Why the College Football Playoff Must Change

 Why the College Football Playoff Must Change

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For as long as we have been alive there have only been two seasons where, arguably, the best team in the country did not play for a national championship. This happened in 2005 where undefeated Auburn sat at home while Southern California carved up Oklahoma 55-19. The other instance was back in 2008 when Georgia watched Louisiana State crush Ohio State while Georgia throttled Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. We bring these examples up to recognize that both the Bowl Championship Series and the College Football Playoff have overwhelmingly let the best teams in the country play for the title. The problem is that the ends do not justify the means, and the current selection process is a disservice to college football players around the nation.

College football is the only major team sport, at any level, that does not utilize a standardized post-season system. In the National Football League division champions and the next best records are guaranteed spots in the post-season; win your division and go to the playoffs. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, and the National Hockey League follow a similar system. Even in college basketball and baseball, where it is not as simple, conference champions are guaranteed a place in post-season play. So why do we let it slide in college football? Why do we let a group of humans select the finalists based off their opinions instead of a set playoff bracket? And more importantly, what message does it send to the student-athletes?

Imagine being a member of that 2004/2005 Auburn program. Your team went undefeated in the regular season, to include victories over Alabama, Georgia, and LSU. Then you beat Tennessee for the second time in the SEC Championship Game only to be told, “Sorry, the computer does not calculate you are good enough”. Auburn went on to win an unfulfilling consolation prize by defeating Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl, but you can imagine a lack of faith in the system crept into the minds of those players, coaches, and fans. What about Central Florida in the 2017/2018 season? Although a slightly different situation due to their conference affiliation, they watched an Alabama team who did not even play for their conference championship game head to the playoff while UCF sat at home with an undefeated record. I do not think for a second UCF was a top four team, but they were undefeated and to tell a group of young men their season is meaningless despite such success is a hard message to grasp. After all, they did go on to beat Auburn in their bowl game (the same Auburn that beat Georgia and Alabama that season).

The message the selection committee, or the BCS computers before that, sends to these is kids is wrong. They have the power to tell 18-24 year old men that despite their success on the field, their efforts were for nothing because that is how they feel. What happens when that message is translated into real life? If you are a construction worker, and you build more houses than your competitor, you should be rewarded for your success (assuming the quality is equal). But if you were that superior builder, and your peer got an award instead of you simply because the construction awarding committee FELT the other guy was better, why would you even try anymore? Instead, the construction awarding committee should have a system that ensures the builder who produces the best results wins the award.

The College Football Playoff must be confined to a set system to ensure that teams who earned a right to play are given that chance. What does this look like? We have three options, although one is significantly better than the rest.

The first option is to condense college football into four conferences, and allow the four conference champions to play for the title in a four-team playoff. This would require a massive shift in conference alignment, which probably would involve the ACC dissolving into the SEC and the Big Ten, while the Big 12 adopts the Southwest schools to make four corners of the country separated by conference. We do not love this idea, although Clemson should probably be in the SEC anyway.

The second option is to increase the playoff to eight teams. With eight teams the playoff committee can either identify three non-power-five conferences that earn automatic bids to the playoff, or the selection committee can identify the three best teams that aren’t power five conference champions to fill the remaining seats. This would require an extra game to be played on top of a 15-game season already, but would not require any conference realignment.

The third and best option is to increase the playoff to six teams. The five conference champions get automatic bids and the selection committee identifies the best team that is not a conference champion to fill the final spot. The committee then ranks the teams 1-6 and the top two teams earn a bye week to reward them for a superior regular season. This option also requires no conference-realignment, but might lead to some voluntary realignment to ensure an automatic bid is available.

Each option is better than the current model simply because they all reinforce a merit-based playoff selection. In essence, teams will earn their way in, and they know what they have to do to earn it. Each option eliminates bias for post-season selection. Most importantly, each option reinforces a positive concept- you reap what you sew. This is a message that reflects in all aspects of society, and we can help ensure the right message is passed to our young student-athletes with this change.