A Playoff in College Football?

So after last weekend's games, in which Notre Dame managed to qualify for a BCS spot with a 38-31 win over Stanford, there is lots of talk about whether they deserve a BCS berth as opposed to a 9-2 Ohio State team, a 9-2 Auburn team, or a 10-1 Oregon team.

The truth is, they don't. None of those four teams really deserves a berth in the BCS over any of the other ones. All four teams have played very well this season, and they all have shown their merit as a solid football team and should be allowed to play in one of the biggest postseason games this year.

The issue is that since Notre Dame is the only team in major sports in the United States today with an exclusive television deal (outside of franchises where the owner of said team also owns a cable television network), they obviously have a large national following. Now with said large national following, the advertising for their game is going to be rather expensive, so the organizers of the bowl are going to want to make as much money as possible through advertising, and they'll of course pick Notre Dame. Are they better than any of the other four teams? Not necessarily. All four teams have shown shades of being very good, but also shades of being horrible.

The debate is all a moot point if FSU and Georgia somehow manage to win their conference championship games against Virginia Tech and LSU, respectively. If that happens, then the latter two teams should definitely get the last two bowl berths and the argument is dead. Notice, though, I said they should get the last two bowl berths, not a given that they would, and this is all assuming that Texas doesn't have much of a problem with Colorado in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Now comes the argument of a playoff system, and why it would be so much better than having the bowls. There are two types of playoff systems that are brought to the table more often than not. The first is the idea that the winners of the BCS bowls have a four-team playoff after the bowl games or something of the like. That doesn't really eliminate any kind of issues with teams being left out because it leaves the BCS in place, so there's no point in even really talking about that.

The second is the standard playoff system. Have a three- or four-round system of eight or 16 teams, and have one team come out on top. This is another good idea, but it is also flawed. The first reason that this type of playoff wouldn't work is because there would need to be a general ranking system that would give us the top eight or 16 teams.

We'll use this season as an example. We'll start by taking the top eight teams and go from there for our first playoff system. The top eight teams in the BCS are USC, Texas, Penn State, LSU, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Oregon, and Notre Dame. One of the many arguments here is why would Notre Dame make it in instead of a team like Miami, who gave the Hokies their only loss of the season pretty handily? They'd make a very nice miniature "bracket-buster" in this mix.

Also, what about West Virginia? They're the class of their conference, and they've had a great season. Are you to tell me that the Big 10 and Pac-10 deserve two teams while the Big East gets none? Then we'll go to the top 16 teams instead to make sure that all of the deserving teams get invited to our little playoff soirée.

So, we take the above teams and add Miami, Auburn, West Virginia, UCLA, TCU, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas Tech. What, then, makes Texas Tech and Alabama so much better than Wisconsin and Louisville? Texas Tech lost to Oklahoma State! Alabama is on its way to mediocrity, and if the season had three more games and they had to play decent teams, their record at the end of the season could easily be 10-5. The debate that would come with the playoff system is just like the debate that accompanies the bowl system and the debate that goes along with March Madness in college basketball.

Like it or not, there is no fool-proof way to decide a national champion. People have problems left and right with the bowl system as it is, but the BCS has done some things correctly. I mean, we could go back in time seven years where USC would be playing Penn State, and Texas would go up against Virginia Tech or LSU and we'd have two national champions. At least this way, there will only be one. Stop complaining and just enjoy the games.

Random Notes

* Even with Byron Leftwich breaking his ankle in Sunday's game, the Jags can be pretty confident that they can finish with a 12-4 or 11-5 record for the season with games coming up at Cleveland, vs. Indy, vs. San Fran, at Houston, and vs. Tennessee.

* Just bought "NCAA Football" over the weekend for XBox. I'm 11-0 and I need to beat USC in the last game of the season to have a chance for the national title. Should be a good game.