The Great BCS Debate: Why College Football Fans Only Think They Want a Playoff!

It’s another year, and just like every season since 1998 the college football world finds itself amid much debate and turmoil.  During the past few weeks it has been difficult to turn on a sports related TV or radio program without being inundated with talk of instituting a playoff system in college football.  It has become commonplace for hosts, journalists, and fans to throw out broad based generalities to argue against the current BCS ranking system.  “It’s a flawed system.” “We all agree the current system is terrible.” “The BCS is a joke.” These are just a few of the repetitive statements that stick out in my mind.  While each season never fails to add its’ own complicated situations and scenarios that challenge the BCS system, is it really as bad as it is being portrayed?

To say that the BCS has been controversial since its implementation would be like saying Will Muschamp is emotional on the sidelines (an understatement of the highest order).  In light of the impending rematch between LSU and Alabama for this year’s championship, people seem to be more adamant than ever in pursuing a playoff system in lieu of the BCS.  However, as is often the case, most really have failed to put into perspective all of the unintended consequences that would surely result from such a drastic move.  I realize I’m standing with the vast minority here, but YES, I am going to stand up for the much hated BCS. 

Take a quick look around at all the BCS has given the college football fan.  Under the current system college football has risen to a level of popularity that would have been hard to imagine a couple decades ago.  From coast to coast people live and breathe the sport.  Just look at the stadiums, the coverage, and the ratings; they speak rather loudly.  But why do people care so much?  Why is it so popular?  Why will tens of thousands of people fill up a stadium to watch a game in which one team maybe favored by 30 or more points?  Because, under the BCS system, every regular season game is life and death for a team in contention.  Can you say that about any other sport?  The BCS is a system predicated on teams not losing, ever!  Many would point to this as a tragic flaw in the system, I say that it is the sole reason that college football is all that it has become.  It is why most fans never miss a game.  It is why this year’s regular season matchup between LSU and Alabama was the most widely viewed in history.  For a team that is competing for a national championship, the regular season schedule can hold any number of matchups that in effect become bowl games, title games, or championship games in a sense.  There is no room for a letdown from the first game to the last.  A team has to play at their highest possible level for all 12 or 13 games in order to get a shot at the title.  It’s a phenomenon you won’t find in any other league.

In my view, the institution of a playoff will greatly diminish part of the uniqueness and excitement of the college game.  People often draw analogies to the current format for the postseason tournament in college basketball and how popular it has become.  I will certainly agree that March Madness is an absolutely awesome spectacle to take in; however, I will also tell you that outside of those few weeks in March, college basketball is largely irrelevant.  The reason is that the regular season simply doesn’t mean very much.  Yes, you have to win your games and do well enough to impress the selection committee, but teams have plenty of room for missteps.  Then there is the NFL argument to consider.  I am aware that the NFL is wildly popular and operates under a playoff system but still manages to have very meaningful regular season games.  A similar system would be detrimental to college football as we know it.  If you have a large playoff format, anywhere from 10 to 16 teams or more, you will have to reduce the number of regular season games.  It’s inevitable.  This would not be a good situation.  It would be nearly impossible for a team to have more than one or two games outside of their conference, if that.  Therefore, teams would be at the mercy, much more so than they are now, of how good or bad their conference is.  It would be even more difficult to evaluate who should be in or out of the playoffs than it is now to determine who is in or out of the BCS bowls.  For instance, how will you fairly choose who should get into a playoff between a SEC team with 2 loses or an undefeated mid-major?  For this reason, a playoff system would eventually lead to the abolition of conferences, or at least they would become so restructured they wouldn’t retain any of their current identity.  Is that really what you want for college football?  Age old rivalries will perish, and decades of history and tradition will give way to new super-conferences.

What AB Sees: 

To put it very simply, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!  Yes, I admit that there have been situations in which rational arguments can be made for teams that didn’t get a fair shake, but I also believe the BCS has done much more good than harm.  Now, think hard, can you honestly name a single BCS national champion that did not deserve the title?  People want to see the best two teams play for the title, and while there is no perfect system, I think the BCS has given us that by and large, including this year.  Going back to the basketball argument, do you really think that Butler has truly had the second best team in the nation the past two years?  That system, as exciting as it is, tends to reward the team who gets hot at the right time, with very little emphasis put on a team’s entire body of work.  College football loses big time if something like that takes place.  People are interested in college football year-round.  They keep up with coaching moves, recruiting news, practice reports, and any piece of news they can attain.  It is a type of fanfare that is second to none.  From the opening weeks of the season on, people love to play out hypothetical situations, matchups, and rankings.  That will largely fall by the wayside if you lose the BCS.  This year’s aforementioned “Game of the Century” wouldn’t have been advertised as such because everyone would assume that both teams would make the playoffs.  Therefore, the game would have garnered less attention.  Case and point would be this past weekend’s basketball matchup between #1 Kentucky and #2 North Carolina.  Perhaps I just missed them, but I don’t recall endless promotions or any fancy taglines related to this game.  Sure, it was a big game, but it wasn’t even comparable in ratings or interest to a marquee football matchup.  The reason being that ultimately it doesn’t really matter that Kentucky won that game; both teams will almost certainly get into the tournament as high seeds regardless of the outcome.  Yes, I know, as it turned out the LSU vs. Alabama did not keep either team from reaching the title game.  However, Alabama snuck in via a statistical anomaly that would likely not happen again for 100 years.  Everything had to play out just right for them to get their second shot at LSU, and it just so happens that this time it did.  

The current movement that seems to be afoot involves the institution of a 4 team playoff (in which #1 plays #4 and #2 plays #3 and the winners meet for the ‘ship) or perhaps a so called “plus 1 game.”  While I agree that these ideas sound appealing and would ease the grumbles of this season’s particular situation, it is a slippery slope when you start making drastic changes to suit a particular situation in a particular year.  Because, next year will undoubtedly bring with it a whole new scenario that the system may not have accounted for, and we’ll be right back to square one.  For example, let’s suppose that the NCAA was operating under the 4 team playoff and Oregon ended up ranked #4 in the nation behind LSU #1, Bama #2, and OK St. #3.  In this scenario, LSU would have to play a rematch against Oregon first round, and would then likely have to rematch against Alabama in order to claim the title.  So, you have LSU, the consensus #1 team in the nation, having to win not one but two rematches to solidify them as the top team in the nation.  Is that really better than what we have this year?  The fact is that you cannot create a truncated playoff system that will satisfy any given situation that might occur in the course of any given year.  Furthermore, you cannot institute a large playoff system without sacrificing the integrity of the regular season.

Regardless of your personal opinion on the BCS, one has to admit that it certainly fuels discussion.  People love to hate it, and it keeps college football in the forefront of the sports world at least from August to January.  While opinions are many, it is difficult to argue that such a fact is not a positive for the sport.  I say long live college football and long live the Bowl Championship Series!

Not telling you how it is, just what I see!

By Adam Bates