pm
GT – If those are the best 8 then it should be the 8 in the field. Other confrences better figure it out and get better. You dont feel the best 8 should make the field? Drop all confrences all together… Now should the best 8 make the playoff
ptdawg04
January 11th, 2012
9:42 pm
One possibility that is very intriguing is this. BCS may dump all bowl affiliations to go to plus one only model, bidding out the location like the super bowl. No more complaints to them about automatic vs. Non-automatic qualifiers or what also-ran gets snubbed from BCS conferences.
They may just let each bowl committee deal with those headaches.
In this scenario each bowl would likely accept only conference champs, therefore avoiding cheapening the regular season as in this year (I know it worked out this year with bama, but this year has opened Pandora’s box so to speak).
The big10 & PAC12 champs already play. The acc & big east champs already basically play. Leaving the sec & big12 to work something out with the sugar & fiesta bowls. The plus one would then choose after the bowl games & play 2 weeks later, just like the NFL. Any outside schools (ND & BYU) would have to find their way into one of the conferences to beef up their schedule strength.
If this were to happen, the regular season matters, conference championships matter, schedules matter, polls matter & bowls matter.
What do y’all think?
inmyhonestopinion
January 11th, 2012
9:57 pm
Another flaw in the current system…..
Because of the 5 – 6 week layoff between the regular season and the bowls – BCS championship, you really are crowning the champion on being the best team that can prepare during such a layoff. It’s not the best team at the end of the real season. It reflects the best team after sitting around for a month during the holiday season. To represent the true champion, the playoffs need to follow the regular season and be completed on New Years day.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
10:05 pm
GT – If those are the best 8 then it should be the 8 in the field. Other confrences better figure it out and get better.
Or they should cut a good TV deal with ESPN as soon as possible because they are the ones who really determine rankings. There is no real objective way to just rank the teams therefore every ranking is questionable and biased. Especially when coaches vote. The teams you think are the top eight may not actually be the top 8.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:28 pm
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.
Please stay on top of things, or learn to stay off these blogs. For weeks now you have been whining the crap out of a non-conference champion playing in the game. And then last Friday THREE(3) of the Big Boy Commissioners all stated that until every conference plays a “Championship game in EACH Conference” that the exclusion of non champions is not going to exclude teams. Mike Slive and your ACC commissioner both stated that the best two teams disregarding conference affliliation should be in the Final game and if that game resulted after the initial bowl games they would vote for it.
Your whining is old, and as a graduate of GT myself I am sick of your repeated non useful and idiotic post. You must have been a Business graduate or you work in the janitorial services wing at GT and your name is Bob.
DawgFan
January 11th, 2012
10:30 pm
conference champions plus two at large teams. sounds good to me. This allows winning your conference to still be relevant as well allowing two highly ranked at large teams to get in. If you want four at large then make a ten team playoff. go dawgs.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:31 pm
inmyhonestopinion
January 11th, 2012
9:57 pm
Another flaw in the current system…..
Because of the 5 – 6 week layoff between the regular season and the bowls – BCS championship, you really are crowning the champion on being the best team that can prepare during such a layoff. It’s not the best team at the end of the real season. It reflects the best team after sitting around for a month during the holiday season. To represent the true champion, the playoffs need to follow the regular season and be completed on New Years day.
Did you happen to keep up with the FCS Playoffs this year. How about 3 weeks layoff between games? Yeah it happened. It gives teams a chance to return players who may have been injured late in the season or during a playoff game.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:33 pm
From all comments coming out the last 5 days, the automatic qualifying is going to be history. The only one that is arguing is the smaller schools, conferences and Notre Dame.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
10:34 pm
lol. Boom Boom is mad. He got caught making stuff up and pretending he knows something. It’s ok man. We are all just speculating here. Unless you were in the first round of BCS meetings in New Orleans. Were you?
Sun Devil Dave
January 11th, 2012
10:36 pm
Umm, since I watched maybe 30 minutes of the UGA/MSU game, 10 minutes of the Clemson slaughter, 3/4 of the Arizona State beat down, 10 minutes of the Oregon game and zip of any other games, a play-off/SEC 1 and 2 BCS or any other bowl at the holidays mean nothing to me. I’m finished with the greed mongering – $1800 a ticket to watch the SEC National Championships indeed. Only morons would pay that!
gbal
January 11th, 2012
10:37 pm
3 point shot ..So you saying the NC gamed should be what is best for TV and get the highest rankings. Ok. I thought it should be about the two best teams.
Hey, I wouldnt have watched if the game was USC Oregon … So what? Im just not interested.
