Alas, a four-team college football playoff will be no panacea
Nick Saban advocates the time-honored plumb-bob method of determining a national champion. (AJC photo by Bob Andres)
Knock me over with a feather. The coaches who work in the league that just filled both slots in the BCS title game have queued up to say they don’t want a new four-team playoff to include only conference champs. From Nick Saban of Alabama, who told reporters: “It’s just like politics and self-interest. Somebody wants to create a circumstance that’s going to help their situation or conference. That’s not in the best interest of college football.”
This from the coach whose team won the national championship without winning its division. (No self-interest there!)
I don’t blame the SEC coaches. Their league plays the best football. There’s a chance a four-team playoff, if seeded according to merit, might include not two but three SEC teams. Which might not be fair to the other conferences, but who said even a four-team playoff will be fair?
The Big Ten, never a shrinking violet when it comes to self-interest, is lobbying for a champs-only playoff. Just for the record, the Big Ten hasn’t dispatched a team to the BCS title game since January 2008. Just for the record, league commissioner Jim Delany has grumbling constituents to placate.
Counterpoint from Florida coach Will Muschamp, speaking at the SEC meetings in Destin, Fla.: “”I don’t think [the impending] playoff needs to be the conference champions because in our league we might have four of the best teams in the country.”
Here we come to the nub of the issue. If college football is to remain the sport where — invoking the official BCS slogan — Every Game Counts, wouldn’t it look odd to have a four-team tournament that includes two or more non-champions? (New slogan: Every Game Counts Except Those That Don’t.) On the other hand, wouldn’t it look even odder if a four-team playoff is rendered the SEC Invitational?
College football has forever been the sport that makes the least sense. The long-sought playoff is an attempt to remedy that, but the drive for a playoff is less a considered course of action than a knee-jerk response to what just happened. What just happened was that the BCS title game became an SEC rematch that pleased no one except SEC loyalists. The playoff is supposed to spread the wealth. It might not spread it beyond Mike Slive’s football fiefdom.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the 2012 season works thusly: Alabama beats LSU 9-6 in overtime; Alabama finishes the regular season 12-0; LSU finishes 11-1 and runs second in the West; Georgia goes 11-1 and wins the SEC East and upsets Alabama in the conference title game.
Let’s also say that Southern Cal finishes unbeaten in the Pac-12 but the champs of the Big 12, the Big Ten and the ACC all have at least one loss. Let’s say you’ve got three once-beaten teams from the SEC ranked Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in the human polls. Were there an open-to-non-champs four-team playoff in place — there won’t be by this fall, but we’re pretending — wouldn’t it be difficult not to select Georgia, Alabama and LSU? (Didn’t we learn from the 2011 BCS standings that a once-beaten SEC non-champ trumps a once-beaten Big 12 titlist?)
Understand: I’m not opposed to a playoff. What I fear is that a four-team playoff won’t be much different from the 1-versus-2 BCS “system” we all despised. Somebody (or somebody’s computer) will have to choose four teams, and the outcry from those not selected could be even louder than before.
With a four-team playoff, the expectation from non-SEC leagues is that their champs will be better positioned than in 1-versus-2. They might not be. Such is the cachet of the SEC that it figures to have at least two teams in the discussion every season unless there’s a champs-only stipulation included, but wouldn’t the whole thing lose credibility if there is? (Possible half-baked compromise: No more than two of the four teams can come from a single league.)
The trouble with a four-team playoff is that it isn’t quite a tournament. Eight would be far better. (Steve Spurrier prefers that format, FYI.) With an eight-team field, you could accommodate the five BCS league champs — let’s agree to drop the Big East from the discussion — and still have room for worthy runners-up and the occasional Boise State. An eight-team grid would offer both the appearance and the reality of inclusion. The only reason not to have an eight-team tournament is because it would mess up the bowls, which is no reason at all.
