The Demand for a Playoff

So Boise State won. They beat the mighty Big 12 Conference Champion in Oklahoma, and now there is anarchy. Right?

Wrong. There will be no playoff, unless something earth shattering happens, like America converting to socialism. There are a bunch of reasons why the NCAA should adopt a playoff system for Division I-A, so I do not need to restate them. However, I do want to present what I feel would be the best format to adopt, if in 2057 the revolution finally occurs.

So there is a 12 team playoff, NFL style. Going undefeated matters, because you get a first round bye and you play at home for the first game, a doubleplus good. In addition, like the NFL, the top seeded team plays the lower of the remaining seeds, an added advantage. Teams earn more money the farther they advance in the playoffs, and the payout could be distributed in tiers. The playoff determines a champion on the field, and the complaining world is at peace, for five minutes.

The next debate would be who gets in. I feel the system could be exactly the same as it is. The BCS conferences can still monopolize the field with their automatic bids, and we use the exact same system used now to determine the at large teams, but we just choose more of them. The potential problem is now more of who gets ranked 12th versus 13th, but this is a much lesser evil than choosing the number 2. The system should probably be the same as the current BCS, as flawed as it may be. It is not the fault of the computers that Michigan became worse than 2 teams without losing. It was the will of those who vote.

The only difference from the BCS system I would call for is that any undefeated team automatically gets in, regardless of conference, so long as it plays 1 team from a BCS conference. So suddenly Duke will be the hottest team in the nation to play. There are ways the BCS conferences could sabotage this by denying to play non-BCS conference teams. In addition they may argue about strength of schedule issues. But in response to both a good amount of BCS teams play division I-AA schools anyway, so they should just replace the I-AA team with a WAC team, for example. A possible issue is the extremely rare chance that there are more non BCS teams that are undefeated than there are at large spots.

For the near 40 teams that would not make the playoffs that would be in a bowl game now, why not keep the random name sponsor bowl system for them? Bowl games between teams with average records, which I consider those bowl games where both teams have less than 10 wins, will not lose any viewers since a majority of those games run during the week anyway, when the playoff games would not be played.

If Ohio State wins on Monday, we will have an undisputed national champion. There will be no teams that have not lost a game that can complain about the system, and all will be well, right?

Except for everyone in Idaho.

-CB

Ballin for Pride

(Note: I tried using a Yahoo Widget to submit this post, and when it failed to post, it also deleted what I typed. Lesson learned. So I'll try to summarize what I wrote)

This time of year has me feeling good for the recent successes of two players: Steve McNair and Allen Iverson. The players have similar backgrounds, as they both raised the play of teams that were jokes beforehand and led them to the Super Bowl/NBA Finals. Now, about five years later, both players were treated in a sour fashion.

Iverson led the Sixers to the NBA Finals, despite having no player that anyone will probably remember 5 years from now. The Sixers did nothing to try to improve the team, if anything, the roster only got worse. After the only major attempt to improve the team flopped, it was clear Iverson would not have a chance to win in Philly. The 76ers shopped Iverson around all summer to other teams like as if he was a used car with 120,000 miles on it. Unsuccessful, they finally traded him about a third of the way through the season, despite the team being within 6 games of first place in their division. (They play in what some are calling the worst division in sports history.) Now Iverson is on the Nuggets, a team that can compete and maybe even win the Western Conference, and will be even better next year when Kenyon Martin returns. The Sixers, on the other hand, have the ill fate of considering throwing games so that they have a better shot of the #1 draft pick, as that is the only way they will improve.

Steve McNair led the Titans to the Super Bowl, and were literally one yard short of being the champions. After an injury ridden past few years, McNair was banished from Titan facilities while on the comeback from a recent injury. Basically told he was no longer wanted, and being disrespected publicly by the team, McNair is now on the Ravens. The Ravens are 12-3 and can earn a first round bye in the playoffs. The Titans are now dangling to hopes for a playoff spot after finally finding traction with Vince Young. But this isn't about them.

The similarity of these two athletes, both in their thirties, is rather striking. They both show that players can overcome the unnecessary adversity placed upon them by their former teams, and can lead a new squad to success. I'll root for the Nuggets all the way, and the Ravens too...

... Until they meet the Chargers.
-CB