So happend that the voters located all over the country voted unanimously almost that two teams from the same confrence and region of the country were the best this year which didnt set up well for tv.
Oh, but it should all be about tv, sorry.
Lets come up with a computer system that will predict the best TV ratings and let this be 1/4 of the BCS formula. Cant have the best playing if some people wot watch it now. F>O
gbal
January 11th, 2012
10:41 pm
Sun devil – Dont blame you. I wouldnt have watched this year either if I hadnt had a confrence or team in the race that was of interest. Things will change…
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:41 pm
For those of you who really think an eight(8) team playoff is going to happen, please rethink what you are saying. It may be what you want, but Presidents, Coaches and AD’s will only allow 1 additional game. You can expect 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3 and two winner play it out in the BCS Championship game, maybe starting in 2013 Orange Bowl with rotating between the off Site( this year it would have been the Rose Bowl) next year it would be the Fiesta Bowl with the Orange Bowl hosting the BCS Championship game. They are all jockeying for position now.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:43 pm
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
10:34 pm
lol. Boom Boom is mad. He got caught making stuff up and pretending he knows something. It’s ok man. We are all just speculating here. Unless you were in the first round of BCS meetings in New Orleans. Were you?
Never made up a thing, as a matter of fact I was in New Orleans and OKC this past week. I think we will see who is right and who is the blow hard…go back to sweeping the floors before you custodial manager fires you and we have to support you with more services.
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:44 pm
GT Bob..you are embarrassing every GT Graduate…please change your handle..
Boom Boom
January 11th, 2012
10:47 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/sports/ncaafootball/change-is-coming-to-college-football-postseason.html?ref=ncaafootball
Please read..this is one of many many articles that will enlighten you on what some of the discussions have gone down and tweaking…
over1861
January 11th, 2012
10:47 pm
Something seems wrong here! Isn’t the NCAA in charge of college sports? When did the conference commissions get to call all the shots?
gbal
January 11th, 2012
10:50 pm
boom boom – sorry, your 10:31 just is irrelevent> NO point.
gbal
January 11th, 2012
10:56 pm
it will probably start with 4. +1 makes no sense. 2 mor for 2 teams and one more for a third??? Make it 4 if there is a change.
If it went 8 or 16, I sure hope the bowls pick up the 7 Poff games and eliminate ssome of the meaningless bowls down the line.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
10:59 pm
Please read..this is one of many many articles that will enlighten you on what some of the discussions have gone down and tweaking…
Please tell me where in that article all of the conference commissioners are saying that conference championships will not be used as a qualifier. That article is just regurgitating the same crap everyone has been reporting the past couple of days and it says nothing about what you are arguing.
gbal
January 11th, 2012
11:14 pm
GO to bed GTB Ypu make no sense bro
gbal
January 11th, 2012
11:18 pm
no one said all of the conference commissioners are saying that conference championships will not be used as a qualifier. what arr you saying.
GTBob
January 11th, 2012
11:23 pm
Actually if you want to read the Boom Boom post from 10:28, that is exactly what he said.
Boom Boom
January 12th, 2012
12:02 am
GTBob…
You sir are just ignorant and your post for the past 4 weeks reflect your total lack of knowledge as it applies to sports, and collegiate football. You whine, you cry, you are proven a liar, you are proven a fake and yet you come on every blog and repeat the same old crap and disregard that the team you said did not deserve to be in BCS Game DESTROYED the supposed best team in America while OKSU loses to a 6-7 team, had to go into overtime to beat an injured Stanford team, gave up 400 plus yards each week to average teams. Your logic is lost, your ignoranc is growing and you are irrelevant. I have a sneaking suspicion you are Mike P in disguise.
Boom Boom
January 12th, 2012
12:07 am
You really need to read more post, the Commissioners ( SEC/ACC) BOTH have stated conference affliliation, conference champions, and automatic qualifying would have no impact in their opinions on who would play in the game if they had their way. The common thing is placing the top 4 teams in positions to play with the winners playing in the BCS championship game. That was their opnions and had been for the past three years and it would take a much better plan that did not do away with bowl games to make it a livable situation with most of the BCS community.
You will not see an 8 TEAM Playoff…NOT this go around….the Bowl folks have too much influence.
Paul in NH
January 12th, 2012
12:43 am
There certainly are some humerous posts on this blog. My favorite was the one about having 8 teams and that it should be the top 8 teams even if it means only 2 conferences are represented.
