Gee Wiz
Wonder who in college football is opposed to a playoff system? Look no further than Ohio State.
President E. Gordon Gee, athletic director Gene Smith and head coach Jim Tressell are all opposed to a playoff, and they think the current system is fine. It’s actually not just them, but pretty much everyone in college football except the fans.
President Gee actually calls the issue his Maginot Line without a hint of irony. So we’re stuck with hoping that one of the TV networks brings Hitler out of retirement in Bolivia.
Red line represents burning couches.
“We will not cross that line and get onto the slippery slope — the professional-ization of college football and a furthering of the arms race,” he said. “We simply have to say no. If we don’t say no to this, the horse has left the barn totally. I will vote against it under any circumstance.”
He will continue to mix metaphors though.
Gee and Tressell have come up with five reasons to support the current system:
1) Adding more games is bad for the players’ welfare, particularly those who plan to try their hand at pro football.
Not sure I understand this particular argument. We currently have teams playing 13 and 14 game seasons, those extra two games coming from conference championship and bowl games. With an eight team playoff system, at most you would have 2 teams playing an three extra games and 4 teams playing two extra games.
2) Shortening the regular season to make room for playoff games in December won’t work, because schools need all the home-game revenue they can get.Start the season earlier.
3) You can’t ask fans to travel to neutral-site playoff games two or three weeks in a row.See Tournament, NCAA Basketball. And don’t try to pretend you’re concerned about the fans when it’s the vast majority of fans who are pushing for a playoff.
If you’re concerned about the travel distance, make the playoff sites regional or give the higher ranked team home field advantage.
4) If you have home-site playoff hosts, you crush the bowl system. And bowls are worth preserving.Some bowls are worth preserving. Most are not.
5) They don’t see the necessity to clear up the “Who’s really the best team?” debate that seems to pop up annually.
Every other NCAA sport has a national champion decided through a playoff system.
Thoughts?
May 6, 2008 at 11:17 am
This issue is relevant to my interests and I am encouraged to see it finally receiving some discussion on the internet.
May 6, 2008 at 11:26 am
Ohowihateohio State has the Rose Bowl as an option, which is nice. So, yeah, the status quo probably looks good to them.
I’m thankful I was able to see both of our games there, because I don’t think Texas will ever have a chance for that bowl game again.
I’m for any championship combination which means we will never have to play in the Cotton Bowl unless it’s October, might have a chance at the Rose Bowl and improves our basketball television package while we’re at it. And if it could incorporate a reassignment of Chris Plonsky that would be nice.
May 6, 2008 at 11:50 am
Anger. Wait, that’s an emotion.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact Ohio State seems to think they can cake walk through the current Big 10 for the next 4-5 years.
May 6, 2008 at 12:04 pm
There is not a single valid argument against an 8 or 16 team playoff for Division I college football. Not one.
May 6, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I am opposed to anything that causes college football to more closely resemble the NFL. Professional football is almost unwatchable (but not quite). Besides, we are one of the “haves”. Why would we want to open the door to cinderella teams? Disney princesses are wh*res, and mid-major teams can go eff themselves in the Liberty Bowl.
May 6, 2008 at 12:22 pm
We’re a have but the idea that we’re going to be in the NC game very often much less every year is laughable. Two BCS trips and counting.
However, making “the tourney” most years is a lot more likely and is a lot more entertaining than playing Iowa in San Antonio.
May 6, 2008 at 12:31 pm
How the hell many “cinderella” teams are going to be in the national Top 8 at the end of the year? Or even the top 16, for that matter? Hell, we’re a “have” and we’d have been a freaking cinderella the last two years in a playoff system.
May 6, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Missouri, Kansas, WV, Hawaii, Illinois, BC and Clemson were all in the final 2007 BCS top 15. All of these schools are “have nots”, and have very little chance of playing in the NC with similar resumes to the “haves”. I have no interest in seeing any of them play for the NC. Call me an elitist, but I like being one of a handful of schools that gets preferential treatment when the NC is being considered. Of course we still have to win games and not choke away conference titles, but if UT and Clemson have identical records, I like knowing that we are going to play for the NC and there will be much pissing and moaning in South Carolina.
May 6, 2008 at 1:23 pm
All of them were also pretty damn salty football teams, SO. On any given day, all but probably Hawaii or BC could have hung with LSU - which had two losses - and Ohio State, which had one. Why are they any less deserving of having a shot at the national championship than a team that lost two games? Just curious.