I know, I know. After going so long without a real playoff, we should be grateful for small favors. But college football, as is its wont, is trying to have it both ways: Grafting a playoff patch on to a postseason already bloated by who-cares bowls. Even as I hope for the best, honesty compels me to confess that I expect rather less.
By Mark Bradley
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190 comments Add your comment
Hillbilly D
May 30th, 2012
1:54 pm
A 4 team playoff just guarantees that number 5 will be whining.
Ted DiBiase
May 30th, 2012
2:00 pm
I think Spurrier favors 8 teams because he feels pretty good about his chances of being that 3rd or 4th SEC team in the top 8.
ckgator
May 30th, 2012
2:01 pm
A playoff of any sort will be bad for the game. The above bickering proves it – it will never be a perfect system regardless of how many teams (4 or
are in the playoff. Someone will always be the 9th team and cry unfair.
Leave it as is… the controversy is half the fun.
Red Stick
May 30th, 2012
2:10 pm
Matt Hayes is reporting that there are 2 scenarios on the table: a 4 team playoff with conference champions or a 3 & 1 deal (3 conference winners and a wild card.)
I really hope that requiring a team to be a conference winner doesn’t become reality. The thought of teams ranked 1, 3, 7 and 11 defeats the purpose of getting the best 4 teams on the field. That proposal will be like the NCAA basketball tourney in which a low seed makes it to the Final Four (ie UConn in 2011 won it all but only had a .500 conference record). Besides, there will be squawking by conference champions that are left out in a conference winners playoff.
Tide Rising is right. The Big 1G was not complaining in 2006 when there was a chance of a rematch between Ohio St and Michigan in the BCS title game.
The only reason the PAC 12, ACC, Big East and Big 1G want to have a system with conference winners only is to give them a much greater chance at getting in the playoffs.
And every game would count under a playoff taking the 4 best teams. That’s BS to think otherwise.
Geaux Tigers
Go SEC
you just had to tweak the cubs/dawg fans, didn't you
May 30th, 2012
2:10 pm
It’s the summer….as regular as the heat down south, chicago cubs and georgia bulldog fans are dreaming of championships…….
bdawg
May 30th, 2012
2:14 pm
Harold-
WHY ARE YOU YELLING????
Bob
May 30th, 2012
2:17 pm
Take four 16-team conferences, each with two eight-team divisions. Four conference championship winners play for the national championship. The eight worst teams, one from each conference division gets relegated out of the conference (think English soccer) and eight teams (best records/ranking) get put up the four confernces. Ergo, you start with a field of 64, and #s 65-72 move up the next year.
Poboy
May 30th, 2012
2:20 pm
Fear not. Let basketball be our guide. This tournament will expand.
Nick
May 30th, 2012
2:23 pm
Yep, so that Bama can make it without getting to their title game every year. That was garbage last year, and if they don’t make it conference champs or fix their computers college football will continue the downward spiral its already on…
JBD
May 30th, 2012
2:24 pm
I’m tired of the eyeball test determining who gets a shot. Alabama was probably the best team last year but why should they get a shot over oklahoma state just because we perceive their loss to be less bad. Unfortunately the only way to have a set rule in college football instead of introducing rankings is only allowing only conference champions. It takes all opinion out of the formula. There may be a less deserving team in the playoff but every team had the chance to win their confrence. The Giants werent the best team in the NFC during the season last season but played the best at the right time and won the super bowl.
A side effect of only conference winners is that out of conference games will have no bearing on your ability to win the national championship. Teams would no longer have a reason to schedule bad schools and should create better tv matchups between big schools out of conference.
MArk
May 30th, 2012
2:30 pm
12 team playoff. The 4 confrence champs get first round bye. The 4 championship game losers host games with four at large teams. The 4 confrence champs play the winners of these games at HOME. The remaiming three games are bid on by host sites.
