College Football Playoff: ACC Needs to Nip Bracket Creep in the Bud

Way back in April, the BCS Commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director submitted a statement that let folks know they were entertaining the idea of a four-team playoff. The release also let folks know that the four team option was the largest one on the table; no eight or 16-team options were being discussed as a possibility (via BCS Football.org).

"Having carefully reviewed calendars and schedules, we believe that either an 8-team or a 16-team playoff would diminish the regular season and harm the bowls."

Whether you buy into the idea that it would diminish the regular season or not, the fact is four team is the option that you are going to get.

Personally, four is enough. This is about determining a champion out of the best teams, not a creating a spectacle. 

Now that the bracket creep that has been seemingly inevitable, the people who complain always moan loudest, and are already starting. Florida State Board of Trustee member Joe Gruters is already urging Florida State to push the entire ACC to back an eight-team playoff. 

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FSU Trustee Joe Gruters tells Barron and Spetman to have ACC push for 8-team playoff.@tdonline#fsu

— doug blackburn (@dblackburn) June 7, 2012

 

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I get it. The ACC is scared they will be left out of the mix if they have to have a team good enough to get into the top four to participate in the playoff.

There's a solution to that: Get better at football. Don't start lobbying to change the rules to engineer success; that's what Jim Delany is for, people. 

This bracket creep that so many are already championing for—before the four-team event is even settled upon, mind you—is going to happen.

Let it happen organically. When the fifth-best team feels like Oklahoma State this year, we'll see the swell rise. When a conference champion misses out because they are in the sixth spot and an SEC team gets into the playoff ahead of them, we'll see the swell become a wave. When a team that is not a conference champ wins the title as conference champs sit at home and watch, that wave will hit tidal proportions.

The posturing for inclusion this early is more a sign of worry than a push for opportunity.

It's worry over being left out. Worry over other people making the cash. Worry over the success of others.

The ACC, a league that already stands in a weakened position from a perception standpoint, needs to believe their teams and coaches will get things done to get into the playoff. Complaining too soon is conceding they won't have a shot. Although, given previous comments out of the ACC, perhaps the idea that they cannot get it done is not too crazy.