Playoffs vs. Bowl Games: College Season Too Good to Change

Charlie Willson

College basketball's regular season is often a test of wills . . . for the fans. College football, on the other hand, has games of utmost importance beginning in the first week. This is because basketball has a winner-take-all postseason tournament and football doesn't.

Everyone who swears the only way to save college football from its inadequate bowl system is to implement an eight- or 16-team post-season playoff is suggesting that the most exciting regular season in major sports be scrapped in favor of three months of playoff preliminaries. College football easily has the most entertaining and meaningful regular season of any major sport. A post-season playoff would change all that. Here's why:

The reason college basketball's regular season is comparatively ponderous is that most teams worth their field goal percentage are assured of making the post-season tournament (64 out of about 300 division 1-A teams make it to the big dance). In basketball, a loss, or numerous early regular season losses do not make or break a team ranked in the top 15, so the intensity of play is not always at its best. But part of college football's draw is the fact that every game of the regular season is like a do-or-die playoff game for a title contender. Few things in sports are more exciting than when two college football teams face off knowing a loss would mean they have little or no chance for a title. In college football, the regular season perenially provides viewers with numerous games like this.

With a playoff system, however, a loss in a regular season game might not preclude a playoff berth. In turn, the teams involved might not want to "show too much" in order to save exciting strategy for the playoffs. They might also protect the health of their stars for the playoffs and keep them out of the basically meaningless matchups. A playoff might render the college football regular season completely toothless.

Supporters of a playoff system also point to the flaws in the bowl system as a reason to switch. There is no question the bowl system has flaws. But in an eight-team playoff system, every year, team number nine will cry foul just as loudly as number three does now for being left out of a chance for the national title. If a team as poor as big east champion Syracuse can earn a spot in the supposedly elite Bowl Championship Series this year, what will prevent them from getting into the playoffs?

Another effect a playoff might have is the perpetual rewarding of traditional powers. After a mediocre season, powers like Nebraska, Tennesssee, and Ohio State are left in the top eight, probably because pollsters just assume a traditional power is a top team (even with two or three losses). Nobody cares right now, because rankings three through eight have little import. But with an eight-team playoff (or worse, a 16-team playoff), these powers left in the top eight would be unfairly rewarded, and the matchups would repeat and get stale. Also, a highly held team might realize that a 10-1 or 9-2 record would be good enough to earn a berth, no matter how bad the inter-conference schedule. In turn, such teams might lower the quality of their schedule, eliminating many of the good, early season inter-conference matchups seen in college football's season currently.

A likely outcome of a playoff system would be an underdog team finding its way, on the strength of a hot player, all the way to the title. Exciting, you say? Maybe for basketball, but not in football. Part of college football's heritage is that a team must prove itself over the entire season, not just at the end. There are rarely eight (or 16) championship-caliber teams in any given season.

Don't get me wrong. A single-elimination tournament would be pretty exciting; Top teams facing off on national television. A title on the line. One loss and you're done.

Funny, that sounds like the current regular season.