It's something that has been talked about for many years whether it was 2004 with the debate surrounding Auburn and their place in the national title; 2008 with the Texas Longhorns feeling screwed by the BCS for seeing a team they beat (The Oklahoma Sooners) play against Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators; or even just last year with some feeling Oklahoma State getting the shaft to watch a rematch it seemed many did not want to see. Ladies and gentlemen, the fix is in. Or is it?
The way this new system works is a selection committee of 15 people will discuss and pick out the 4 semi-finalists that will compete for the national championship. This instantly tells me there will be controversy. Man was made to create as well as to screw up. Something tells me that we will become prisoners of the moment and send a 2 loss team, most likely in the Big 10 or Notre Dame (with more respect to Notre Dame's schedule), to the playoffs because they finished off their schedule in dominating fashion against the terrible teams the Big 10 has to offer e.g. Northwestern, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, and the other step children. The end result of this is a complete blowout of the first round and whoever is believed to be the 5 seed to put another asterisk for yet another college football season.
If we see a 4 team playoff with 2 SEC teams, I'll bet all the money that I have that everyone outside of the SEC will be kicking and screaming about an SEC bias. Lets all be honest for a second, the only reason there is an SEC bias is because they've won the last 6 and have won 8 of the 14 BCS National Championships. SEC's overall record is 8-1 in the national championship (the loss is LSU to Alabama last year), Big XII is 2-5, and the ACC, Big 10, Pac-12 and the Big East all have 1 national championship a piece and the same record of 1-2. We cannot deny how powerful the SEC has been as a conference, keep in mind that I hate the SEC and that also, a team that lost to Iowa State has no business of being in the National Championship game.
Now lets reach the bigger issue, although there is a large chance to consistently see 2 SEC teams in this 4 team playoff (until a conference finally decides to dethrone the conference King), I'm more upset about the fact smaller schools will still be cheated out of a chance to play for a National Championship. More recently people mention TCU and their triumph over Wisconsin in 2009. What people fail to recognize is that TCU was a 3 seed and would have made the playoffs anyway but I have better examples. One example was in 2006 when an undefeated Boise State had a perfect season and broke my heart in a thrilling upset over my Oklahoma Sooners 43-42 in overtime. What was Boise State ranked before this game? Number 9. A perfect 12-0 season and they were barely considered a top 10 team. Another example was two years later when the Utah Utes completed a perfect season and were set to face Alabama. They didn't just beat Alabama, they embarrassed them. A 31-17 victory over a team that barely missed the bid for the national championship game against the Oklahoma Sooners. Before the Sugar Bowl victory, the Utah Utes were ranked number 6. Number 6! A team that would surely miss the cut under the new playoff regulations as well, which leaves room for controversy.
With all of that said, lets talk about the upsides of the new playoff system. For starters, the bowl systems are still alive and that means we still have many years to participate in ESPN Bowl Mania and pretend we have an idea of who will win the Idaho Potato Bowl. No, I didn't just make that up. Trust me, I enjoy getting lucky with those predictions and telling people I knew all along that OU (as in the University of Ohio) would win the Idaho Potato Bowl. The bowl systems are a great way to keep football programs like Duke, Iowa State, Baylor, Mississippi State, Illinois, and other terrible football programs competitive so that they can set realistic expectations for themselves to make a bowl game so that we have better opportunities to see those upsets that we all go nuts over.
Another great thing about this new playoff system is that there won't be as much debate over if the national champion is truly the national champion. I think sometimes people fail to realize that college football is not like the NFL where any team has a chance to beat anybody e.g. The Kansas City Chiefs (5-7) beating the undefeated Green Bay Packers (13-0). So excluding any smaller schools getting cheated out of the playoffs, there should no longer be any debate regarding of who the best team really is. I say this assuming that people are going to be unbiased and accept the facts of what happen on the field. But when will I learn?