Does anyone seriously think that Jim Delaney (B1G) and Larry Scott (Pac 12), representing 2 of the 3 conferences with the greatest financial clout, are going to sign on for any 8 team system that didn’t have automatic entry for the winners of their conferences? Does anyone think that the networks are going to go along with an 8 team playoff without the 2 most populous conferences being represented?
Paul in NH
January 12th, 2012
12:51 am
gbal
January 11th, 2012
10:37 pm
So happend that the voters located all over the country voted unanimously almost that two teams from the same confrence and region of the country were the best this year which didnt set up well for tv.
——-
No they didn’t – unless you have a new definition of “unanimously”. LSU was a unanimous #1 when picked for the BCSCG but Ok State had a large number of votes for #2, even though Alabama had more. The computer rankings, one of the components in the BCS rankings, had Ok State ahead of Alabama
Flounder
January 12th, 2012
1:09 am
35 Bowl games this year (not including the NCG). That’s 70 teams. 14 of those 70 teams had a 6-6 record or worse (the worse = UCLA who was 6-7). What’s the point?? Why invite two 6-6 teams to play in the “WhoCares.com” Bowl in NoWhereVille, USA if its not an early part of a Playoff system??
Also, for a concrete example of the farse that this year’s bowl season was … consider the MAJOR SHAFT that Boise State (11-1 record) got by being matched against Arizona St (6-6 record).
Brian Friel
January 12th, 2012
4:59 am
I heard someone on ESPN compare the BCS to the NFL: Let’s just vote the two best teams and Green Bay and New England will “play” the Super Bowl.
I think a NFLer once said, that’s why they play the games…..
Dawggone shameful bowl....
January 12th, 2012
5:49 am
First, Dawg fans couldn’t be bothered to attend their teams bowl game in far-away Florida; then, the Dawgs themselves couldn’t lift a paw to stop a second half collapse and defeat at the hands of…a big 10 opponent. I do hope Richt gets some sort of career endurance medal for his time in Athens: between dealing with a thug-filled and spoiled group of wannabe athletes, his fan base has to be one of the least impressive in all of college sports.
drew
January 12th, 2012
6:06 am
I’ve advocated for several years a boycott of all meaningless bowl games (i.e., all except the championship game). And from the low TV ratings for all of the “exhibition” bowls, maybe it’s finally working. If people don’t go, and more importantly, if people don’t watch, change will come. I won’t watch another bowl game until a playoff system is implemented. Of course it’s all about the money…always has been, always will be, but the money comes from advertising, and advertisers won’t continue to pay big bucks for games no one is watching. A playoff system is going to happen, it’s just a matter of when. And the more people support the current system, the longer it’s gonna take.
BCS got the NC RIGHT!
January 12th, 2012
6:56 am
Mark still think Bama did not deserve to be in the NC and OK state which should have lost to Stanford deserved to be there? You missed that one!
BCS got the NC RIGHT!
January 12th, 2012
7:05 am
Mark you SEC hater. Because the SEC plays great football and the others are sub-par we should let the other teams play in the NC every once in a while just for kicks? What about other conferences dominating other sports?
elroy
January 12th, 2012
7:51 am
Dare we dream, only 1 or 2 AJC columnists. keep schultz & sh*t can the rest, especially Bradley!
FLA DAWG.
January 12th, 2012
7:59 am
Ironically this season Bama benefited from the lack of a playoff.
They did not win their division and had lost in regular season to LSU (well, Bama gave LSU the first game). It was the lack of a playoff that gave Bama the opportunity to show they were indeed the better (much better) team.
Insulted Dawg Fan!!!!!!!!!
January 12th, 2012
8:22 am
How in the world am I the ONLY GA fan that seems to have caught Mark’s unbelieveable/unforgiveable mistake. Mark, how could you screw up the name of GA’s stadium?! Bobby Dodd Stadium? That’s GA Tech’s stadium. What an INSULT!!!!! GA’s stadium is Sanford Stadium. It’s also shocking to me that no GA Tech fan caught the mistake. Mark you need to do a better job of getting your facts straight/proof reading!
Alphare
January 12th, 2012
8:42 am
FLA Dawg,
Hate to break to you if it’s all new to you. BCS is a 2-team playoff system. That’s why we have the elaborate human polls and computer polls to determine which are the 2 best teams.
Except the top 2 teams, BCS doesn’t care about any other ranked teams, which is why BSU was not playing a BCS bowl while WV/VT/Clemson/MI were playing.
FLA DAWG.
January 12th, 2012
8:51 am
Ha!
The BCS is a playoff system!
No way in he!!.