AtlantaDude
May 30th, 2012
2:30 pm
There is more at stake than who will get into the playoffs. If they go with the “conference champions” format, it may put the brakes on the recent move toward fewer, larger conferences. If they go with the “Four Best Teams” format, the conference consolidation will likely continue.
WDF
May 30th, 2012
2:33 pm
I guess the NFL would be a better brand of football if we just didn’t count regular season games and go on what people think are the 4 best teams. Give me a break! No doubt that we have eventul division losers in pro and college conferences that are better than eventual winners from the others. But that’s what makes it fun, to see who comes out on top.
Lets see in Baseball it would be
Yankees and Redsox every year
NFL- Patriots and and Steelers
NBA- The Heat and Lakers.
I don’t want to see the SEC play each other for the championship each year. Let them have some guts and slugg it out among themselves and send the winner to the final four.
secfactcheck.com
May 30th, 2012
2:37 pm
Follow the Money. Big Football Money can control polls easier than they can control wins on the field (unless the refs are from your own conference re: UGA vs LSU and FL vs AR).
1eyedJack
May 30th, 2012
2:40 pm
What does ESPN and CBS think?
Marty Graw
May 30th, 2012
2:46 pm
To any knowledgeable, objective follower of college football it’s usually obvious who the two best teams are by the end of the year. Some years there may be three teams that appear to be close at the top, but rarely will there be 4 teams that are clearly head and shoulders above the others. College fooball just isn’t that deep. A four team playoff will be all that’s needed. As for any controversy about a fifth team that got left out? After 75 years of opinion-based systems to name a champion who cares about fifth place? And just like the NFL, the FCS division, and the current BCS system, there should be no requirement that the participants win their conference championship. If this thing goes through, the Alabama-LSU BCS final will be looked upon as the greatest thing that ever happened to college football.
playoff advocate
May 30th, 2012
2:47 pm
The best sixteen teams format used by other divisions is the way to go to determine a national champ. Drop the conference title games and reduce the season to 11 games. However, the likelihood of this happening is slim. Why? Count the $$$ the colleges, leagues and NCAA make on the extra games. Just do not feed us that bogus argument that the long season is bad for academics. Evidence the academic outcomes in the the other divisions.
If not 16 teams, then go to a 4 team format that begins after everyone has played in bowl games. The top 4 teams after the bowls make the playoffs.
Matt from MN
May 30th, 2012
2:48 pm
This “piecemeal” approach is a joke. 16 team playoff and be done with it.
Billy
May 30th, 2012
2:48 pm
A few things that haven’t been mentioned.
1. The 4-team playoff that only includes Conference Champions (backed by the Big10 and a few other conferences) has an additional suggestion..that they MUST be ranked in the top 6. So let’s say the season wraps like this:
#1 LSU (SEC Champ)
#2 USC (PAC12 Champ)
#3 Alabama (SEC runner-up)
#4 Oklahoma (Big12 Champ)
#5 Oregon (PAC12 runner-up)
#6 Arkansas
#7 Michigan (Big10 Champ)
With that formula, you’d have LSU playing Oklahoma and USC playing Alabama…and although Michigan was a Conf Champ, they finished outside of the top 6 and are left out. So there is still the option that a conference can get 2 teams in. Seems pretty fair to me.
The 2nd thing worth pointing out is that if the SEC is going to fight for a second conference team to be allowed to play, then they ought to play 9 conference games like most of the other conferences do. Either that, or the other conferences should drop to an 8-game conference schedule. I know SEC fans will argue that 8 games in the SEC are harder than 9 games in other conferences, but what about Georgia’s schedule this year…avoiding LSU, Alabama, and Arkansas? (I’m not picking on them, just making a point)
Maybe one other suggestion might be to reintroduce strength of schedule into the formula…so regardless of how many conference games or cupcakes you play, the SOS can be a determining factor…none of which is perfect, just a thought.
