Tuesday, April 19, 2005
College Football’s Playoff Hopes Over?
The stage is set for what could be the final nail in the coffin at least being set for any hopes of a playoff in Division 1-A football. Later this month, the NCAA Board of Directors will vote on a proposal to lengthen the football season by a game to 12, thereby solidifying the argument that the season is already too long to add a postseason tournament.
However, the one caveat in the proposal that keeps the nail from being pounded flush is that 1-AA schools would be given the same opportunity of a 12-game regular season. That may be just enough justification for the pro-playoff camp to keep their hopes alive.
While the board will make its own decision regarding whether the proposal becomes a hard-and-fast law in the NCAA, a lone dissenter among the big conferences — the ACC — could swing the pendulum either way. On one hand, with only one conference of the 10 in Division-1 opposing the proposition that might be enough of a consensus to sway the board in favor of adopting the new expanded schedule. On the other, though, one holdout might create enough persuasion to keep the board from giving the proposal its blessing.
If the former is the end result, I believe we can kiss goodbye any thought of a 1-A playoff for the foreseeable future — which would be a shame — and say hello to a revolving door of modifications to the BCS — which also would be a shame. What have we seen already, two or three revisions to the system in seven or eight years? Without a playoff, the BCS will be tweaked and re-tweaked until either a system is found that really does work, or we all throw our hands up in surrender to simply make it stop.
The ACC is the only conference that did not vote "yea" on the expanded schedule proposal last week, citing academic and length of season as reasons for keeping the status quo. It seems interesting that the primary roadblock to a playoff is the concern of only one group of schools. For years, the playoff naysayers (primarily athletic directors and NCAA mucky-mucks) have used the classroom as its main reason for not wanting an "other than the bowls" system of crowning the national champion; yet, sans the ACC, none of them are crying "grades" as a reason to not expand the regular season.
The other reason the ACC doesn't want the expanded schedule is because the bye week might be in jeopardy. The week off has become so significant and critical to keeping, or more appropriately getting, a team healthy that even the NFL worked a bye week into its schedule some years ago. How many times have we seen a struggling team get a week off, then look like an entirely different unit on the field because they had a week to heal up and work out the bugs? I'm surprised that more ADs aren't taking this into consideration when weighing the pros and cons of having an extra week of games.
However, under current rules, Division-1 football had 12-game seasons in 2002 and 2003 and every school had some sort of time off, even if it wasn't a full-blown bye week. The schedule featured several teams that played on Saturday one week, had the next Saturday off but played a Thursday game the following week, and then played on a Friday or Saturday the week after that. Many other schools did have a whole two weeks between games at least once during the seasons, so it would appear that the bye week would not be in as much jeopardy as originally thought, although things can change with time.
The bottom line, though, is that what appears to be the driving force behind the expanded schedule is, in fact, the bottom line. An extra game every year means an extra game on TV and more revenue for the conferences.
The question that needs to be asked, however, is why do the conferences think (if they do) they can make more money with an extra week during the regular season than they could with a playoff? I suppose it could be answered by arguing that, with an extra playing day during the season, every team would be playing and not just the eight or 16 in a playoff format; therefore, more conferences would get paid from TV games and more schools would draw in money from having a home game or sharing as the visiting team.
But let me ask this question: what gets the college football fan more fired up? A non-conference game between Akron and San Jose State (no disrespect intended to either school) on a regional sports network or a postseason game between Texas and Florida State on national TV? I would bet that the latter would have wider national interest, the TV share and advertising revenue would far outweigh what the former would draw, and the NCAA could come up with a revenue-sharing formula where all the conferences would benefit from such a game. Sure, the Big 12 and ACC would get a higher percentage of the take than the rest of the conferences, but I bet there would be enough to go around for everyone to be satisfied, especially when we're talking about 16 teams.
So, while the NCAA board mulls over its decision in the next couple of weeks, I hope that those members who are forward thinkers and still hold the idea of a playoff system in the back of their minds vote with their conscience and not the conferences. And, hopefully, the undertaker's hammer won't drown out the voice of reason.