I didn’t think I’d see it, but here it is: A college football playoff!
These men look as if they'd just accomplished something historic. Which they had. (AP photo)
I’d given up. I’d gone from believing a college football playoff was inevitable to believing it was … the opposite of inevitable. The bowls were too powerful, I conceded. There was no belief among the movers and shakers that any moving and/or shaking was warranted. What we had was, give or take the occasional BCS tweak, all we’d ever get, and what we had was awful.
My surrender came in January 2008. The BCS had been more of a mess than usual — two-loss LSU wound up playing for (and winning) the national championship in a sport where every game was supposed to matter — and, bang on cue, the Georgia president Michael Adams went public with a plan that made sense: an eight-team playoff overseen by the NCAA.
I had some small part in this: I wrote the story for this newspaper that outlined Adams’ proposal and rationale. It appeared Jan. 8, hours after LSU had won the BCS title in New Orleans. I’d covered the game, and in the lobby of the Marriott the next morning I was approached by SEC officials and even some SEC-loving writers who were irate — irate, I tell you — over Adams’ gall. They questioned his timing and his motivation (LSU had bunny-hopped over Georgia in the final BCS standings), but mostly they were miffed because they thought: Why change what had, at least in their minds, just worked?
My thought, then as now: You call that working?
Let’s recall the date: Jan. 8, 2008 — roughly 4 1/2 years ago. Adams’ proposal died a quick death at the NCAA convention in Nashville the next week, and that, I figured, was that. If an insider like Adams could offer a reasoned alternative that gained no traction among his presidential peers, what chance was there?
Here, as reported in the AJC on Jan. 9, 2008, was Wisconsin chancellor John Wiley’s not-exactly-measured response to Adams: “Are you kidding me? Isn’t there anyone out there who cares more about the student-athletes than about the preferences of sportswriters? Playoffs are a sham/fiction, anyway. Look at the upset statistics. On any given day, there are probably dozens of teams that can beat any other team in the collection. What’s so special about winning once in a single matchup?”
So it is with equal parts surprise and satisfaction that I note: As of June 26, 2012, big-time college football has a playoff. It’s not the one Adams advocated — it’s only half as big, and the NCAA has no part in it — but it is a playoff. And not a sham/fiction. Cold reality.
I wish I could tell you what changed over those 4 1/2 years, but I honestly don’t know. To say the BCS kept getting worse was to ignore the obvious: The BCS was lousy from the start. Obviously the SEC’s dominance had something to do with it: With two teams from the same conference (guess which) playing for the 2011 national title, the marginalization of other leagues was complete. Surely in a four-team playoff, the Big Ten/Big 12/Pac-12/ACC had to think, there’ll be room for some of them … won’t there?
To say that conference commissioners were motivated more by the will of the people than by craven self-interest would be to disregard human nature. (Those same conference commissioners had gone decades ignoring the will of the people.) But the bowl system, which is the cash cow for all big-time conferences, had begun to buckle under its own weight. Only the BCS title game came to matter, which is a big deal when you note that 35 — yes, 35 — other postseason games exist.
Earlier this month, SEC commissioner Mike Slive told me, “We want to take back New Year’s.” And that’s what the playoff will do: The semifinals will be held on either Dec. 31 or Jan. 1, with the title tilt to come a week (or so) later.
Left unclear is … well, pretty much everything else. What will happen to the bowls that aren’t staging semifinals? Will the New Year’s Eve/Day schedule be big enough to accommodate non-playoff games? (The NIT doesn’t play its semifinals on the same day as the Final Four, does it?) Who’ll pick the four teams? How many of the four can come from one conference? How many league champions will be guaranteed playoff invites? Will a Boise State ever get a sniff?
But enough. I reserve my inalienable American right to gripe about process for another time. For now I’m content to be shocked and happy. (Yes, happy. Yes, me.) I thought the day would never come when I could type these words, but here they are:
We have a playoff.