Old Goober
May 30th, 2012
2:52 pm
You are deluded if you think a playoff of any kind will settle all the controversy about naming a national champion. Even with a 16-team playoff system, there’ll always be hordes of people who will say, “Yeah, but our best player was hurt; we would have won it all if not for that.” If you want to see important football and an extended season, then a playoff system is for you. But don’t assume such a system will settle any arguments about which is the best college football team in the land.
TheTruth
May 30th, 2012
2:54 pm
Why not have the early Bowls host the first round. I bet the Poinsettia, BeefO’Brady’s, Little Caesar’s, Holiday, or Meineke Car Care would hate hosting say…. LSU vs Mich. or UGA vs Texas…
TheTruth
May 30th, 2012
2:55 pm
If the early bowls host eight games is possible.
Big Time???? Not!
May 30th, 2012
2:55 pm
none of the scenarios have tech?
Four tickets, four hot dogs, four cokes. Oh.
TheTruth
May 30th, 2012
2:55 pm
Teams…not games. Sorry.
secfactcheck.com
May 30th, 2012
2:56 pm
Eight conferences of 8 teams or 4 conferences of 16 teams. Each conference sends equal number of teams totaling 16 to the playoff. Preset seeds such that if a conference does have top 4 teams then they all will meet each other in the finals of have complete bragging rights.
7 Conference games 4 Non-Conference games
All non-Conference games MUST be against 64 team league (all games matter)
Round 1 / 16 teams/8 games (Sweet Sixteen) 3rd week in Dec
Round 2 / 8 teams / 4 games (Qtr – Elite Eight) 4th week in Dec
Round 3 / 4 teams / 2 games (Semi’s – Final Four) 1st week in Jan
Round 4 / 2 teams / 1 game (Finals – National Champion) 2nd week in Jan
GT
May 30th, 2012
2:59 pm
If the US Constitution had not been written with a lot of flexibility we wouldn’t have a country today. College football will not always look like this, power in the Southeastern Conference, as it has not always looked like what it was when Army and Notre Dame were powerhouses.
Look at college basketball, the pros have ruin what was a solid product. Things change pretty dramatically. I for one do not think the SEC is stronger outside the four or five teams on top. Georgia losing to Colorado, UCF and the bowl game this year are not signs the league is getting stronger from top to bottom. Tennessee and Florida are very weak which makes Georgia and South Carolina look stronger than either really is. I imagine Arkansas will come back to earth this year or next, leaving really Alabama and LSU as your real teams with a shot at the NC. Other conferences are going to be improving all the time, in ten years we may have another king of college football, if we don’t write them out at the beginning. Ohio State showed us what a pretender can do to a championship game, if political sway is allowed.
secfactcheck.com
May 30th, 2012
3:05 pm
Forgot…
Round 0 / 32 teams / 16 games (Conference Champs for 8/8 Conf or Semis for 4/16 Conf
Round 1 / 16 teams/8 games (Sweet Sixteen) 3rd week in Dec (Conf Champs in 4 16 team Conf
Round 2 / 8 teams / 4 games (Qtr – Elite Eight) 4th week in Dec
Round 3 / 4 teams / 2 games (Semi’s – Final Four) 1st week in Jan
Round 4 / 2 teams / 1 game (Finals – National Champion) 2nd week in Jan
That is 31 games, 32 teams. Sell Corporate Sponsor-ships of each round/game.
GT
May 30th, 2012
3:12 pm
I like what Billy is saying.
I also like the 9 games for the SEC. What Georgia does is totally unfair to even South Carolina who had to play a real team last year in Arkanas. The problem with 9 games is the SEC will only have two good enough teams next year or the next and those two are playing in the same conference.
Old Dawg
May 30th, 2012
3:13 pm
I dropped my fried twinkie: There are numerous female and non-revenue student-athletes who are full-ride scholarship holders. The fact remains, too many college athletic programs are struggling to stay in the black.
Paying athletes will only create problems and lawsuits.
