Never Say Never

It was just eight days ago that I said in a post, rather emphatically I might add, that we'll never EVER see a playoff system in college football. Because of that certainty, I argued (although not very well- the irish creme and coffee had more of an effect than I thought) that we should just go back to the old pre-BCS bowl system because the current system was rarely, if ever, solving the problem of pitting the two best teams in the country against each other. It also makes the other BCS bowl matchups worse, and after a week of five terrible BCS games, not even LSU fans could disagree that this system sucks.

First of all, playing the national title game a good week after New Year's Day is just plain stupid. If it had to be moved back that far because of a playoff, well that's one thing my friend. But just to get TV ratings on a Monday night? Stupid. My buddies in Minnesota, who are all manly men that love football, couldn't even be bothered to get together to watch the game last night. And after sitting through that game myself last night, it's clear they knew what they were doing. Ohio State, and honestly the Big 10 in general, is taking a beating for the second year in a row as THE Ohio State University got mopped up by an SEC power in the "national championship." And if you think things look bad for the Big 10 right now, it's only going to get worse for them and their brothers on the left coast in the Pac 10.

The reason being is that it looks like, for the first time ever, university presidents from big conference schools are publicly talking about a playoff system. This one from yesterday talks about the consideration of a "Plus One" format, while SI.com's Stewart Mandel discusses what all this could mean. Today's story on University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams asking for an eight team playoff was even more of an eye opener. What this means, if anything, is that the ranks are dividing in the one place that had stood steadfastly against a college football playoff.

While a four year old could have looked at this thing in years past and said "hey you know what? Maybe having the teams play for the national title instead of awarding it to them might be a better way to go", the university presidents have been vehemently against a playoff system. They've used some fun excuses like "it would cut into the kids' exam time", even though they all voted to add a cheap 12th game to make more money two years ago (LSU played 14 GAMES THIS YEAR!!!). Or there's the argument that it would cheapen the regular season. While I agree that college football has the best regular season, it has THE worst postseason (if you can even call it that) of any sport going. This year was no exception. It would be like making six riveting seasons of the Sopranos, and then when it got to the end of the last episode, the part the entire series had been building to- it just cuts to black without explanation. That's college football right now.

If the NCAA does this right, I just don't see how the regular season would lose meaning. IF we were able to get a Plus One system or even the eight team playoff proposed by Adams, the regular season would be just as compelling because to finish in the top four or eight would be just as difficult as it is now. There's an argument in the Mandel article about how "if there was a playoff system in place, nobody would have watched the Pitt- West Virginia game at the end of the year." First of all, how many people actually did watch that game? Anyone? Show of hands? Thought so. But for the sake of argument, under a plus-one system or even the eight team playoff, that game still holds a ton of intrigue because if West Virginia, who already had one loss, loses that game, then they're likely out of the playoffs. So it would still matter, just as it does now.

Now where this all hurts the Big 10 and Pac 10 is that they are on now on the other side of the debate. The other BCS conferences are not benefiting from the current system as much as they used to. The best two teams are consistently not getting to the championship game, and the "little guys" are taking up spots that used to go to major conference schools in the other big money bowl games. Under the current system, the BCS conference schools are still making billions and billions of dollars- it's just that the Big 10 and Pac 10 went a step further by getting themselves on the Rose Bowl's Board of Directors, further cementing themselves to the old system. Now, their buddies in the other conferences are breaking ranks and seeing that maybe, just maybe, a playoff system would make them just as much or more money, which leaves the Big 10 and Pac 10 blowing in the wind.

While Adam's 8 team playoff idea won't be happening anytime soon, if ever, his comments are certainly a sign that the idea of a playoff is becoming more of a reality, because in the past you'd never, EVER hear a university president of a BCS conference school say something like that. But as we learned today, never say never.