This is Bill Hancock. He's the new Executive Director of the BCS, and he doesn't want you to have a college football playoff. A very simple, step-by-step plan for a playoff that would make everyone happy
We have met the face of the enemy, and he is beatable.
New BCS Executive Director, Bill Hancock, was on the Dan Patrick radio show last week and was laughably awful in his lobbying for the idea that a college football playoff wasn’t necessary. To sum up the interview, Hancock has no tangible reason why college football doesn’t have a playoff other than the tired old party lines of “the bowl system is working” and lip-service about academics and logistics. He also had the head-slapping moment of saying the bowl system is good because it allows players to enjoy themselves, like the Virginia Tech players who got to jet-ski in Miami last year. Ask Cincinnati players if they’d rather go body surfing before the Orange Bowl or have a chance at a national title by playing in a playoff.
Go ahead and just say that the BCS head honchos don’t want a playoff because the bowls are making lots and lots of money and no one in a position of real power wants to change the status quo, and say that the college presidents and athletic directors don’t want one because there will be more pressure on their jobs. I can buy that. I don’t agree with it, but I’ll accept the basic notion of acting out of self-interest. But in lieu of the truth, have an answer. A real one.
Playoff backers, let me be the one to try to lead the charge. If you want a more satisfying end to the college football season, I’ll provide you with the ammunition to fight any anti-playoff head out there, and there is no reasonable or rational counter-argument (believe me, I've seen them all). And away we go.
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 1: What’s the playoff going to be? No one can agree on the right system.
Hancock floated this idea out there, and that means that he just isn’t trying. Four teams are too few and would create more controversy, 16 teams are too many and it would devalue the regular season. As we’ve been screaming about for over the last decade, make it an eight team playoff using the six BCS conference champions, the top ranked non-BCS conference winner, and one wild-card being the top ranked team left on the board. Fine, so Boise State would have a beef this season, with the Florida/Alabama loser likely to get the wild-card, but if the price that needs to be paid is missing one deserving team once in a while, then so be it. It beats having six grouchy teams at the end of the year. It's not worth trying to add everyone (like in a 16-team playoff) if that means bringing in undeserving teams and devaluing the regular season.
The key to this playoff plan is two-fold. First, it keeps the integrity of the regular season intact, and even enhances it. How much more intense would Oklahoma – Texas, Florida – Alabama, and in normal years, Michigan – Ohio State be if they were for a playoff spot as well as a conference title? If anything, this idea would make for more interesting non-conference matchups because there’d be no reason to schedule a slew of cupcakes. All that matters is winning the conference title, and if a team can’t do that, it doesn’t deserve to play for the national championship (a simple fact lost on every other sport and their respective playoffs). Second, it keeps the playoff down to an easy three-week tournament.
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 2: The bowls. The bowl people want to keep the train rolling, and a playoff would kill one of college football’s greatest traditions. Who would care about the bowls if there was a playoff?
Who cares about the GMAC Bowl now? The same people who care about the Alamo, Gator, Texas, and every other bowl in between will still care when there’s a playoff, if not more so. It’s this simple. There are 34 bowls right now, and seven of them (BCS Championship, Rose, Orange, Fiesta, Sugar, Cotton, and the Capital One) would be used for the playoff. More on that in a moment. That leaves 27 bowls that need attention, teams and love. Make it a Bowlapalooza as a fantastic lead-in before the main event. Start the bowl season on Saturday, December 12th (using this year as an example), Heisman Day, with the first three bowls of the season. Pack in 27 bowl games over a 14-day span providing a primetime showcase every night but Sunday (the NFL) for two bowl games, with Saturdays being a smorgasbord. College fans will love it, and all sports fans will watch … what else is there to do?
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 3: Logistically, how would the actual playoff work, and would fans travel to the early games?
Do fans travel to the first round sites for the NCAA basketball tournament? A college playoff would be so big that the venues would have no problems getting people to show up.
Does anyone really care if the Fiesta Bowl isn’t on New Year’s Day? No one complained about the Orange getting moved, and no one will have a problem if on Saturday, December 25th (again, using this year as an example), the playoffs start at 10 a.m. EST with the first, first-round game being played in the Capital One. After that game ends, plan on Game Two, the Sugar Bowl, starting at 2 pm EST. Game Three, the Cotton Bowl, would start at 6 pm EST, and to cap things off, the Fiesta Bowl would start at 10 EST (it’s Saturday night and all kids will be off school … they can stay up late). If you’re not at least slightly daydreamy about the idea of first-round day of playoffs like this on a late December Saturday, then I can’t help you. New Year’s Day would give the Orange and the Rose the national semifinal games, and then seven days later would be the National Championship, which would move around the country like the Final Four does now. That would appeal to the Big Ten and the Big East, would would complain about the first round games being played in warm weather locations. Indianapolis and Detroit would host the national title here and there.
Logistically, the entire bowl season would go through the same time frame it’s on right now, but would start a week earlier, it wouldn’t interfere with the NFL, and college football would be to late December what the first two weeks of March are to college basketball … only tenfold.
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 4: But what about the academics. We can’t mess with finals.
No one is in school when the playoffs would start. Like anyone worried about whether or not North Carolina and Michigan State were fully focused on their mid-terms during the six-week run from the conference tournaments to the college basketball national championship starting late last February through early April.
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 5: That’s too much football for the players. If the SEC and Big 12 champions play for the national title, they’d each end up playing 16 games.
No one seems to worry about that when it comes to the FCS, D-II, and D-III playoffs, and there’s a nice gap of time between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs. Most teams would get close to four weeks off to rest up and get healthy. These are 18-to-22-year-old kids; they'd be early-August fresh. Again, the season would end the same time it does now and wouldn’t screw up the NFL scouting and preparation process.
Anti-Playoff Argument No. 6: What about the fun of the bowl? According to Hancock, “(the bowl) experience is a lifetime experience, and it’s much better (than a playoff).”
Football players want to play football; they don’t care about the luaus. The 27 other bowls would create those experiences and memories for the players … and they’d all rather be in the playoffs.
Hancock went on with Patrick to say that “hypothetical playoffs are great on paper, but in reality, when you drill down into the details, they’re very difficult.” Bill, Mr. Hancock, I just did it and I kept it, for the most part, within the current construct of the bowl system that’s in place right now.
There’s no playoff because you are lazy and because you’re not doing your job, even though you’ve been at it for about ten minutes. It’s your job to make money for everyone, and this would do that. It’s your job to keep the bowls happy, and this would make them bigger. It’s your job to make the sport of college football better. Get smarter. Get it done.
http://cfn.scout.com/2/924534.html
You also gain recruiting exposure (more tv time for those top eight and their conferences), and games in other people's areas (ie, if tOSU played @ AL, they'd have better chance at recruiting there and vice-versa). Really, all I'm seeing with this is win-win for everyone.