By Mark Bradley
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201 comments Add your comment
mtraininjax
June 27th, 2012
1:12 pm
This is great, a playoff system, now what can we do with the 50+ bowl games? Any way we can pare those down? Raise the minimum win to 7, now that 1-AA teams count? Let’s not stop here, let’s challenge the players and coaches to do better, after all, who wants to see a 6-6 team in a bowl game? It is the equivalent of kinder gardeners getting a cookie on a kids birthday.
P. Bull Terrier
June 27th, 2012
1:16 pm
I remain opposed to any plan that includes computer rankings with secret formulas. I would rather have Mark Bradley pick the Top 4 than let the rankings be decided by some computer guy from MIT, hiding in his mom’s basement. At least when Bradley picked a 3 loss Kentucky team over an undefeated UGA team, he would have to write a column explaining his choice.
Big Crimson 75
June 27th, 2012
1:17 pm
The Big 10 & Pac 12 were never in favor of having a Playoff System,
The SEC & ACC were the 1st conferences to push for a Playoff.
Their is so much negativity associated with the BCS, this change was bound to happen.
Something smells really fishy about how things went down. No one can convince me Jim Delaney wanted a Playoff!! Even watching 2 SEC Teams play for the Title wasn’t enough to change his mind.
What happened last year with Bama & LSU was an anomaly.
Do I think 4 Teams are worthy of playing for a National Championship — maybe.
Are 8 Teams worthy of playing for a Title — NO.
If anyone thinks controversy is going away b/c of a 4 team playoff, you’re delusional.
I have a feeling next year, you’ll see 2 teams finish un-defeated & they’ll be forced to play an extra game before meeting each other for the Title — for what reason??!!
B
June 27th, 2012
1:18 pm
2nd sentance is missing a word
Big Al
June 27th, 2012
1:20 pm
2014! The Year Mark Richt will be fired by Georgia. Dawgs will never make final four under Richt. Book it.
robodawg
June 27th, 2012
1:20 pm
Take back New Year’s Day indeed. Jan.1 was vacated this year by college football.
DC
June 27th, 2012
1:20 pm
@yurtle the turtle..uhh..the kids would try out for the NFL if they could. But due to regulations set in the NFL they cant. Most of the kids playing football don’t want to be in college and definitely dont want an education. Its a big hustle…billions of dollars made and all they have to do is throw some tuition and boarding for the kids..
Abnerish
June 27th, 2012
1:21 pm
I, for one, am ecstatic by this decision. I just wish it would happen sooner. I think the real culture shock will come when the selection committee DOESN’T choose the top 4 teams in the BCS or AP rankings. Everyone seems to think that for some reason, the committee is going to use these rankings to decide the playoff participants. That is EXACTLY what the committee is created NOT to do!! If the rankings were so great, we wouldn’t need a playoff or a selection committee. But I think the majority of people don’t realize this and it. It will be interesting to watch it unfold.
Oh, and I firmly believe that this will become an 8-team playoff before 2020. The power brokers will see the $$$ that could be available by expanding it. Plus, the public will be clamoring for more. It will happen.
Paul in NH
June 27th, 2012
1:22 pm
The reason Jan 1 was vacated by college football in 2012 is because it was a Sunday. CFB cannot compete against the NFL.
PittJacket
June 27th, 2012
1:25 pm
Just a point of clarification . . . UGA is no LSU. In the same league, yes, but not in the same “League”.
Ted M
June 27th, 2012
1:26 pm
it certainly is better but its just barely a playoff. should have been 16 teams.
Irate Ostrich
June 27th, 2012
1:29 pm
FYI: I think you left out ‘playoff’ in your first sentence. ‘ believing College football playoff’
Irate Ostrich
June 27th, 2012
1:30 pm
Do you believe a college football?
HB
June 27th, 2012
1:32 pm
This supposed 4 team playoff is not that much different than the existing BCS system. It will still mostly be based on subjectivity. They are shortchanging the fans by not having a more open playoff format like the other NCAA divisions have had for years. The new proposed system was devised as backlash at the SEC for their recent run of winning the last six national championships.
