College Football: Bring on the playoffs!
Posted by Chance on January 4, 2007
Before the season started, I made a few predictions on who the champs would be, and who would go to the national championship. Concerning the conference champs prediction, I was 1 for 6, predicting that Florida would be the SEC conference champ. I didn’t expect Texas to have the collapse they did at the end of the year.
Concerning Oklahoma State, I predicted a 7 and 5 regular season record, but they went 6-6 in the regular season, with a bowl win over Alabama for an overall record of 7-6. I suppose that is not too bad. Their marquee win was over Nebraska, and they played most opponents very well and were one last play away from beating many opponents, including OU.
I predicted that the national championship game would be Notre Dame vs. West Virginia. I didn’t expect Ohio State to do as good as they did, with so many new people on defense.
The Oklahoma-Boise State game had to be one of the best college football games that I have seen. It was like watching a sports movie. At first, Oklahoma was the hero of said movie, rallying from behind to tie the game, then making an interception return for a touchdown with 1 minute left. However, it didn’t take long for Boise State to become the hero of this theoretical film, as they tied the game with 7 seconds left with a trick play, then won in overtime with another trick play.
As many columnists have cried out after this game, college football should move to a playoff system. What if…What if Boise State is good enough to beat Ohio State, or at the very least, give them a good game? Even the USC-Michigan game made people wonder how well USC would do against Ohio State.
The main argument against a college football playoff system is the additional amount of games. But games are being added all the time, as a 12-game regular season was approved this year. Teams with a conference championship game can potentially play 14 games. Furthermore, CF playoffs exist in other divisions. If teams were limited to 10 (without a conf-champ game) or 11 (with a conf-champ game), there would easily be a 16 team playoff system.
There could still be bowls. Teams with winning records could play bowls in the post season right along the top 16 playing in the championship bracket.
As it is right now, the opportunity to play in the championship is based too much on subjective opinions. Sure, Ohio State won all their games, but so did Boise State. And we have already had seasons with three or more undefeated teams. The playoff system is only fair.
Zoo Station 
Velcro said
How ’bout making each playoff game a bowl game, with the big bowls being the quarter finals & so on.
Another argument against it is money made from the bowl games, but I don’t think my plan would affect the money issue so much.
Another big argument FOR having playoffs is that waiting 6-7 weeks in January really makes for many bowl teams to be somewhat sluggish in the first 2 quarters of their bowl game.
I’d like to see the teams playing in bowl games at full strength. Take care!
Ladies Man said
Check my new profile nigga
Titania Starlight said
I’m a friend of Josh aka Gabattha aka Ladies Man. :o)~
Heard you will be filling in for him while he is having fun. Just wanted to say hello.
Michael Westmoreland-White said
I’ve long advocated for a playoff system in college ball, but it would have to replace the bowl system or it would make the season far too long–even longer than now.
BTW, Chance, since you don’t advertise your email, this is the only way I can ask for feedback on my blog posts on the topic of limited government. See http://anabaptist418.blogspot.com/2006/11/limited-government-i.html
and also http://anabaptist418.blogspot.com/2007/01/limited-government-ii-subsidiarity.html
preacherman said
Who do you think will win the big game tonight? FL Or OH ST.?
Chance said
preacherman, I think Florida will win. Call it a hunch, call it my insightful college football wisdom, or it may be the fact that it is now halftime and Florida leads 34-14.
Glen Dean said
I am all for the playoff. I would love to see Boise play in a national tournament. However, if we had one this year, assuming LSU and Florida were in different brackets, those two would have played for the national title this year and LSU would have won. That is how good the SEC was this year.
Chance said
Glen,
As you have implied, or pretty much said, I do think the SEC was the best conference this year. LSU has been very dominant in their two bowl games, and it is very conceivable that they could have been Florida on neutral turf.
As far as the bowl system, I see them existing concurrently, where, like velcro said, some of the bowls being the quarterfinals and so on, and teams not in the playoffs still playing their one bowl game while the top 16 do their playoffs in other bowls.