Skipping the semantical yammering, there were fewer teams eligible for a national title after the bcs came into existence. Underf the old NYD bowls, @ 6 teams in the big 5 had a chance for a natty if the things worked out.
And btw, college ball used a meaningful regular season to crown a champion. Wins in Jan are not naurally better than ones in September.
There is absolutely NOTHING that diminishes the regular season with a play off of 4 teams. If you move it to 8 team and make it 6 conference champions plus two wild cards then it even makes the regular season even MORE exciting. It creates an atmosphere where if you are in contention to win your conference, then you are in contention for an NC. That is huge and right now, most conference champions have absolutely no chance of an NC.
You can take a loss and only lower your playoff seed a little. Furthermore, many teams will get a mulligan in a conference championship game.
Pitt @ ND 2012 wasn't the 13th highest rated game of the year because people wanted to know where the Irish would be seeded.
You are throwing away what makes CFB special so ESPN can make more money off banality.
Man this is the most old-fogey short-sighted crap ever
College football is only going to get better because of the playoff. Not all change is bad!
I want to reply to this comment without giving the impression that I am attacking your position. You are absolutely correct that "not all change is bad". I would just like to lay out why I, in my most humble opinion, think a multi-team playoff
IS bad. Before I say anything else, let me also say that I don't necessarily think that the BCS was a good thing either.
First: I think that the bowl system is one of the greatest parts of college football. It gives kids, whose season may have been otherwise disapointing, a chance to go out as a champion. The "Rose Bowl champion" or the "Orang Bowl champion", or even the "Poinsettia Bowl champion" for God's sake. It is something exciting for the players and fans to look forward to. It is a chance to go out a winner and give the teams something to build on for the next season. They have meaning and value. I believe a playoff takes that away. This year Oklahoma is the "Sugar Bowl champion". if that were a playoff game (as some have suggested the bowls should be), then they would have won the first round of the playoff, but still might go out a loser in the end. So who does that benefit? Fans who just have to have a bracket type playoff to satisfy their need to have a definitive winner? Let's assume that FSU would have won the championship this year with a multi-team playoff (just for argument's sake). Would they have proven anything more? They already won a game to prove they were the best team in their conference. Then they beat a team that played a game to prove they were the best team in their conference (the mighty SEC no less). I don't think winning one more game would have been any more convincing this year. FSU was pretty clearly the best team and they proved it.
Second: Since there is no parity in college football, and the different conference play by different rules (ie, they have their own officials, academic standards, admission standards, recruiting rules, scholarship offer rules, etc.), seeding a playoff would be pretty much of a joke at this point particularly if you are only going to take 4 teams. Before a playoff would even be legitimate, they would have to fix the sport so that all teams from all conferences have an equal shot at making the playoffs. I realize that in pro football it seems to work well to some degree (although there are even problems there), but the NFL is one league and it does control the way teams aquire players and the rules the players play by.
Third: I know, I know, there is a playoff in college basketball and it seems to work. Well, yeah...sort of. But don't forget that at one point the NCAA tournament had 32 teams...then it was expanded to 64...and there were still complaints about good teams, deserving teams, being left out. So now they have "play in" games...and there is still controversy as to which teams should be in the tournament. I don't think a 4 team trournament is going to give the other teams in the top 10 (or even top 20) any satisfaction that they were treated fairly.
Fourth: I know, the playoff also seems to work in division two (I know FCS). But there is not near the microscope on that level of play that there is on division one (I know FBS). Is anyone outside of students and alumn (and only some of them) going to be outraged if Portland State gets snubbed? But imagine the discussion this year when trying to determine the "top 4" to be in a playoff. Alabama was ranked in the top four, but they didn't even win their conference. And in retrospect, couldn't even beat the second best team in the Big XII. Imagine the injustice, in retrospect, of taking Alabama over Oklahoma in a four team playoff.
I know the past system of AP and coaches voting for the champion was not perfect; far from it. I just don't think we should trash it in favor of something worse. In my opinion, the way they are going is worse. Unless they fix the other things that give huge advantages to some conferences (cough, cough, SEC), then a playoff, as I said above, just satisfies some weird need to have a "proven champion"; a champion who "wins it on the field". But how much proof of champion status does that really give when the deck is so heavily stacked in favor of some teams and against others. Just my two cents.
