Get Ready Tide and Longhorn Fans, Here It Comes

Every year at this time we hear the moaning. Is it from eating too much turkey leftovers? No. Is it from too much apple pie? Nope. Too much egg nog? Uh uh. No it's the we-hate-the-college-football-postseason crowd. "It's not fair! It's Not Fair! Get Washington involved, (not the Huskies, the hucksters)!"

Let me dispel the myth that we need a college football tournament.

First I will dispel the notion that the "little guy" has no shot in the current system and that a playoff would afford at least a chance to everybody from the SEC to the Sunbelt Conference.

Utter BS! Let me ask you all a question. How far do we have to go back to find a school from a "non-BCS league" to win the NCAA basketball tournament? The answer is 1990 when UNLV won it. 20 years in a row the NCAA has been won by a BCS school. How about before that? You have Villanova ('85) and Marquette ('77) who have small time football or no football but play hoops in the Big East. So do they count?

If not then you have to go all the way back to Texas Western in the 60s. Do you know why that is? It's because the George Masons of the world are a feel good story, but asking them to beat the best of the big state universities is too much.

This year TCU out of the Mountain West was literally one second away from at least playing for the National Championship. If they had gone, they could possibly pull off the upset and win it all.

Why in football and not basketball? Simple. In football you only have to win one game. "On any given day" a TCU could beat Alabama. But not three of them like they would have to do in an 8 team playoff. A 16-team playoff would require them to beat four. It's impossible.

So in the interest of giving the TCUs of the world a chance and having a playoff, what you do is give a Florida a new life. So winning the SEC Championship in a battle of 12-0 teams would give Alabama what exactly? They would get a cupcake in the first round while UF has to play who? Oregon? So what? They would still meet again.

What happens when Florida wins the rematch? You get a team that just lost by 20 a couple of games ago playing for and maybe win the title. Is that what we want?

Now let's look at the logistics. Right now Texas and Alabama fans are making plans to go to Pasadena as are Ohio State and Oregon fans. Florida and Cincinnati fans are planning for New Orleans. Georgia Tech and Iowa are headed for Miami, while TCU and Boise State fans are headed for Arizona. Hotels have to be booked, airplane tickets must be bought. Who's going to feed the pets? Collect the mail? Did you cancel the newspaper?

Imagine now we have a playoff. Where do we hold these games? On campus? Then the big schools get another home game or maybe two? Which is more money in their pockets of course. Another case of the rich getting richer? Ok let's have them at neutral sites. Let's use the cities that will no longer host bowl games. They will need the economic boost after all after we take their bowl away.

Right now there are over 30 cities hosting bowls. To give all of them a playoff game we have to have a 32 team playoff. That's five weeks. If we cut it to four weeks, half those cities are now out of luck. So let's do the 16-team four week playoff.

You're a big Alabama fan. You want to watch the Tide roll to the title. So do you get tickets for the first round game in Tampa? You could, but what if the Tide wins and moves on to the second round game in Atlanta? "We just went to Atlanta" you say? Ok the third round game is in Arizona. Wanna book it? "Well if we wait that far let's just go ahead and book the Championship Game in Pasadena." You see where this is headed?

Every year in March we go through the same ritual. It's called selecting the NCAA field. We put 65 teams in it and STILL we get teams that cry foul because they get snubbed.

Do you really think expanding the two-team playoff (which this is) into a four-team playoff will stop the sniping? Guess what? We still have five unbeaten teams right now. Who do you tell to stay home? Expand it to eight then? OK who gets to tell No. 9 the bad news? Oh and tell Nos. 10 and 11 they didn't quite make it either.

So now we are going to replace sold out bowl games with games played in half-empty stadiums because the fan bases are split on which round to buy for.

Have you ever watched the first two days of the NCAA Tournament? Of course you have. It's must see TV. Have you noticed how empty the seats are? Is this what we want for football?

The truth is that Boise State might be able to beat Oklahoma. But they cannot beat Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Florida on consecutive weekends. You know it, I know it, and deep down they know it too.