cheapseats

This is not my personal take on a how a college playoff would work. I don’t reinvent the wheel…ever. I just present commonly held thoughts in ways that make people question my sanity. I like to keep things simple.

That being said, I’m not drafting up any sort of new idea when it comes to a college football playoff system. It’s all been done and everybody has differing opinions as to what would work best. What we can all agree on–with the glaring exception of John Saunders, most conference presidents, drug addicts and people with severe head trauma–is that the current set up sucks and a plus one system would only suck slightly less.

Sure, that remaining 1% will tell you that a playoff format compromises the sanctity of the regular season.When confronted with this argument, throw back your head in laughter, call them a simple minded fool, punch them in the face, and offer up this simple example:

Tomorrow’s MAC Championship Game in Detroit. Unless every cosmic tumbler falls into place, this game is essentially meaningless.

As it stands right now, both teams are more or less locked into the bowl games they will be attending. Win or lose, there is a better than 95% chance that Buffalo plays in the International Bowl in Toronto and Ball State plays in the Motor City Bowl in Detroit. All that changes is the lettering on the T-shirts and banners that hang in the school’s basketball arena.

Ball State wins and they still don’t have a perfect season unless they win their bowl game and they are too far out to catch a BCS bid…too many teams have to lose that just won’t or just aren’t playing.

Buffalo wins and they lock up their first winning season as an FBS squad. That’s literally it. You’d think a conference championship would mean a bit more in a system that is supposed to maintain the importance of the regular season.

Now consider this:

Under a sixteen team playoff system that includes all conference champs and five at large/ independent bids, this game takes on a whole new blush. It’s the play-in game from the basketball but on steroids. And not asthma inhaler steroids either. I’m talking Ben Johnson and Marion Jones steroids.

Now, this game becomes an extension of the playoff bracket. It means everything. It means admission to the main party, or a bowl game ticket to the kiddie table.

Ball State wins and they get a reasonably decent seed and a chance to not only continue their undefeated season but to also prove their national worth.

Buffalo wins and it’s an Earth shattering upset. It becomes the story of the little engine that was never supposed to actually doing it. It becomes the ultimate feel good story of college football and makes Boise State over Oklahoma look like Old Yeller by comparison. A city with many heroes to herald but never a champion to celebrate would rally behind a team they hardly knew existed. They wouldn’t even worry about the fact that they would be, at best, the 14 seed and probably get blasted out of the stadium by a powerhouse like Texas. In either event, both teams look back on the MAC championship as one of if not the single largest game in the school’s history. The playoff atmosphere would be borderline insane on both campuses.

And this is just one of the conference championship games! One!! How does this ruin the sanctity of the regular season??

But all of this only happens if there was a playoff.

Like my Grandfather used to say: “If the Queen had balls…she’d be the king.”

And until the higher ups in the BCS figure out how to be Kings, we all lose out.

But just imagine what could happen…

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