GTBob
May 30th, 2012
3:13 pm
The thought of teams ranked 1, 3, 7 and 11 defeats the purpose of getting the best 4 teams on the field.
The point of a playoff is not to get the 4 best teams on the field, its to let the teams on the field determine who is best by playing each other. There is no possible way to objectively determine the 4 best teams, therefore it is useless to try. Let the teams determine who is best by playing football.
GT
May 30th, 2012
3:13 pm
Division not conference.
SecFan
May 30th, 2012
3:16 pm
Mark, let’s be truthful about the Alabama-Oklahoma St decision for a change. Had Bama lost to un-ranked Miss St in it’s next-to-last game and OSU had only lost to the top team in the country earlier, you know OSU would have gotten the nod and deservedly so. It obviously peeved you, but at least you should have the professionalism not to pretend it was some non-sensical head-scratcher that opened the door for Bama.
wrestler
May 30th, 2012
3:20 pm
Who cares about records in the playoff system. You win your conference and go from there. I believe its was the arizona cardinals in pro ball that wasn’t even .500 but had the best record in their division and went to the playoffs. There are plenty of teams in the pros that get winning season but don’t go to the playoffs, its always the division leader and leftovers (which they call wildcard) that go. Touch noogies if 11-1 teams don’t go. They lost somewhere and LIFE AIN”T FAIR ANYWAY…..
GTBob
May 30th, 2012
3:29 pm
But don’t assume such a system will settle any arguments about which is the best college football team in the land.
There is no way possible to satisfy everyone’s definition of the best team in the land. It is a completely subjective term. 99% of all sports feel that letting them all play each other in a playoff is the best way to decide. College football for some reason thinks letting a few old men decide using their magical eyeball test is the best way.
Disco is King
May 30th, 2012
3:42 pm
I’m too youg to remember, but where was all the angst against the bowl system in say the 70’s and 80’s. Has this topic been around that long? Is it my imagination or did this “problem” just appear about a 8 years ago after everyone decided the BCS still isn’t good enough. I swear, we should just go back to bowls and polls and say to heck with the BCS. The reason there are still a million bowls out there is because they make money for everyone involved and the kids love to play in them. If this was politics, we’d all be labeled “unpatriotic” for opposing the distincly American tradition of college football bowls.
Mr. Dawg
May 30th, 2012
3:52 pm
Mark you’re observations here are things I’ve been saying for years. I’ve never been necessarily opposed to a playoff. But there really isn’t anything in a 120 team league that can be completely fair. Hence my belief the current system as it were is fine. My only real complaint about the old system was that he name of the new BCS champion hadn’t even been engraved on the Crystal Trophy before the naysayers began to complain about how it was decided. Yet no one could provide a fool proof resolution. Now here it is.. The long awaited playoff ready to be installed and the debates arguments are more or less the same and have begun before it has even been put to the test. I’m certain those debates will continue. .And if you thing about it, there’s hasn’t been what I would call an unworthy champion since the BCS was created.
GTBob
May 30th, 2012
4:05 pm
And if you thing about it, there’s hasn’t been what I would call an unworthy champion since the BCS was created.
Alabama.
TidoMonkey
May 30th, 2012
4:06 pm
The problem with a four team playoff that doesn’t use only conference champs, is that it’s still not subjective. Of course SEC coaches want it to be the four “best” teams, because they expect to always be two or three of the four best teams. I don’t care if the SEC occasionally would have a couple teams in the 4-game format; what I expect is the SEC would always have 2 teams and occasionally 3 teams.
You can keep your four best teams. I’d rather have four teams that earned it.
JM
May 30th, 2012
4:12 pm
The SEC has some great teams, but not all the football in the SEC can be considered top-notch. There are some bad teams in the middle to lower half of the SEC.
