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I Rip Anti-Playoff Arguments a New One
(yes, this column's title was influenced by the fact that I'm reading Al Franken's book, the chapter titles of which often begin with "I Do Such and Such," or "I Meet So and So." Sue me)
(I mean it. Sue me. Then I might get to meet Al Franken. That would be awesome)
Inexplicably, some people I've read continue to advocate that the NCAA not have a playoff to crown a Division I-A football champion. Lunacy. To pick apart the most facile arguments (although "most facile" is a flawed phrase itself, since any argument against a playoff is facile by its very definition):
- "It exploits the players. They already play too many games. They could get hurt. They miss classes."
For one thing, arguments such as the above are incredibly insulting and demeaning to the fine young men who play Division I-AA, Division II and Division III football. Each of these levels have a playoff to determine the national champion, and the guys who play in these playoffs miss just as many classes as Division I-A guys would. What's more, since so fewer players from these schools have even a glimmer of hope of playing football professionally, it's a good bet that they actually GO to their classes. To suggest that the players' health concerns preclude a Division I-A playoff is to suggest that the physical health of players in other levels of college football matters less, and those who would make such a suggestion ought to be ashamed of themselves.
(a notable exception: my father-in-law, who recently told me that he doesn't think there should be playoffs at ANY level of college football. I've never heard anybody else say that, and I do disagree with him, but at least he's consistent)
As for "exploiting" the players, allow me to trot out the old saw that these kids are getting educations at no monetary cost to them, at institutions that in some (certainly not all, or maybe even most, but some) cases wouldn't let them in if not for their God-given size, speed, or other specialized football talents. Plus, a good percentage of them are treated like gods for four years and get laid constantly.
Plus, and this is merely circumstantial, but Division I college athletes are well taken care of. I had a friend at USC who was on a volleyball scholarship. She told me that she and everyone else got room, board, books and a stipend (I don't remember if it was monthly, or semesterly, or what, but it was a slightly-more-than-modest chunk of walking-around money). She really bristled when I asked her if she thought college athletes should be paid. Obviously that's just one athlete at one school, but ever since I talked with her about it, I've always thought it was silly when anyone talked about college athletes -- the ones on scholarship, at least -- being "exploited."
(and by the way, this thing about the kids making millions of dollars for the school and then seeing none of that for themselves? Any kid who is bringing in literally millions of dollars for his school just because of his athletic performance probably stands a darn good chance of signing a big contract as soon as he gets drafted, dontcha think? So stop using that crappy argument)
- "College football has always been this way, and no one complained."
First of all, I complained. I'm only 26, so I guess I haven't "always" -- i.e., since the beginning of college football (Yale v. Rutgers, 1869, I'm guessing; I'll look that up and see if I'm right) -- been complaining, but, I HAVE been complaining ever since I was old enough to realize that every single sport, at every single level, every single place in the world, determines the best team or player by actually having those teams or players play each other.
The Average Wright, in his magnificent blog (jorite.blogspot.com), put it best:
"It's not as if playoffs are some outlandish concept--in fact playoffs aren't just the norm, they're THE way of determining a championship team. I know there are historical or traditional reasons, but I have never heard one competitive or intrinsic reason why major college football should be different. If you're going to argue against playoffs, tell me why this case SHOULD BE the exception--not just why it IS or why it HAS BEEN."
(emphasis his, although he used italics and I use caps because that's more fun)
Plus, the "it's always been this way" argument is itself among humanity's stupidest. Why do we need cars; people have always traveled by horse. Why do we need pre-natal care; 1/2 of the female population has always died during childbirth. Why do we need the Internet; 14-year-olds have always shoplifted their porn from convenience store shelves.
- "Fans wouldn't travel to more than one game. Now they can just plan to go to one bowl game, so the stadiums are full."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, the Super Bowl isn't played in front of either team's fans (hasn't been yet, anyway, unless you count Super Bowl XIX, when the 49ers played at Stanford Stadium, which I guess you should), and they still somehow manage to draw a crowd. Same with the Final Four. It would seem that giving higher-seeded teams the home field in playoff rounds leading up to the finals and/or semifinals would be workable, if by "workable" you mean "works just fine for every single other sport that does it."
And if teams that get knocked out early want to play in a bowl game on January 1st and make some money, great! It wouldn't diminish the significance of the bowls at all, since the overwhelming majority of bowls have no significance anyway.
Those are the main arguments I hear against a playoff; now that I've ripped them a new asshole, here's my idea. Feel free to poke holes into it. Since I did absolutely no research of any kind, I'm sure pre-made holes abound.
- A sixteen-team playoff (participants to be determined by an NCAA selection committee, the way basketball does it), the considerable revenue from which -- after the participating teams take a whopping cut -- will be shared mostly among the major conferences. They should like that, since their greed (well, their desire to keep making tons of money, I should say. That's slightly different -- and probably not quite as bad -- as outright greed) is what's keeping us from having a playoff system anyway. Sixteen teams would be good because, while #17 might have a genuine beef about being left out of the playoff, there's almost no chance that they were going to win the championship anyway so you can't feel too bad for them (the same reason I don't pity bubble teams who don't make the basketball tournament: if you had any chance of winning the whole thing, you wouldn't be a bubble team).
- Major conference champions get an automatic bid. Whichever conferences are in the BCS; I don't feel like looking it up, and what's more, I don't care. All other bids are at-large. The one other rule, a rule I think is not only essential but also awesome, would be that any Division I-A team that finishes undefeated would get an automatic tournament berth. Then teams like the 1998 Tulane Green Wave would have the chance to see if they belonged. I wouldn't think this would cause teams to schedule cream puffs, because a) the selection committee wouldn't like that, and b) you've still got to win your conference, so beating up on bad teams to pad your record won't do you much good.
- The championship and semi-finals rotate among the four bowls that now rotate the BCS's "national championship" game. I realize that this gives us four bowls and three games; I would say that whichever bowl's turn it is not to host either a semi-final or final game gets its pick of all the teams in college football that didn't make, say, the final eight, or even the final four. This would probably result in a better matchup than you usually see in the fourth-worst BCS bowl every year.
- I could even live with an eight-team playoff, but it wouldn't be as good.
There. Now, just do that, and we'll be fine.
[note: Rutgers vs. PRINCETON, 1869. So close]
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