A rant against the college football powers-that-be: Part 1

Maybe it’s an instance of some sort of confirmation bias on my part, but I feel as though a decent number of people feel as though the BCS worked this season.  I’m on the fence (or maybe a fence).  I feel comfortable saying that the two best teams in the country are playing in Glendale.  So, if you want the two teams that I’m fairly certain are the two best in the nation playing for the national championship, the BCS worked perfectly.  However, I also think it’s fair to say that a good number of people (a plurality of people who care about such things, if not a slight majority) favor some sort of overhaul that will eventually lead to a playoff system.  Over the next two days, I’m here to tell playoff opponents why they’re wrong.  Today, we’ll tackle (get it?) the on the field stuff.

First, and most importantly (or, perhaps, impotently?), playoff opponents argue that the charm of college football is how “meaningful” the regular season, and how a playoff would rob the regular season of its meaning.  Bullshit.  I will concede that, within certain BCS conferences, the regular season is meaningful.  Teams in the SEC and the Big 12 can’t afford to lose more than once (generally speaking).  In that sense, perhaps the regular season really is meaningful.  However, that standard doesn’t apply equally to all conferences (even within the BCS).  As recently as THIS YEAR, we saw discussion (but not necessarily recognition) of this unbalanced standard when evaluating Oregon and Auburn.  As we closed upon the end of the regular season, it became evident that a loss by Auburn to Alabama would not, in and of itself, lead to Auburn’s elimination from national championship contention.  On the other hand, Oregon? Done if they lose.  I understand that not all losses are necessarily created equal, but if you have a regular season with “value,” then they should be.  If the regular season is a “playoff” (a not-particularly-clever spin on the whole “regular season is meaningful” meme), then should not a loss eliminate you, particularly late in the year?

There’s another problem with the so-called “value” of the regular season.  In at least the following years, there was a minimum of one team that went unbeaten but did not have a chance to play for the national championship – 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010.  There will be cries from Auburn to Columbus about whether 2008 Utah or the several thousand teams that went unbeaten in 2004 deserved to play for a national championship, but we’d be missing the point.  When you’re talking about who deserves to play and who doesn’t, you’re no longer having a conversation about “meaning.”  You’re talking about something else – an arbitrary (at least from my perspective) means of distinguishing between programs.  Here’s a simple way to look at it.  What other sport denies a team that has not lost the opportunity to play for the National Championship?  For that matter, what other sport allows a team to play in an overall (as opposed to divisional or conference) championship having lost its previous game?  (I’m looking hard at you, 2001 Nebraska and 2003 Oklahoma).  If that’s a “meaningful” regular season, give me one that makes some damned sense instead.

Another (admittedly peripheral) on-field concern is the purported toll playing a playoff would take on the student athletes.  As Al Pacino said, give me a fuckin’ break.  Two things here.  One, it’s not as though the FCS playoffs don’t take a similar toll.  With a 20 team playoff now in existence, a National Champion can theoretically play FIVE postseason games (a good number of which are post-exams anyway).  Why can the guys at schools like Villanova and Furman do it, but the guys at schools like Auburn and Oregon can’t?  No good reason?  I didn’t think so.  Additionally, the NCAA puts (what some consider) unreasonable restrictions on the ways in which players can earn extra money.  I know, I know.  They’re getting a free education.  I’m also fully aware that it’s not as though they’re living on campus in abject poverty (more on this next time).  I was listening to Colin Cowherd (and didn’t kill myself!) when the Terrelle Pryor story first broke, and he talked about how players are coddled.  Here’s the thing, asshead – if you give an unemployed writer with $20 in his pocket a Lexus, and he drives it rather than hocking it, he’s still poor.  Put simply, it’s hard to buy the idea that a lack of a playoff has anything to do with NCAA concern for student athletes.

Next time, we’ll talk about that which really drives the NCAA and college football – money.  And yes, I WILL use that as an opportunity to go on a political themed rant.

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