Response to Obama's push for a playoff in college football.

[Bloodwake]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3708348

"First of all I want to congratulate newly elected President Obama and I am glad he has a passion for college football like so many other Americans," Swofford said in a statement. "For now, our constituencies -- and I know he understands constituencies -- have settled on the current BCS system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports."

lmfao at the bolded. Seriously. "The majority believe it's the best system." My ass.

Obama wants what the people want. And in all honestly, I'm fucking done with stupid ass bowl games that are build on tradition. More like the tradition of six conferences making a shitload of money off the same damn games every year.

[Phoenix Dark]

which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports.

Bullshit. A four team playoff would be the best determination; I'd love eight but unlike the NCAA I'm willing to fucking compromise.

[BlackMage]

which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports.

Bullshit. A four team playoff would be the best determination; I'd love eight but unlike the NCAA I'm willing to fucking compromise.

I want fucking 16

[Tieno]

Can someone explain to a non-American why there's sand in vaginas here?

[Brehvolution]

We are trusting a computer to basically tell us who the national champion is in college football.

[Eric P]

don't BCS make a ton of money for the involved colleges?

since there are a ton of them, doesn't it make more sense that those schools would want to maintain that system?

or am i wrong about the economics of the whole thing?  if i am, i would like to learn more

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Good, Obama should have no say on this because if he did, it's likely he'd fix it.

NObama.

[Bloodwake]

which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports.

Bullshit. A four team playoff would be the best determination; I'd love eight but unlike the NCAA I'm willing to fucking compromise.

I think 8 is a round number, and it will get rid of the cupcake Mountain West/WAC undefeated teams right off of the bat. Either that, or they will
 upset the better teams, like in the highly superior college basketball tournament.

Although I will concede that a four-team playoff would be the easiest to adapt to the current system. Have two of the four BCS bowls be playoff games, and then have the BCS national championship like usual. However, we're still going to hear the bitching whenever Utah or Boise State manages to be number five on the final BCS standings.

I think that the Mountain West and the WAC are both going to grow in strength from undefeated teams, even if it is just the one team from each conference that manages to continue to post undefeated seasons. They aren't going away. This is still going to be a problem and we need to have a playoff that is big enough to answer the question of whether the MWC or the WAC is strong enough to produce a team that can compete for the national championship. After this year's Mountain West, I'm inclined to lean on my opinion that the more teams are eligible for a playoff, the better.

[Bloodwake]

don't BCS make a ton of money for the involved colleges?

since there are a ton of them, doesn't it make more sense that those schools would want to maintain that system?

or am i wrong about the economics of the whole thing?  if i am, i would like to learn more

Yep, that's why we have the BCS.

Instead of the majority of people who actually give a shit about who's actually champion, it's the "majority" of people who make shitloads of money from football regardless.

[Eric P]

i will just claim UT as the kings of my heart

[Brehvolution]

The real trick to this whole thing is that the NCAA rule is that each college football program can not play more than 12(13?) games. A playoff system would make the NCAA have to change it's rule. NCAA doesn't like to change the rules.

[Kestastrophe]

I've heard the argument that the bowl games bring in too much money to validate a switch. However, with an 8 team playoff you would have playoff games that would be as big or bigger in terms of viewing audience (4 for first round, 2 for second round, 1 for championship). Also, you could set up a secondary tournament (equivalent to the NIT in basketball) or leave a modified bowl system in place for the teams that did not make the playoffs.

[Phoenix Dark]

which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports.

Bullshit. A four team playoff would be the best determination; I'd love eight but unlike the NCAA I'm willing to fucking compromise.

I think 8 is a round number, and it will get rid of the cupcake Mountain West/WAC undefeated teams right off of the bat. Either that, or they will
 upset the better teams, like in the highly superior college basketball tournament.

Although I will concede that a four-team playoff would be the easiest to adapt to the current system. Have two of the four BCS bowls be playoff games, and then have the BCS national championship like usual. However, we're still going to hear the bitching whenever Utah or Boise State manages to be number five on the final BCS standings.

I think that the Mountain West and the WAC are both going to grow in strength from undefeated teams, even if it is just the one team from each conference that manages to continue to post undefeated seasons. They aren't going away. This is still going to be a problem and we need to have a playoff that is big enough to answer the question of whether the MWC or the WAC is strong enough to produce a team that can compete for the national championship. After this year's Mountain West, I'm inclined to lean on my opinion that the more teams are eligible for a playoff, the better.