Alphare
June 27th, 2012
1:40 pm
I don’t feel a 4-team playoff system is better than the current 2-team playoff. The reason is, people pay more attention to #1 and #2 and have a better chance to make them right, while #4 or #5 are a whole lot murkier.
Alphare
June 27th, 2012
1:43 pm
And by the way, what’s that selection committee? that’d be a big downgrade from the current BCS scoring system.
DawginLex
June 27th, 2012
1:45 pm
Still won’t make everyone happy
Still will be complaints
Last year for example, who are the 4?
1)LSU
2)Okie State
3)Alabama
4)Stanford
Oregon destroyed stanford head to head. See the problem?
TCU one year
Boise another year
Still really does not determine true champion and complaints will continue. Good grief, 64 teams plus play-ins for basketball and ESPN spends hours discussing who was left out
dean
June 27th, 2012
1:46 pm
1 thing is for certain: This has opened a brand new can of whupass for the blogosphere!
Stank Wren
June 27th, 2012
1:48 pm
I don’t like the fact thay they agreed to lock into this system for 12 years. If it becomes evident that an 8 team playoff would be a better format than we end up waiting a decade to be able to make a change. One big step in the right direction but 12 years is a long time to commit to an unproven idea.
Stank Wren
June 27th, 2012
1:53 pm
Football players that play on state championship winning high school team will play 15 games in a season. NFL players on a Superbowl team may play 24 games in a season (including preseason and playoffs). I’ve never understood the arguement against college kids playing 14 or 15 games in a season. I have no idea why it took so long to get this playoff idea off the ground.
Sage of Bluesland
June 27th, 2012
1:57 pm
College football is boring, but feel free to keep buying those overpriced tickets, sheep. Gosh, you people are stupid. Real stupid.
Weyman C. Wannamaker Jr (A Great American)
June 27th, 2012
1:57 pm
I wonder what ol’ Lewis would say about this?
BravesFan79
June 27th, 2012
2:05 pm
And so… CF finally moves in relevance past other “sports” where the champion is “voted on”. Dog shows and bodybuilding compeitions. About time!
WTF
June 27th, 2012
2:06 pm
and BS walks – hopefully over sports writers who write columns full of 1st person pronouns, their ‘feelings’, their analyses, their consciousness. Why not just a straight story without all the MB personalization?
We miss you, Mr. Bisher. More and more every day.
LOLOLOL
June 27th, 2012
2:07 pm
“Georgia was third in the final BCS standings in 2002; it was fifth in 2007. For what that’s worth.”
It’s not worth anything. UGA didn’t win then and won’t win now.
LawDawg
June 27th, 2012
2:08 pm
MB: You might want to have your editor give this a once-over. There are at least two typos in the first 2 paragraphs. “A college football was” “A eight-team” “
chris
June 27th, 2012
2:11 pm
Its decided on the field which is the place a champion should be decided. I also think that if the committee takes polls into its consideration that the coaches poll should be erased. Coaches don’t have time to watch all the meaningful games, they vote for their own teams and their own conferences so its not a legit poll.
There will always be a debate over the 4 teams that get picked just like we debate the teams that get left out of March Madness but at least we now can settle this thing between the lines.
GStateBen
June 27th, 2012
2:20 pm
When my Panthers go undefeated, we better get a chance at this playoff!
Red Stick
June 27th, 2012
2:22 pm
DawginLex
June 27th, 2012
1:45 pm
“Still won’t make everyone happy
Still will be complaints
Last year for example, who are the 4?
1)LSU
2)Okie State
3)Alabama
4)Stanford
Oregon destroyed stanford head to head. See the problem?”
At least it’s 4 teams which significantly narrows the problem that full blown playoffs have in which teams come out nowhere to win it all (ie. the NY Giants, 9-7 in the regular season, wins the 2012 Super Bowl, the St. Louis Cardinals, who made the playoffs on the last day of the season last September and wins the World Series, and UConn in 2011 wins the NCAA tourney despite having a .500 record in the Big East).
