College football needs a playoff because the national champion should to be determined on the field.
The national champion in college basketball won't be the real national champion because all the best teams are at home after getting knocked out by a bunch of lousy mid-majors who had no business making the field in the first place.
So which one do you want, almighty sports media? The grueling regular season that weeds out the pretenders and tries to pair the best two teams over the entire course of the season OR the crap-shoot tournament where anything can happen and you can end up with an 8- or an 11- seed playing for the championship?
It just goes to show that the media has one function, and one function only - to bitch about the status quo.
My one function? To bitch about them...
The Royal HeffernansQuite possibly the best family ever |
 |
2 comments:
Both systems are screwed up!!!
Basketball marginalizes the regular season. If you don't make the tourney, you are a failure and the coach is fired. The postseason is run by the NCAA and accounts for 90% of their annual revenue. Therefore, they only want to expand it!
Football is the opposite, over-emphasizing the regular season. One loss can sink a season, even in week 1 (think ND Michigan for many years). Then, a corrupt BCS system (see Fiesta Bowl) somehow picks the best 2 teams to play for the title, not an NCAA title!
The answer of course for both is a tournament - which works for EVERY other sport in the NCAA and world (golf and racing don't count). Just because the NCAA basketball tournament is not perfect, doesn't mean football shouldn't use one.
In basketball, they need to cut it to 32 teams. That will properly make the regular season much more important. Also, not making the tournament will not mean your season was a failure.
That would mean a loss of revenue for the NCAA right? Well, abolish the BCS and let the NCAA run a football tournament. 16 teams would be perfect. If basketball fans can travel, football fans can too. Use neutral stadiums, pro stadiums or even Bowl sites. It would make billions.
I still like the World Cup method of a Group stage to weed out the bad teams and then a smaller single-elimination tourney.
For basketball, you seed all the teams and have 16 4-team groups. To simplify, Group A will have 1, 32, 33 and 64 seed, Group B will be 2, 31, 34, and 63, Group C will be 3, 30, 35, and 62, and so on. You play three games, with the best team from each group advancing to a round of 16. You then play a single-elimination tourney for the champ.
While you will see some upsets out of the groups, one bad night will not destroy your season hopes. Underrated teams like Butler, George Mason, and Gonzaga will be able to prove themselves and real teams, and not just "one-night-Cinderlla's". Finally, the best teams will be in the final 16, and you can have single-elimination to the end.
Keep in mind, this format would take only 7 games to determine the champ, while the current format requires six (or 7 if you are a play-in team). Also, it could be implemented easily and quickly, since there would be no change to the season, schedules, or selection process. Just a change in the opening rounds format. It would also increase the number of games, since you would actually have 96 games in the group stage (as opposed to 52 games to get to the Sweet-16 using the 68-team format), and so would bring in more money! Why isn't this happening already!?
There is no easy fix for football, because you'd have to do one or multiple of the following: change conference schedules, change automatic bids for conferences to the tournament, change the length of the regular season, remove conference championships, change post-season bowl process, etc. All of those would cause money issues, and that's not something college football is likely to mess with.
Post a Comment