May 6, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I agree that they were deserving, but obviously in the current system that is not enough for one of the “have nots” to make it. We are fortunate enough to be a “have”. Why let the less fortunate in our club? I am selfish. I make no excuses.
May 6, 2008 at 1:31 pm
We already have a fucking playoff system, and no one benefits more from it than Ohio St. Of course they don’t want any changes made to it.
May 6, 2008 at 1:33 pm
we don’t need a playoff. The big 10/11 and the pac 10 bitches need to be forced to have a conference championship game.
May 6, 2008 at 1:33 pm
“1) Adding more games is bad for the players’ welfare, particularly those who plan to try their hand at pro football.”
And when they get to the pros they will play how many games?
May 6, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Veblen would say that the very inefficiency of the current system is our way of displaying wealth and status; we keep the bowl system precisely because it shows that we can afford not to change.
However shaky, there’s an explanation (if not a defense) of the current system for you.
May 6, 2008 at 4:36 pm
The sage Coach Callahan makes a good point.
May 6, 2008 at 7:15 pm
“Every other NCAA sport has a national champion decided through a playoff system.”
Every other sport needs a postseason tournament in order to stir up some interest.
May 6, 2008 at 7:17 pm
“There is not a single valid argument against an 8 or 16 team playoff for Division I college football. Not one.”
That’s where I believe you’re wrong, sir.
Is there any valid argument against a 4 team playoff? Probably not. There are way too many great #3’s and in some years #4’s who don’t get a shot they very much deserve. Miami 2000. USC 2003. Auburn 2004. Georgia 2007.
But your argument starts from a faulty assumption. It assumes that an 8 or 16 team playoff is needed. That assumption and the “need” for an 8 or 16 team playoff dies with one question: what #5 ranked team EVER deserved a shot at the national championship? The answer is “none”.
Let’s go further. Go back and find me a #9 ranked team that deserved a shot. Go back as far as you like through the AP final rankings.
The argument for an 8 team playoff is one of pure personal preference with no bearing on logistics, necessity, or reality. The argument for a 16 team playoff is infinitely worse.
“Why are they any less deserving of having a shot at the national championship than a team that lost two games?”
Kansas got their shot at Missouri on a neutral field, and they couldn’t hang. The only reason they won the Orange Bowl was due to a matchup against an offensively inept VT team.
This is the same Missouri that got punked by OU. TWICE. Remember OU from the Fiesta Bowl? Yeah, THAT OU team.
Illinois? Clearly, you missed the Rose Bowl. They were NOT among the elite.
West Virginia might have been a deserving team. Now you’ve got a third team I’ll concede.
Clemson? Four losses.
The fourth team? Georgia of course. Except they didn’t even win their own conference (the OU rule applies here).
At best, with a deep field this year, there aren’t more than four legit title contenders truly deserving of a shot.
I think the time is past due for a four team playoff. But there’s not enough year in, year out parity among the top 10 to justify 8 or 16 team playoffs.
May 6, 2008 at 8:10 pm
“And when they get to the pros they will play how many games?”
And when they were in high school they played how many games?
May 7, 2008 at 5:58 am
Fraid I still come down on the side of leaving things be. I’m just not ready to lose that life or death feeling that goes along with huge regular season match-ups. There’s just a little more adrenalin when the attitude is “we’re pretty much fucked if we lose this game in October” as opposed to “oh well, dude, we’re still in the driver’s seat for that #8 seed”.
This is the kind of argument I’ve had on barstools for years & will keep having for awhile, and, yes, I’m as tired as anyone of these slow, soft pattycake Ohio St. teams waltzing in for their annual ass-kicking, but these things are cyclical and I’d still rather have the big argument in my sport be “who’s #2?” and the champion be a team with no more than 1 loss.
And having been to to title games, I can tell you that one of the best things about being there is that the stands ARE populated with actual fans of the teams. Great atmosphere. Go to a tournament format and that title game WILL turn into a corporate fuckfest. Just picture Chad, Trip and Thurston from the Pepsi front office - easily recognizable in their newly purchased oversized replica jerseys that only partially hide the crease on the front of their jeans from that morning’s ironing job - squinting at the field and asking other things like “Who plays QB for these guys?”, “What’s that orange cow head on the helmet all about?” and “Why are the cheerleaders wearing sweaters?? I mean, spandex anyone? HEL - LOOO!!”