If a four team playoff started today it would be

Alabama
Texas Tech
Texas
Florida
(I doubt anyone would argue against them being the best four teams in the  country)

An eight team playoff would include Utah (they're currently #7 in the rankings); four teams would eliminate WAC/mountain west teams from contention right way, which would probably be ideal for most people. I'd love eight teams like I said,

[Human Snorenado]

People are going to bitch no matter what.  If the current system is kept, the same old people will be bitching.  If it's scrapped for an 8 team playoff, bitch ass conferences like the ACC and Big 10 will whine because they lose their automatic ins to BCS bowls.  The 9th ranked team will bitch, too.  If it's four teams (which would be the easiest to do but isn't optimal like 8 is) then you'll have teams 5-8 bitching that there should be an 8 team playoff and the loser conferences will whine too.

It's a shame there's no real way to do something like March Madness, because with so many fucking conferences and teams that's really the only way to do a playoff.  But these idiots can't even agree about a potential EIGHT team playoff, much less a 16 or 32 team tournament.  The "academics" argument is such bullshit, too- 90% of the players are dumber than the dumbest 10th grader and have majors like "land management" or whatever.  They're there to make money for the schools and the NCAA.  But you can't just admit that.

[Human Snorenado]

I completely forgot about the traditionalists who like to jack off over "the history of these prestigious bowl games".  They'd whine about losing their precious history.  Whatever, assholes.  If they're so prestigious do them without corporate sponsorships.  Yeah, that's what I thought.  The Peach Bowl already became The Chik-fil-A Bowl, so that dog doesn't hunt.

[Phoenix Dark]

8 teams, all the undefeated ones would be ideal.  I hate to know that no matter how good a team does, they never had a chance.

I disagree; being undefeated isn't as important as playing a good schedule imo. Oklahoma is a great example this year. Utah may be undefeated but they wouldn't do well against a top tier SEC team for instance

[Kestastrophe]

I completely forgot about the traditionalists who like to jack off over "the history of these prestigious bowl games". 

Point is moot for most of the BCS bowls anyways. The Rose Bowl had always been Pac10 champ vs. Big10 champ, for instance

[Human Snorenado]

Lulz, you sure stayed gone from the internets for a long time Maurice.

[Phoenix Dark]

Changed my mind smh

[BlackMage]

8 teams, all the undefeated ones would be ideal.  I hate to know that no matter how good a team does, they never had a chance.

I disagree; being undefeated isn't as important as playing a good schedule imo. Oklahoma is a great example this year. Utah may be undefeated but they wouldn't do well against a top tier SEC team for instance

The problem with this thinking is some teams will never ever be able to win a championship.  ever.

another problem with this is Utah and Boise State have already proven that theory wrong.

[Bocsius]

I'm fine with 8 teams, but FCS does 16, so there's no reason FBS can't, either.

"Bubububut they'll spend too much time out of class."

FCS. 16 teams. Shut up.

In other news, the BCS received several endorsements from talk radio and GOP leaders today.

[Eric P]

In other news, the BCS received several endorsements from talk radio and GOP leaders today.

wouldn't be surprised

[Brehvolution]

What a surprise.

[Tabasco]

There's no way a college team will ever play 15 games.  The risk of injury is just too great, and it further stresses the ludicrous concept of "student-athlete."

So you'd have to play less non-conference games to keep it so that the final 4 (it would never be more than 4) would only play 13.  But how do you plan around that?  Does everyone else play 11 games?  Or does everyone besides the top 4 play in a bowl?

I'm in the small minority of people who don't like a playoff.  I don't even like the BCS.  Just play the regular season and then do the bowls.  Who cares if there isn't always a national champion?  If you have a playoff, it DOES make the regular season less important.

And you'd still have controversy.  What if OU beats Tech, and there's a 3 way tie between Tech, OU, and Texas?  Who do you take to the playoff?  What system do you use to select those playoff teams?

[xnikki118x]

The "academics" argument is such bullshit, too- 90% of the players are dumber than the dumbest 10th grader and have majors like "land management" or whatever.  They're there to make money for the schools and the NCAA.  But you can't just admit that.

This just made me lol so hard. In fact, I'll probably no longer talk about people majoring in "underwater basket weaving" or "puppies", I'll probably use "land management" instead.

[bachikarn]

We need to just start with a +1 game.

[Bocsius]

+1 is weak. Do a real playoff. The more teams you add, the less legitimate complaints are from whomever was left out. I still say it should be 16 teams. It works for every other division of football, it can work for D1 FBS. (And actually, D2 does 24 teams, D3 does 32).

Fox just pulled out of the bidding for the next round of BCS, their contract runs out after the 2009-2010 bowl season. Hopefully President-elect Obama can muster up enough public sentiment to get a real playoff in place on that next contract.

After that, I'll send him to NASCAR's offices to get them to dump the stupid Chase. Trade one playoff for another, as it turns out.