RTR22
May 30th, 2012
4:17 pm
LSWho is still sooooo bitter about the woodshed beating in Jan that their leadership is making Fools of themselves in Destin today….Check out some of their quotes from the AD and HC. Too funny…
Red Stick
May 30th, 2012
4:23 pm
GTBob:
“The point of a playoff is not to get the 4 best teams on the field, its to let the teams on the field determine who is best by playing each other.”
But most fans want the best 4 to be in the playoffs. You obviously are in the minority, which is your right.
Without fans, college football would not be the sport that it is.
Geaux Tigers
Go SEC
Redman
May 30th, 2012
4:25 pm
College football left with Keith Jackson , Ara P,and others.They are sick of hearing about,
Howbout them dawgs, roll tide, and sh ass fans and sportswrighters
. Play Ball!
IL Jacket
May 30th, 2012
4:30 pm
If one is truly interested in what is best for college football, with only a four team playoff you cannot have one of the four be a team that did not win their conference. Otherwise, football will find itself an irrelevancy on the national stage. It will become what men’s college lacrosse is-an interesting sport to a small segment of the country. It is no coincidence that the lowest national TV ratings in the BCS era were this year’s rematch of LSU-Ala. West coast, midwest and Rocky Mountain fans had no interest in a rematch of one of the most boring regular season games, which in itself was a boring game, although for a different reason.
GTBob
May 30th, 2012
4:32 pm
But most fans want the best 4 to be in the playoffs. You obviously are in the minority, which is your right.
Please give me an objective way to determine who the 4 best teams in the country are. No, a popular vote is not objective. Also give a factual definition of the word best in relation to college football teams. If you can do that then I am in your corner. If not, then I would rather watch teams prove it on the field. And no, I don’t think I am in the minority.
Easy Button
May 30th, 2012
4:47 pm
FCS model folks….. Works fine, and no drama.
Jack P
May 30th, 2012
4:48 pm
Harold’s playoff suggestion makes no sense. I prefer a 64 team playoff. Six regular season games and 6, at most, playoff games. That makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?
Look In The Mirror
May 30th, 2012
4:51 pm
College Presidents will not vote for an 8 or 12 or 16 team playoff because they want the season to be a one semester sport or something real close to one semester. It would take an 8 or 9 game regular season conference schedule and with 3 playoff games to fit the model, maybe 10 games but even then the Presidents of each school want to play as many home games as possible.
We can gripe all we want, but believe it when I say that the issue is in the hands of the Presidents who like the ( CZAR, NAPOLEAN like President Adams) scattered across the country will make it to their own personal benefit.
Any plan that is not about the top 4 teams in the country is not a true playoff and their is no way anyone can argue it any other way. Look at the BIG 10, ACC, and Big East, none of those teams even had an argument for playing in the title game the past 3 years.
WOOOOOOOOO
May 30th, 2012
4:51 pm
“And if you thing about it, there’s hasn’t been what I would call an unworthy champion since the BCS was created.”
USC, Alabama.
WOOOOOOOOO
May 30th, 2012
4:51 pm
Where’s Sonny Clusters?
Look In The Mirror
May 30th, 2012
4:55 pm
GTBob
May 30th, 2012
4:32 pm
But most fans want the best 4 to be in the playoffs. You obviously are in the minority, which is your right.
Please give me an objective way to determine who the 4 best teams in the country are. No, a popular vote is not objective. Also give a factual definition of the word best in relation to college football teams. If you can do that then I am in your corner. If not, then I would rather watch teams prove it on the field. And no, I don’t think I am in the minority.
GT Bob, once again your biased opinion is based on your basketball league based conference and the lack of play of any GREAT teams in your league. Your way only guarantees the right for one of your weak( very weak) teams to make it into the playoff while playing a regular season of weak opponents.
And by the way, I DO hold an Engineering degree from Tech and still realize the ACC is very very weak in football and if they lose FSU or Clemson the league becomes even weaker and should lose their BCS Conference status in Football.