Just ask Auburn fans from a few years ago – undefeated, winner of The SEC and no shot at The BCS.
That’s not a playoff system.
Bama earned their Championship but the lack of a playoff system got them their second shot.
A playoff system means you beat a team and move on to the next – not play the same team again.
A true playoff system has nothing to do with voting.
TallaDawg
January 12th, 2012
9:08 am
The lack of enthusiasm is also in large part becasue the games have skewed so far from January 1st. I am as rabid a college football fan as anyone (I do not watch NFL, MLB or NBA, ever.), but I quit watching Monday night. It was MONDAY night January 9th for crying out loud. I had to go to work on Tuesday, and it did not even seem like the college football. IF the championship game is not on January 1, which is understandable, it should be on the SATURDAY after January 1. That would help, alot.
I take exception to all of the yahoos that say the championship game is all that matters. Ask WVU, or MichSU or UFla. fans what a victory over a out of conference opponent in the final game of the year does for morale and bragging rights. Saying the championship is ALL that matters is unsportsman-like. Basically saying, “If you do not win it all, why bother even playing the game?” How about playing for the competition and playing to prove in each match-up who is the better team, and God-forbid for the fun of it.
Gbal
January 12th, 2012
9:12 am
FLA – “Ironically this season Bama benefited from the lack of a playoff.”
Wouldnt say they benifited from the lack of a playoff system…. Yea they were voted #2 by the BCS overwhelmingly and therefore played in the BCSNCG… It did happen to be a confrence opponent who they had played already and lost to.
BUT — Had there been a 4-8 team playoff system in place I would hope that Alabama would have made the field based on ranking, and would have still had a chance to win the NC. I think they would have been on of the top to favorites.
fuzzybee
January 12th, 2012
9:21 am
Can’t be done without a comprehensive rework of college football. An 8 team playoff would be fine except you are now asking unpaid “student” athletes to play as many as 3 more games after an already expanded college schedule of up to 12 games. That means more injuries and less time to actually attend school (insert snickers here).
Seriously, you would have to limit school schedules to no more than 10 games including a conference championship game which means less money for the schools, especially the ones not moving on to the playoff. That is not going to go over well.
I do like the concept because it would further marginalize and hopefully kill some of the stupid bowls. Who cares about 6-6 teams playing in some icy open-air stadium in east bumblefrack?
DP
January 12th, 2012
9:42 am
Mark Bradley, after pitching a hissy fit a few weeks ago about Alabama only getting into the BCS championship game because of its “brand”, can’t bring himself to say a word about Alabama playing a virtually perfect game and crushing an LSU team that was being talked about as possibly the greatest college team of all time. If that had been Georgia instead of Alabama, Bradley would write about the game for the rest of his career. It looks like Bradley took Furman Bisher’s position as the AJC’s resident Alabama hater, though Bisher was in the bag for Bobby Dodd and Tech and Bradley is in the bag for Mark Richt and Georgia.
Mark Bradley
January 12th, 2012
9:52 am
That wasn’t a mistake, Insulted. What I meant was that Georgia fans laugh out loud when Georgia Tech draws a crowd of 40,000.
Alphare
January 12th, 2012
9:53 am
FLA DAWG,
“Bama earned their Championship but the lack of a playoff system got them their second shot.”
Lack of playoff system got them their 2nd shot? Are you kidding yourself? They got their shot with the current 2-team playoff system. They would have their 2nd shot with a 4-team playoff system as well.
Jim
January 12th, 2012
9:54 am
As we have seen any changes to the current system will be driven by the amount of money to be made. I would make the following changes:
1. All conferences limited to 12 teams, split in two divisions, and play a championship.
2. Do away with qualifing and not qualifing conference for the BCS. To qualify for a BCS Bowl a team has to finish in the top 8.
3. The BCS Bowl games would pit 1/3, 2/4, 5/7, & 6/8. Teams 5/7 and 6/8 would play on New Year’s Eve and 1/3 and 2/4 on New Year’s Day. The National Championship game would be played a week or 10 days later between the winners of 1/3 1nd 2/4.
4. The other Bowl games would pit Conference Champions against Conference Champions and Division Champions against Division Champions.
5. I would also add one more bowl game to cover teams like USC who are barred from Bowl play and call it the Charity Challenge Bowl. In this Bowl the teams would play but the proceeds would go to a charity rather than the school. This way the school is punished but the players are still rewarded. This could be a win/win.
I would add that the talk of the plus 1 pitting 1/4 and 2/3 would be more like stacking the deck for a pre determined outcome.
What you guys think?