Top 10 Stupid Arguments for a College Playoff

10. You always insist that playoffs will ruin the importance and excitement of the regular season games, but NFL football has a very inclusive playoff system, and their regular season games get much higher TV ratings than college games. How do you explain that?

The NFL's ratings advantage over college football has nothing to do with their playoff format. College football gets lower ratings because its top teams are mostly located in small TV markets outside of the population-rich Northeast corridor.

9. You say that college football regular season games are do-or-die. Then how come a two-loss LSU team won the national championship last year?

In 35 of the last 50 years, the National Champion has been undefeated. One-loss champions are the exception, and LSU’s championship may end up being a singular event. College games are do-or-die relative to the NFL, where six and seven-loss teams regularly make the playoffs.

If it makes you happy, in the future I’ll say “do-or-probably-die.” That’ll be real snappy. Thanks a lot, Word Police.

8. In the BCS, the best teams don't play against each other.

In an eight-team playoff, there would be a total of seven playoff games to determine the champion. In this year's regular season, as of Week 10, we have already had six marquee matchups between teams ranked in the top eight. We may end the year with nine, more than in an eight-team playoff.

We’ve also already had 26 games between teams ranked in the top 25, already more than we would have in a 24-team playoff.

7. The National Championship should be settled on the field.

Traditionally, the National Champion is undefeated. If a team loses and doesn't make the NC game, it was settled on the field when they lost. In a playoff, if a team loses a single game, they’re eliminated too, right? Pete Carroll lost to Oregon State. He should stop crying and admit he got eliminated by a Cinderella for the second year in a row.

What’s different about the current system is that a one-loss team can actually get a second chance, provided there aren’t two undefeated teams at the end of the season. Rather than be grateful for a possibility at another shot, “left-outs” whine for a playoff.

I understand that many people get frustrated because they want to see all the one-loss teams play off against each other at the end of the season. They also want to make sure there is an undisputed champion every year. However, a limited playoff won’t work.

6. Why won’t it work? Don’t give me this exciting regular season nonsense. I only want a four- or eight-team playoff. The regular season games will be just as important.

That’s true. I would support an eight-team playoff, except it would create more problems than it would solve. The ongoing controversies will force it to expand. Playoffs are like government entitlements: Once you start them, they just keep growing and growing.

Div. I-AA football began their playoff with four teams and expanded to 16 within five years. Currently, they are at 18 and recently voted to expand to 20 teams in 2010.

Considering all the money and prestige associated with I-A football, I predict that once you introduce a playoff, it will be pressured to grow to 32 teams in less than five years.

5. I don’t believe you. Are you sure you’re not getting paid off by the evil money-grubbing Big Ten commissioner?

Here's the perfect playoff: the six BCS conference champs, plus two wild cards. You can even keep your stupid traditional bowl games, and it won’t interfere with the school’s academic schedules. What’s the problem with that?

You don’t have enough wild cards. For example, this year your playoff would have to leave out strong teams like Ohio State, Georgia, and Oklahoma, yet include weaker conference champions like Florida State and West Virginia.

What if Georgia’s left out and Georgia Tech wins the ACC? What happens when Georgia crushes Tech the last week of the season?

Seriously, you’re going to send Oklahoma to the Alamo Bowl, while North Carolina gets a shot at the NC in a playoff? The state of Oklahoma would secede from the Union.

The BCS will look like a monument to common sense and order compared to the chaos that would envelop college football every November.



4. Hmmm. OK, then we’ll have a 16-team playoff. That’ll give us 10 wild cards. That should shut everybody up.

Unfortunately, that won’t work either. Once you go to 16 teams, you will have to give an automatic berth to the five non-BCS conference champions. They will sue you if you don’t. The lawsuit is already prepared and pointed at the BCS like a loaded rifle.

To accommodate them, your playoff will have to have all 11 conference champions and five wild cards. That’s still not going to be enough wild cards, especially now that weaker non-BCS teams are participating.

For example, this year, quality teams like Ohio State and Oklahoma State would get left out in favor of non-BCS conference champions like Central Michigan and Troy. Nobody’s going to accept that for a minute.

Bottom line: A playoff won't even to come close to passing the absurdity test until there are 24 teams, with all 11 conference champions, plus 13 wild cards. That’s why the NCAA basketball tournament ended up with 65 teams after starting with just eight teams.

3. OK, OK, I admit it. We can’t have a limited playoff in a 119-team “league,” especially since the individual teams have the freedom to set their own schedules and there is no reverse-record order draft mechanism to enforce a balance of power.

But what’s so bad about a 24-team format? I still enjoy regular season college basketball games, despite their communist playoff system where practically every team in the country participates regardless of ability.

I'm happy you enjoy those games, comrade. As a Florida football fan, I "enjoy" watching their spring scrimmage game.

But if you can't feel the difference in intensity between a regular season college football game and a regular season college basketball game, you need to get your head examined. You may have deep-seated emotional problems.

Also, to make room in the calendar for a 24-team playoff, you’re going to have to cut the regular season in half, cancel Christmas, or move the Super Bowl to March. Good luck with all of those proposals

Oh, and by the way, the NCAA basketball regular season started this week. Please don’t pretend you noticed. Nobody else did.

2. Now I finally understand what you mean, but I still want a playoff. The BCS process just drives me crazy. It's not logical or linear, and there aren't those symmetrical bracket things I love so much.

For many of us, that's the fun of it. However, if you're the type of person who keeps his desk neat and has to have his sock drawer organized, I can understand your frustration. You're kind of like the fat Microsoft guy in the Apple commercials.

1. Hold on a second. You're making me out to be a paranoid, emotionally repressed, anal retentive Marxist, but I'm the normal one here. Answer this, smart aleck: Why is college football the only sport in the entire world that doesn't have a playoff to determine its champion?

Congratulations! You finally got it. College football is quirky. We love it for its eccentricities: the corny bowl parades, the rowdy student section, the marching bands, the weird mascots, and yes, even those goose-stepping drum major dudes.

I'm sorry it disturbs you that there's still one thing left in America that's unique. You're probably happy that no matter where you go, McDonald's and Starbucks are the only two restaurants you can find.

Now stop trying to turn college football's one-of-a-kind spine-tingling regular season into one more dull slog to answer the burning question: "Who's number 32?"