Even the 4th seed, Stanford, with the loss to Oregon, had a better regular season than the above teams.
Yes there will be controversy as to who is deserving to make the new playoffs but it will be that way no matter if it’s 8, 12 or 16 teams in a playoff.
Geaux Tigers
Go SEC
BravesFan79
June 27th, 2012
2:23 pm
I can tell who on here is not really a sports fan. Or knows very little about anything other than college football. Face it bama fans (and others), your system was outdated, lame, and went against the very principle that the United States was built upon, which was that everyone has a fair shot! Now this gives room for a undefeated Utah or Boise State team to get in, and thats great!
I dont think id wanna play a sport if someone told me “hey, even if we go undefeated, we have NO chance at a national title because our names not Bama, Ohio State, or LSU”.
College football… where all the little kids get trophies at the end and a free t shirt.
blue
June 27th, 2012
2:26 pm
Riffraff: congratulations on being the first tool to use that tired old line about “which four SEC teams”. You are so very original and funny. I guess that is why the team that won the SEC East lost to Michigan State, right? Because they should have been one of the four teams?
My 2 cents.
June 27th, 2012
2:26 pm
It is progress, but I think they can do better and here’s how. Go back to the old days of slotting teams into the 4 major bowls (Sugar, Rose, Orange, Fiesta) with conference tie-ins and at large teams, this gives you an 8 team field and makes everyone of these bowls as important as ever (unlike the current proposal of rotating semi’s thru 2 out of these 4 every year). Then take the 4 winners from these bowls and seed them accordingly, just like they’re talking about doing now. Let these 4 play in the 2 new bowls that they said they would use along with the other 4 in the current proposal. Then bid out the “Championship Monday” game just like the current proposal. I feel like this would be the perfect way to blend the old bowl system, with their conference tie-in’s and history; into a new playoff format, that would produce an eventual champion on the field.
GTBob
June 27th, 2012
2:31 pm
At least it’s 4 teams which significantly narrows the problem that full blown playoffs have in which teams come out nowhere to win it all
Is coming out of no where to win it all a bad thing? Why shouldn’t teams be allowed to improve as the season goes along? The Giants had to beat 5 good teams (including Cowboys) in a row to win the championship. To me that is what a championship should be about. Not beauty contests.
jerry
June 27th, 2012
2:32 pm
This is bad news for UGA. It will now take back-to-back flukes for them to win a NC.
true
June 27th, 2012
2:52 pm
Houston, we have a problem…………each team left out will be raising hell until they up it to 64 teams……it will get more and more RIDICULOUS sooner than later
I don't think so, Tim
June 27th, 2012
2:56 pm
No, we don’t have a playoff. We have a 4-team exhibition. Division II has a playoff, Division I does not – not even with the new initiative.
PMC
June 27th, 2012
2:58 pm
Well, it’s a Plus One anyway, not really a playoff.
DeathFromAbove
June 27th, 2012
3:02 pm
So now these kids can play even more games, generating money for their schools and risking their bodies, while still making nothing? Some will now play FIFTEEN games?
Red Stick
June 27th, 2012
3:02 pm
GTBob
June 27th, 2012
2:31 pm
“Is coming out of no where to win it all a bad thing? Why shouldn’t teams be allowed to improve as the season goes along? The Giants had to beat 5 good teams (including Cowboys) in a row to win the championship. To me that is what a championship should be about. Not beauty contests.”
Then I assume that you have no problem with a 7-9 Rams team making the playoffs in 2010. If they had won the Super Bowl they would be champions with a 11-9 final record.
Playoffs with many participants makes the regular season much less important.
Geaux Tigers
Go SEC
Delbert D.
