The BCS Conversation Part IV- Be Careful What You Wish For

I realize that the non BCS conference champions will most likely NEVER get a title shot under the current construct. Barring a highly unusual set of circumstances The Mountain West, WAC, MAC, CUSA & Sun Belt can hope for an at-large BCS berth at best. In addition there will be a "sqeaky wheel" team or two from the major BCS conferences almost every season. In some cases they will have a pseudo legitimate complaint. But most if not all of them will fall into the 2008 Texas category. Take care of business and it won’t be an issue. So do you go to a playoff just to extend some semblance of a chance to those non BCS conferences and squeaky wheel teams?

Is that really what we want? Do we really want to re-arrange the entire construct of the college football post season to give the little guys a chance? If so where does it end? I am a college football fan not an NFL football fan. If I was this blog would be called Two Feet Down, or Two Feet In Bounds or some other lame NFL specific reference. I’d be talking about Brett Favre or Ocho Cinco or some other ridiculousness. Not to mention going 10-6 and making the playoffs just doesn't excite me. I like college football. I like the tradition, the bands, the varied offenses, the passionate fan bases, the personalities and most of all I like that every game counts. The sum of those elements makes college football very different than the NFL.

That’s why I’m not in favor of a playoff system. It too closely resembles the NFL. Do you really want to see (insert your favorite team) not play their starting quarterback in week 12 to make sure that he’s healthy for the playoffs? It will happen. As much as I hate to admit it USC has been the most formidable program in college football for the last several years. The only saving grace is that Sneaky Pete and the boys tend to drop a meaningless game during the season that ultimately relegates them to pounding another Big 11 team in the Rose Bowl. Institute a playoff and those bastards might be sitting on an additional 2-3 titles. College football has the most intriguing regular season of any major sport on the planet for that exact reason. Every game counts. You can't go 8-4 then pick up a wildcard spot in the playoffs and make a run. Lose one regular season game and your title hopes just took a major hit. Lose two and barring a bizarre set of circumstances like Les Miles and LSU lucked into in 2007 and you are out. As a college football fan I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want it to be "business like" as the NFL is. That’s been the steepest learning curve for college coaches coming from the NFL. This isn’t the NFL, you have to play into all that passion surrounding the game every week.

The end result of maintaining the current format is that those non BCS conference champions will most likely remain left out of the title game. But if those conferences and programs within those conferences can build a winning tradition over time it will take care of itself. At the rate conferences realign and things change who is to say the WAC isn't a formidable BCS conference in 5-10 years? Or perhaps the strong teams in those conferences will jump to BCS conferences. In the mean time for every Utah there is a Hawaii that shows up in a BCS game and gets blasted. In all the clamoring to no end for a playoff we also quickly lose sight of the fact that there is no real end to the controversy in that either. If we go to a four team "plus one" format I’ll bet the house there will be controversy about who is #5. The little guys will most likely still get left out. If we go to 8 teams there will be controversy about #9. There is no end to the argument. As college football fans we need to be careful what media fueled bandwagon we jump on. We just might get it. If we do, it could drastically change on the college football landscape as we know it. And once we go there, there is no going back.