Challenging The Rebuttals!
January 4, 2008 by bcsbusters
Whenever a college football fan brings up the ill-fated playoff word in front of the administrative Godfathers who control the sport via their self-serving monopoly, you can bet the administrative bigwigs will quickly stomp out the playoff fire with the often used rebuttal (ace in the hole) “how will the fans be able to attend from week-to-week because they will be traveling cross-country to the events?”
This is certainly the million dollar question, but if we begin to think like the late Tom Mickle, the ACC Conference administrator who created the initial version of the BCS, called the Bowl Coalition in 1992 by thinking outside the box, we can quickly challenge and defeat this oft used rebuttal.
Although this is certainly a major hurdle to consider, when adding some careful planning and consideration to our “outside-the-box mindset,” we can revive the playoff fire and put this rebuttal to bed. The highest hurdle we face, which is similar to the NCAA college football bowl format, is history and tradition.
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Great idea…you just happen to be leaving out those annual interconference rivalry games that have become as much a part of college football as your concept will be. So will such games as Florida-FSU, Ga. Tech-Georgia, S. Carolina-Clemson, Iowa-Iowa State, Colorado-Colorado State, Notre Dame-USC, W. Virginia-Maryland, and Pitt-Penn State continue to be played? I think they should.
A lot of these games would be played, although I don’t know if they would be played annually.
Other than the winners side of the BCS Bracket, all other contests would be aligned by regional pooling. In this regard, these match-ups would most likely occur.
At any rate, this could easily be fixed by adding another game. At present, there are already a number of teams who are playing 13 games as part of the regular season.
If Notre Dame - USC, Georgia - Georgia Tech, or Florida and Florida State wanted to continue to play as part of the regular season they could easily schedule these games.
I just fail to see where these teams earn the right to hold the game back just because of their rivalry. Rivalries are super, but if I had the choice this year of watching Notre Dame - USC as compared to the opportunity to witness West Virginia play Ohio State, Oklahoma and USC in the last three weeks of the season, I take the latter 15 times over.
Personally, I haven’t watched a lot of the Georgia - Georgia Tech games, but I understand their importance. If we took this years placements in the conferences, many of the rivalries occurred as part of my Mock playoff Bracket scenario.
Florida - Florida State, Illinois - Missou, Auburn - S. Florida, Clemson - S. Florida, Oregon State - Boise State, Tennessee-Clemson, LSU - Oklahoma, BYU - USC, USC - Hawaii, Tulsa - BYU, Arizona St - New Mexico, Texas - ASU, Kansas - Houston, Texas - Houston, LSU - UCF, Tulsa - Missouri…all of these games would have been played as part of the bracket and then many of the rivalry games may in fact be played in the bowls.
I just think we need to be open minded a little bit and let these situations play themselves out. Your concern has been echoed before, I just don’t see this as big a problem as people are making it out to be. The sun still going to come up tomorrow if Georgia Tech - Georgia or USC and Notre Dame miss a couple years in their rivalry.
The rewards far outweigh the concerns in my opinion.
Very nice article. I think we a long way from a playoff system.
You should just watch the NFL.
CFB is NOT for people like you, that need their football played in the least traditional manner.
The history of CFB is what makes it great.
It’s the rivalries, not the Championships.
Typical SEC response!