June 27th, 2012
3:04 pm
If Bobby Bowden is on the committee (he’s has lobbied for it), there goes the credibility. The sideline TV view of him in his last season asking an assistant, “What’s his name?” after his own player kicked a go-ahead field goal is explanation enough. If Brent Musberger is on the committee…well, I’d support suspending the Posse Comitatus Act to take care of that.
SecFan
June 27th, 2012
3:18 pm
Yeah Mark we have a play-off, thanks to the All-SEC championship game that you opposed. We can be eternally grateful for those true football-respecting voters who opted to match the two best teams last year instead of going for a choker that couldn’t even beat an unranked team when it controlled its own destiny. We have a play-off!!!!!!!!!!
TallaDawg
June 27th, 2012
3:22 pm
Those are some weird-looking dudes!
GTBob
June 27th, 2012
3:24 pm
Playoffs with many participants makes the regular season much less important.
So you think every sport on earth has it wrong except D1 college football? Also, you really think the regular season in college football is going to mean anything now? It was meaningless last year and will be for the foreseeable future. The myth of every game matters is dead. And no, I had no problem with the Seahawks(not Rams) making the playoffs.
octavian
June 27th, 2012
3:24 pm
Anyone who believes that a four team play-off system will last more than, say, 5-6 years is deluding himself. Sooner or later the pressure will come to expand the system. From four teams, I predict the system will morph to eight and then to twelve.
We’ve seen the NCAA basketball tournament expand from 32 (if I remember correctly) to 64 with a couple of play-in slots. And the pressure is on the expand the BB tournament.
So, look for a 12 team playoff within a decade at most.
While some may applaud this, expansion means the dectruction of the conferences.
Does it matter anymore who wins a conference BB regular season? No. All that matters is getting into the NCCA tournament.
Roll Turd
June 27th, 2012
3:38 pm
At least this is a start….not perfect…but at least a step in the right direction.
Let's Go
June 27th, 2012
3:49 pm
It’s only 4 teams right now but as soon as the first year when a PAC 12 or SEC school is not part of it they will be screaming for 8 teams. Wait and see, should of made it 16 teams to begin with
Red Stick
June 27th, 2012
4:06 pm
GTBob
June 27th, 2012
3:24 pm
“So you think every sport on earth has it wrong except D1 college football? Also, you really think the regular season in college football is going to mean anything now?”
I didn’t say every other sport has it wrong. I said having alot of teams makes the regular season less relevant. I think that is pretty accurate.
I don’t see how you can believe that the regular season was “meaningless” last season. In the last month of the season, LSU, Alabama, Okla St, Oregon and Stanford all had a chance to play for the BCS title. That doesn’t include all of the other schools that were in the mix in November to go to a BCS bowl such as Georgia, Arkansas and Virginia.
The fact of the matter is that the 2 best teams made it to New Orleans last year.
I dropped my fried twinkie
June 27th, 2012
4:21 pm
Rickster
June 27th, 2012
11:27 am
And kudos to the NCAA for removing their craniums from their nether regions to give the fans (remember us?) what we’ve been asking for for years.
Your head is still LOST somewhere IF YOU THINK THE NCAA had ANYTHING to do with the BCS or the Bowls or the new Mythical Championship.
GTBob
June 27th, 2012
4:23 pm
The fact of the matter is that the 2 best teams made it to New Orleans last year.
That isn’t a fact at all, it is your personal opinion. What I do know is that when LSU beat Alabama on the road, it was completely meaningless. When LSU played UGA in the SEC championship, the outcome was completely meaningless. All Alabama had to do last year to win a championship was beat one ranked team, and go 1-1 against another ranked team. Sorry if I don’t think that was a particularly meaningful resume for a title contender.
I dropped my fried twinkie
June 27th, 2012
4:23 pm
Speed Racer
June 27th, 2012
11:34 am
We know 8 teams will come so why didn’t they head it off at the pass and make a playoff with 6 conference champs and 2 at-large. Done.
Because the BIG Conferences are going to take the 12 years to KILL all the Lesser Conferences so Only 40 teams will EVER get a realistic shot at the Championship Game.