Except for the NFL, every major sport, be it pro or college, observes a "bracket format" in its postseason.
This means that, in the new 12-team FBS college football playoffs that will get under way on December 20, for example, if the 12 seed in the first round upsets the 5 seed, the 1 seed does not get to play the 12 seed in the quarterfinals after having had a bye in the first round. Instead, the 1 seed will face the winner of the game between the 8 seed and the 9 seed.
On what planet is this fair?
Shouldn't a team, like this year's undefeated Oregon Ducks, be rewarded as much as possible for having finished the regular season as the only unbeaten team in FBS — and that means being guaranteed to play the lowest surviving seed for as far as they go in the playoff?
After all, as John Houseman said in that iconic 1981 Smith Barney commercial, they earned it — and why should a three-loss team ever get in at the expense of a two-loss team?
Not only that, but what if a team thinks that they are already assured of a 1 seed or a 2 seed going into their last regular-season game, so they decide to rest most of their starters, thus giving their opponents in that game what could prove to be a free pass into the playoff? This is particularly frequent in conference tournaments in basketball.
Then there is the matter of what needs to be done about Notre Dame, Oregon State, UConn, UMass, and Washington State: All five of these teams need to join conferences; otherwise they should become ineligible for the playoff — and in the case of UConn and UMass, be forced to drop to the FCS.
And speaking of Notre Dame: As one admittedly bitter Alabama fan tweeted on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter two weeks ago, "This isn't 1940 anymore," and he demanded that the Fighting Irish join a conference — immediately.
Plus, since three-loss Clemson made the "Dirty Dozen," shouldn't they be saddled with the most difficult path in the playoff? Only with re-seeding would this happen.
(Admittedly, it would not be practical to re-seed the teams after every round in college basketball; instead, the survivors would need to be re-seeded entering both the Sweet 16 and the Final Four due to travel considerations.)
After slotting Notre Dame into the ACC, where they already play in all sports except football and hockey, there is room at the proverbial inn for Oregon State and Washington State to join the Big 12, leaving four of the "Big 5" conferences with 18 teams, with the SEC at 16 (an odd number of teams is not feasible because in no case can a conference consisting of an odd number of teams all play the same number of games if that same number is an odd number).
In addition, the tiebreakers need some tweaking: if three teams finish tied, and Team A was 1-0 against the other two, with Team B 1-1 and Team C 0-1, that should break the tie, in that order. (The NFL did this from 1970 through 1977, all inclusive — even though it never actually came up However, if Teams A, B and C are tied and C had played neither A nor B, head-to-head cannot be applied.)
Similarly, if four or more teams are tied, head-to-head should be applicable so long as every team involved in the tie had at least one opportunity to have played one or more of the others.
These steps will make it more likely for the matter to be settled on the field, and not by some wonky algorithm.
And cleaning up these issues will lead to fewer complaints all the way around — complaining having become the new national pastime, in the sports world and out of it.
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