New NCAA "Play-Off" System Fails In Its First Year

For years now, college football fans have been complaining that the "championship" is nothing more than a popularity contest, with the two teams deemed by the powers that be playing for the title -- and everyone else being left out in the cold (regardless of how good they were, or whether they had a good chance of beating the two popular teams chosen).

Anyone with half a brain knew this wasn't a real championship -- but a farce. And that farce had become so ridiculous that a "play-off" system was created (sort of). They decided that they would put the top four teams in the popularity contest into a play-off instead of just the top two teams.

The thinking was that the top four teams would be significantly better than the teams rated fifth and below -- and that would justify calling the winner of that four team play-off a "champion". But that didn't happen. There were at least six teams that would have a good chance to survive a play-off and become champion -- with TCU and Baylor being as good, in my opinion, as Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State. I think any unbiased observer would have to admit that.

That means the new "play-off" system for college football is a FAILURE in its inaugural year. A real play-off is one that settles the arguments over who is best by pitting those teams against each other -- and forcing the real champion to earn that championship on the field, and not in some kind of rigged popularity contest. This did not happen. They will always be those who will argue that TCU or Baylor could have won the championship if given the chance (since their record was just as good as three of the top four teams and they played in a strong conference).

Why doesn't the NCAA Division I football schools have a real play-off system? I know all the arguments against a real play-off, but they are all false arguments. Both the NAIA and the NCAA Division II teams have a real play-off, and it works well for both -- giving them a real champion who won their title on the field. And if it works for them, it could work for the Division I schools also.

But there is too much bowl money for the biggest schools, and those bowls are all afraid they would be relegated to first or second round games (or eliminated), so they spend a bundle opposing a real play-off -- and the big schools, who make a ton of money playing in those bowl games, are afraid they wouldn't make as much money in a real play-off system (and couldn't survive such a system).

So we are left with just another popularity contest, with four teams instead of two. And that won't change because the NCAA has made the three most politically powerful conferences (SEC, Big 10, PAC 10) happy by picking one of their teams (and they'll probably continue to do that). Meanwhile, the conferences without political power (even strong ones like the Big 12) are left out in the cold. It's a shameful system, and every champion crowned under this system should have an asterisk placed beside their name (because they didn't really earn the title against all the best teams).