Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Can we have a playoff, please?

According to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted two weeks ago, 63 percent of self-described college football fans favor replacing the current Bowl Championship Series with a playoff, while 26 percent want to keep the BCS. The other 11 percent lied about being fans, because if you are a fan, you have an opinion about this. If anything, this is a conservative figure; other polls have found that as many as 90 percent of college football fans disapprove of the BCS.
 
In response to this, Bill Hancock, the executive director of the Bowl Championship Series, said, "It's easy to support a hypothetical playoff on paper, but no one has come up with a viable way to actually create one without diminishing the value of the regular season and ending the bowl games as we know them."
 
Really, Bill?
 
I've seen a lot of playoff proposals, any of which would be better than the current system. My favorite comes from Dan Wetzel, who would have a 16 team playoff, with the champions of all 11 conferences and 5 at-large teams. All games except the championship would be home games for the higher seed. Wetzel has laid out a lengthy argument on why that would be the best system, so I won't go through the whole thing here, but I do think it's the best proposal I've seen.
 
That said, I'll reiterate that almost any playoff proposal would be better than the current system, in that it would allow more than just two teams to contend for a championship.

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