BCS or Just Some Plain Bull Shit. NCAA Football Needs Playoffs

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The college football season ended last Thursday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in a game that almost obtained legendary status. The University of Alabama Crimson Tide was able to stop a late surge by the Colt McCoy-less Texas Longhorns in the BCS Championship game. This win for ‘Bama will always seemingly have an invisible asterisk by it, because arguably, the nation’s best college quarterback was knocked out of the game in the first quarter. The outcome could have been drastically different if McCoy played the whole game.

I must say that the two best teams in college football were chosen correctly to play in the National Title game. However, the best game of the BCS Bowl series was the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl between two teams that aren’t even from BCS conferences: Boise State and Texas Christian University. This game was back and forth all night and was exciting all game long. Why couldn’t these two undefeated teams have had a shot to play for a national title? Oh yeah, a big computer and a few coaches thought that it would have been a bad idea for college football’s image.

I am sick and tired of the way the BCS teams are picked and placed into the major bowl games each year. A lot of the time, the BCS games are boring (Iowa vs. Georgia Tech) or complete mismatches (Florida vs. Cincinnati). Why can’t college football use the same postseason system that almost every single other sport uses in not only collegiate athletics but everywhere else? I beg the college football gods to install a playoff system.

The Bowl Championship Series relies on a combination of polls and computer selection methods to determine relative team rankings, and to narrow the field to two teams to play in the BCS National Championship game. The funny thing is that the BCS is not formally recognized by the NCAA as a collegiate championship. The winner of the title game is only guaranteed a share of the national championship. Confusing, isn’t it?

Congress has scrutinized the system and even President Barack Obama said that he would like to change to an eight-team playoff. I hope the NCAA is taking note of the rising criticism and is at least considering an alternative. If March Madness can captivate the country and crown a National Champion, then a playoff system in college football would only make sense.

Here’s my proposal for a postseason playoff system that could prove to be a solution: let the coaches’ and sports writers’ polls determine the final team rankings at the end of the year. Then take the top eight teams in the country and you can either have number one vs. number eight, two vs. seven, three vs. six, five vs. six, or keep it kind of like it is, where conference champs and runner-ups or non-BCS teams play each other. Then after the first round, there is a semifinal which will determine the two teams who will play for the National Title. If people are worried that the athletes are playing too many games, then just remove a non-conference game.

I have even thought of a way you can arrange where each team will play. The first round will have four games labeled the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl. You could rotate the bowls each year so the number one team will not always play at the same location. The semifinal round could be played at a number of other locations such as the Coliseum or NFL Stadiums. The final game would be played at one of the four major bowl sites from the first round and this too would be rotated each year.

This is only one possible solution. I do not claim to hold the definite answer. One thing is for sure though – things need to change. This current system is flawed. Let us take the guess work out of determining a National Championship. Let the players do the determining.

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