One Super Bowl is enough.
May 7, 2008 at 7:13 am
@ NateHeupel - How can you say that, especially after this last year?
Now, I am/will not claim that Kansas deserved to be the National Champion. However, even before Ohio State was humiliated and Kansas won their BCS game, you couldn’t logically say that Ohio State had earned the right to play in that game any more than Kansas.
Both teams had 1 loss - Ohio State’s was AT HOME to Illinois. Illinois, conveniently lost to Missouri, the team that beat Kansas on a neutral field.
- Personally, I would say LSU was most deserving of the national title this year. With that said, though, I think you could argue that 6 teams (i.e. Georgia, USC, OU, WVA, Kansas & Missouri) were just as deserving as Ohio State for the right to play them.
My personal opinion is that while 4 would be better than what there is now, 8 would be perfect.
May 7, 2008 at 9:48 am
There is not a single valid argument against an 8 or 16 team playoff for Division I college football. Not one.
You sound like a reasonable, objective thinker.
Look, the manner in which we determine what team (if any) is the “best” in a particular sport in a given year is fundamentally arbitrary. Many sports employ some form of end-of-seasons elimination tournament to fulfill this function, but as we all know, resort to majority opinion is a logical fallacy. So, merely pointing out that “everyone else does it” is insufficient.
What the best system is for any particular sport will be determined by the nature of the sport and the league, as well as the fan’s and player’s goals. In my view, an elimination tournament works well for sports in which many games may be played in a short period of time, the regular season schedules are somewhat-balanced but not perfectly-balanced, the playoffs do not alter the calculus of team quality (e.g. baseball, where shortening the pitching rotation favors teams with 2 dominant starters over teams with 5 good starters), and the transitive property (i.e. A > B, B > C, therefore A > C) is likely to hold. The NBA is a good example of a sport that satisfies these criteria.
In my opinion, college football fails on many of the criteria listed. The schedules in college football are horribly unbalanced, because a given team will only play roughly 10% of the total teams and there is very little cross-over in terms of common opponents between teams in separate conferences. Only one game may be played per week, meaning that the tournament must be single-elimination, and as such is inherently more likely to yield an erroneous answer to the question “which team is better?” than is a series-based playoff. Also, because of the relative parity in college football and the diversity of offensive and defensive systems, the transitive property has a fairly weak application.
As such, I believe that college football warrants a different system for determining the best team. Because of the sparse scheduling overlap among the top teams, a polling system is not a bad idea at all. Putting the question up to a vote of a (relatively) informed electorate makes sense.
Add to these practical considerations the subjective ones, such as the uniqueness and tradition of college football, and I believe that the old system of bowls and polls is the best fit. And my opinion is based on sound reasoning, not unsupported proclamations based on nothing more than sheep-like worship of foolish consistency.
May 7, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I am generally a playoff supporter, but I suspect that if an eight or 16 team playoff existed, the power teams might start to move to schemes that put the QB at less risk- say like Texas Tech’s.
Think about it. If a team had to win four games against elite defenses to win a NC, are they likely to build the offense around the QB as a primary ball-carrier, like the last three MNCs did (with Florida in 2006, I’m referring to Tebow and not Leak). In 2005, Texas only had to run VY in a few games. If there were a playoff, he would have to run the ball a lot weeks in a row, risking injury.
With a playoff, D-1A might become more like the NFL, where the focus each week is keeping your QB healthy and knocking out the other QB. We might see fewer of the unique offenses that make college football so great.
Just a thought.
May 10, 2008 at 2:33 pm
JMO, but I agree with those who believe that the current system would work better if you make the PAC 10 and the Big X, or whatever the hell number they are this year, play a ttle game.
I could see four team after the bowls, but no more.
May 11, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Kansas?
Seriously. If you are going to use a team as an example for a playoff, don’t pick one that didn’t even win it’s own 6 team division, much less it’s own conference.
The +1 game is the way to go. There are already 4 sites for BCS games with 5 total games. Rotate the site of the NC game, and alternate the semi-finals. #1 plays #4, #2 plays #3, winners meet 10 days later for the championship.
Sure, the #5 team is going to be pissed, but the chances of a #5 team having a legit gripe are a lot smaller than the #3 team.