The NCAA determines national champions by allowing some number of the best teams to play some kind of final tournament. This lets one team prove it’s the best by beating other contenders on the field or court. This happens in every sport, even the lower divisions of football. Only Division I FBS football does not use a playoff.
Instead, the FBS uses the BCS, a convoluted mush of biased human opinions and bizarre mathematical formulas put into yet another formula to give teams a score between 0 and 1. The top two teams according to this abomination play for the national championship. In seven of the 10 seasons since the BCS began in 1998, there has been significant controversy over the two teams selected, and 25 teams have a legitimate compliant of being denied a chance at the title.
In 1998, one-loss Florida State was selected to play undefeated Tennessee for the national title over one-loss Arizona, Kansas State, Ohio State, UCLA and Wisconsin.
In 2000, undefeated Oklahoma played one-loss Florida State rather than one-loss Miami, Washington, Oregon State or Virginia Tech. Florida State’s loss was to Miami, while Miami’s only loss was to Washington.
In 2001, undefeated Miami played one-loss Nebraska, who didn’t even win the Big 12 North, rather than one-loss Oregon, Maryland or Illinois.
In 2003, no team finished undefeated, but USC, who was ranked No. 1 in both polls, was left out of the national title game in favor of LSU and Oklahoma (who lost the Big 12 Championship 35-7).
In 2004, undefeated USC and Oklahoma played for the national title, rather than undefeated Auburn, who had a harder strength of schedule than either of them. Unfortunately for Auburn, USC and Oklahoma started the season ranked No. 1 and No. 2, and the lazy human voters didn’t want to change what they had already established.
In 2006, undefeated Ohio State faced one-loss Florida, rather than one-loss Michigan, Louisville or Wisconsin. Florida leapfrogged Michigan in the last week when Michigan didn’t play.
In 2007, one-loss Ohio State faced two-loss LSU for the national title, rather than one-loss Kansas, or two-loss Arizona State, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, USC, Virginia Tech or West Virginia.
In addition, no team outside of the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, Big East or Pac-10 has ever been selected or even considered for the championship game. Sure, some non-BCS undefeateds like 2007 Hawaii really had no business being considered, but who can forget the 2006 Boise State team’s dramatic 43-42 overtime win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, or the 2004 Utah team’s 35-7 thrashing of Big East champion Pittsburgh? Note that Boise State, who won at No. 17 Oregon, and Utah, who beat Michigan at the Big House, are currently undefeated this year as well, but have virtually no chance of getting a chance to play for a national title, regardless of what happens the rest of the season.
Clearly the system is broken. The only fair solution is to have an eight-team playoff, consisting of six champions of the six most powerful conferences, and two at-large bids that would go to an undefeated team outside of the top six conferences, or else the highest ranked non-champions according to a simple unbiased computer formula like the Ratings Percentage Index. An extra requirement about playing a certain number of major conference opponents would be a good idea to prevent a pretender like last year’s Hawaii team from sweeping through a really easy schedule and then getting killed in the first round.
Detractors to a playoff often make illogical arguments against a playoff.
They say a playoff will decrease the importance and attention paid to bowls. This is false, since only a few teams will make the playoff, so most .500 or above teams will still go to a bowl game. Since most nine- and 10-win teams won’t make the playoff, there will still be a plethora of interesting bowl matchups that fans will care about.
They say a playoff will negatively impact athletes’ study time, but they ignore the fact that the lower divisions do playoffs, and those athletes, who are honestly much more likely to be in college chiefly for a degree and just doing football as an activity, get by just fine.
They say a playoff will decrease the importance of the regular season, or make marquee nonconference matchups less likely. I say the opposite will occur. Last season, Virginia Tech could have played for the national championship had it scheduled Louisiana-Monroe instead of LSU. Unless the system changes, they’re a lot more likely to schedule creampuffs from now on.
With a playoff with autobids for conference champions, teams won’t have to be afraid of big-time nonconference matchups, since they know they can still make the playoff by winning their conference if they lose. This will allow for many more intriguing matchups for fans and help schools bring in more money.
They say a playoff will still cause controversy over who gets in and who doesn’t. I really can’t refute that, but under a playoff teams can’t complain about getting left out because they know they could have gotten in by winning their conference or going 12-0. We would never again see a team do all it could possibly do and still not get a chance to make it in.
Money is a key reason a playoff should happen. This playoff would be the most exciting annual event in American sports, make a ton of money, and provide amazing entertainment to football fans. Who doesn’t wonder if Boise State could have beaten Florida or Ohio State in 2006? Who doesn’t wonder if Utah or Auburn could have knocked off USC in 2004? Who doesn’t wonder if Kansas or USC could have won it all last year? If we had a playoff system, we wouldn’t have to wonder.
It’s time to end the era of just picking two teams and locking the rest out, and let the teams themselves determine who is best on the field.
Harry Nelson is a senior majoring in political science and math. He can be reached at [email protected].