Another season of college football has passed, and with it, the politics of the sport have once again crowned a controversial national champion. Congratulations, Florida. For the fifth time in past seven years, there is no clear-cut champion.
Only twice this decade has the college football season produced an undisputed national champion. In 1992, second-ranked Alabama routed top-ranked Miami in the Sugar Bowl for the title. The 1995 season crowned Nebraska as champion, after the Cornhuskers trounced Florida in the Fiesta Bowl.
Every other year has ended in controversy. In 1990, Georgia Tech and Colorado split the national championship. Miami and Washington split the following year. One of the most controversial finishes ever took place in 1993, when Florida State was crowned champion over a Notre Dame, a team that had beat the Seminoles earlier in the season. In 1994, unbeaten Nebraska was voted number one ahead of an undefeated Penn State team.
So the trend continues, with Florida as the 1996 champion. No great injustice is being committed. Florida is probably more deserving of this year's title than any other team, but it just seems that nobody is truly deserving. In a sport that places such great importance on championships, there needs to be a better way to determine who finishes on top.
This brings me to a question that has surrounded college football for years: Should there be a playoff system? The answer is yes.
Two years from now, the bowl alliance will finally include both the Big Ten and the Pac-10, thus allowing a true national championship game to take place. If this system had been in place this year, that would have meant Florida State and Arizona State would have played for the title. (Of course both teams lost their bowl games, so neither could be champion.) In 1994, Nebraska and Penn State would have paired off. Obviously, this makes the new bowl alliance much more attractive than the current set-up.
However, this system still contains many flaws. The first is that it will not always be paired with the top two teams. In 1993, a Florida State vs. Notre Dame match-up may not have taken place for the title game. West Virginia and Nebraska were both undefeated heading into their bowl games, but both lost. In other years, there may not be two undefeated teams. In such a situation, the match-up would once again be determined by the politics of the rankings. Herein lies the biggest problem with the bowl coalition: the national championship would still be largely controlled by the AP sportswriters and the USA Today/CNN coaches polls. The voters in each of these polls are both biased and uninformed about many teams.
A playoff system, if done correctly, would eliminate almost all of the politics surrounding the national championship. The opponents of a playoff system feel a great deal of concern for a few reasons. The first concern is that a playoff system would mean too many games for players. This would result in too many missed classes and expose players to more injuries. There is also the argument that politics would only be eliminated for the top teams, as a greater number of teams would be on the proverbial bubble to get into the playoffs. The traditionalists argue that the bowl games have too much history to just throw away, as a playoff may do. The best argument offered up by opponents is that a playoff would make the regular season meaningless. Currently, every game is a must win game in the chase for a national championship.
The system I am proposing here addresses each of these concerns. The first thing needed is an NCAA selection committee. Teams would be selected objectively, without the politics of the rankings. The playoff would then be set-up as follows. In order to limit the number of games, only 10 teams would be selected for the playoff. Of these 10 teams, the top six would have first round byes.
What is important here is how the teams will be selected. It will not simply be the top 10 teams. In order to maintain the importance of conference play, the champion of each of the major conferences will receive an automatic bid. Currently, there are seven powerful conferences: the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East, and the WAC. Of course, there are other conferences, such as the MAC and Conference USA. Thus, a power rating system will need to be set up to rate each conference. The conferences with the top seven power ratings will send their champions to the playoff. After these seven teams, three teams will be selected at large. This allows independents such as Notre Dame, and teams which finish second in their conference, such as Colorado, into the playoff. It also encourages teams to schedule tough non-conference teams, as they will need a strong schedule to stake a claim to a playoff spot.
With such a system, teams in the top six would play only two more games than normal, and teams seven through 10 could play three additional games. And remember: only two teams can make it that far. However, to pacify those who still insist that there are too many games, the NCAA needs to lower the maximum amount a regular season games a team is allowed to play each year.
In order to keep alive the tradition of the bowls, the championship and semifinal games will be played at different bowl sites. Traditionally, the four biggest bowl games are the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls. The championship and semi-final games would be rotated among these four bowls every year. In addition to this, corporate sponsorship of each bowl would be eliminated, so fans wouldn't have to deal with giant Tostitos or Federal Express logos covering the field. This would not only kill the appearance that the bowls are "selling out," but would also allow every game hosted by a bowl to be meaningful. As for the smaller bowls, such as the Sun Bowl and Holiday Bowl, they could invite teams which are not in the playoff. Such bowl games would be meaningless, but no more meaningless than they already are.
This system has many more advantages than the bowl coalition. It would bring an incredible amount of money to the NCAA and it would generate an excitement level similar to that of the NCAA basketball tournament. Furthermore, it would once again make conference play the most important part of the football season, while not allowing a team's national title hopes to be thwarted by an early season loss. It would be one of the greatest things ever to happen to college football. So of course, it will never happen.