The USA Today poll just came out. Earlier today, I read that Ok St. will need to get 25% of the 2nd place votes to pass Alabama. They got 37%. So, it looks like that Alabama will be #2 in every poll, but computers will determine that OK St. should play for the national championship.
I thought this was a good time to bring out the playoff debate again. I love this debate, as it is one of only two area where my brother and I always disagree (the other is whether or not Hellboy is a good movie).
Instead of getting excited about watching Alabama and Stanford play in the Rose Bowl, LSU and OK St. in the Sugar, with the tournament winner to be the undisputed national champion, we will all gather around the TV sets tonight to see what the computers think.
What a great way to determine a national champion.
My main argument for a playoff is this, it sure as hell would be entertaining. Some of the best memories I have are watching the NCAA basketball tournament with 50 people, brackets in hand, at my house, while playing pickup bball at halftime. From a pure entertainment standpoint, a tournament would be wonderful.
From a more logical / pure sports argument, I would ask what is the goal of a championship? Most people would agree that it is to establish who the best team is in a given year. If that is the case, then I think we have things completely backwards.
For instance, if MLB decides to just put the two best teams at the end of the year into the world series, I would be fine with that. Baseball plays 162 game, all against the same basic level of competition. At the end of the regular season, we know who the two best teams are. You can say that a team that wins a 17 game playoff (approx 10% of the games played in the regular season) is the Champion, but it doesn't mean they were the best that year. Same for basketball and hockey (huge number of games again similar competition).
On the other hand, college football has very few games and by far the most unbalanced schedules. There really isn't any way to know if Alabama is better than OK. State. Of all the sports where you can just pick two teams to play for the championship, is sure isn't college football.
So for everyone that likes the current system, hope you enjoy Stanford vs. Kansas State and Alabama vs. Michigan. Two completely meaningless games.
ps- I hope I'm wrong and Alabama gets into the NC game. Then I take back everything I just wrote.
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