Will We Ever Have a True Champion in College Football?

Year after year in college football it is inevitable. A nontraditional football team goes undefeated or has an abnormally good season, but when it's all said and done at the end of the season, is overlooked for consideration to play in the coveted national championship game.

Instead, a one- or two-loss team that happens to be a traditional powerhouse is placed in the top game due to the coaches' polls and a computer-generated system that ranks the teams based on numerous statistical considerations (i.e. strength of schedule, win/ loss record, point differential, etc...). Unlike most other collegiate sports, college football has never had an undisputed champion, in my opinion. Money, tradition and television ratings are what control college football.

I have been an athlete for most of my life, from the age of six through college. I have played football, basketball, baseball and soccer. Football is the sport at which I excelled the most, and is the sport that I continue to follow the most.

In most colleges around the country, football is the largest revenue generator, with large crowds, paid travel games and television broadcasting for some schools that make millions year after year. The tradition has always been within the elite level of college football.

Teams at the end of the year play what are called bowl games. Bowl games are sponsored by a company or an organization, as in the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, The Fed-Ex Orange Bowl, and The Humanitarian Bowl". These bowls are games that are played in most cases about three or four weeks after the regular college season has ended, normally on or after December 25th.

The way it works is, once the final games have been played, the bowl committees attempt to get the best two teams to agree to play in their sponsored bowl. The schools get paid a certain amount, and the sponsors get residual revenues (advertising exposure and other incremental payments from the event). The top bowl is the Rose Bowl, which is played in Pasadena, California, where the two schools get hundreds of thousands of dollars for being selected to play.

Traditionally, only powerhouse schools have ever competed for the national championship. Mid-major schools such as Boise and TCU have been left out most of the time because of the computer-generated strength-of-schedule formula. So schools such as Alabama, Texas, USC, Florida, etc. are normally the odds-on favorites to get the invites to the big game.

BCS administrators feel comfortable with this equation because it's a safe bet for everyone. By handpicking the two teams to play in the national championship game, it assures that the television ratings will hold sufficient numbers. It also assures that both schools will get paid, and the tradition stays alive.

However, as technology grows and schools gain more independence, the college football talent level has begun to spread evenly throughout the country. In the past, all elite athletes would strive to get to a big school, because that's where they would have the best opportunity to play on national television. They would have more exposure to NFL scouts and would have an opportunity every year to compete for a national championship.

Now things have begun to change. Television coverage has expanded, and channels such as ESPN have added to their channel lineup, thus giving small schools such as Boise, TCU, Texas Tech and South Florida an opportunity to display their talents on the national level. High school athletes now have more choices to be seen on the collegiate level and to play right away, versus having to sit behind other elite talents at the big schools.

The Big Three—Money, Tradition and Television—are the main factors stopping college football from determining a true champion. With a playoff system, we would no longer have to debate who the best is and who should or shouldn't have made it to the big show. A playoff system could restore the essence of amateur sports.

Right now it's all about making money, and not about the game itself. We all have a tendency to forget that college athletes are amateur athletes, and the schools, the conferences and the NCAA as a whole are nothing more than businesses looking to maximize their revenue.

This is the reason why the NCAA administrators fight so hard to protect their tradition, because the way the system is set up right now allows for a select few to control the money stream. What's the point of having two teams be considered the best in the country, when at the end of the season they don't have a chance to play each other to determine the who's No. 1?

Most college sports have some sort of end-of-season playoff tournament. College basketball has one. College hockey, baseball and track and field all have a playoff to determine the elite. All except for football.

There are two main arguments against the playoff proposal. First is the fact that the college football regular season is completed around the end of November, and the playoffs would have to be played through Christmas and New Year's while the students are on holiday break.

The answer to this dilemma would be to adjust the start of the season, scheduling the first game a couple of weeks earlier. This would allow for the championship game to be held as it is now, around the first week in January.

Secondly, there's a concern that part of the true essence of college football, the fan travel and various matchups, could cause travel tribulations for fans week after week, depending on how far their team makes it in the playoffs.

The best solution to this would be to adopt the college basketball platform, having regionally-based locations for the matchups. With a six-team playoff, this can be done easily.

Just as in all of my columns, these are simply my opinions, and I am always open to other suggestions that may potentially change my opinions, if they make sense. However, in regards to this topic, there's no scenario that I see feasible in which a computer and pollsters determine the championship matchup.

We as fans are being robbed of the true essence of the sport, and we deserve to see the amateur athletes determine the best of the best, and not a couple of guys sitting in a boardroom looking to make the most money out of the situation.

That's my opinion. What say you? Feel free to leave a comment.