BCS

One of the great things about being in college is that, unlike when I was in high school, I can actually watch most of the Bowl games without having to worry about finishing piles of homework assigned to me over the Christmas so-called "break".  But with every Bowl season comes the traditional complaints about how college football needs to institute a playoff system to determine the real national champion.  And I couldn't agree more.  BCS, in my humble opinion, stands for Bull-Crap System.  The two teams playing for the national title should have to earn the right to do so, not be determined by some arbitrary ranking system.  My family and I are all fans of Penn State (my dad's alma mater), and for the last two years, I've been pretty excited watching the Nittany Lions work their way up the rankings with one win after another.  They even made it as far as # 3 in 2008.  But for the last two seasons, PSU's hopes of being able to play in the National Title Game were dashed to pieces with heart-breaking losses to Iowa (who, by the way, beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl this evening... darn!).  At that point, I kind of stopped following Penn State as intently, because I knew that they wouldn't have a chance to win a national championship.  While I'm glad that Penn State beat LSU last week in the Capitol One Bowl (what the crap is with all the corporate names, anyway?), it really doesn't mean anything for me as a fan.  It just proved that they could beat LSU, that they could win one game, but it says absolutely nothing about how good of a team they really are compared to all the other teams.

Every football fan in the country wants a playoff system in college football.  It's just the sensible thing to do.  Every other sport determines its champion with a tournament-style system, so college football should be no exception.  You might argue that adding several playoff games to a team's season might take its toll on the players.  But consider this: while most college teams that play in a bowl game end up playing 13 or 14 games total in a season, winning a state championship requires most high school teams to play about 15 or 16 games in a season in order to get there.  If high school players are tough enough to play that many games, I think college players should also be able to handle a season of similar length.  Additionally, a playoff system would give teams extra motivation to continue playing at a higher level throughout the season, even with a loss or two on their records. 

Only one major counter-argument remains: the corporate sponsors.  That's basically the only reason that we still have the BCS - so the executives, corporations, and local tourism industries can make tons of money from their respective Bowl games.  Maybe it's me, but all of these corporate names for Bowl games are just a tad ludicrous.  Every Bowl now has a brand name in front of it (e.g., the FedEx Orange Bowl, the AllState Sugar Bowl, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl presented by Citi), with some having their original name completely replaced with a corporate one, such as the Capitol One Bowl (formerly the Citrus Bowl) or my personal favorite, the Papa John's.com Bowl (they just had to add the dot-com in there!)

That's why tonight, I propose a solution that will exorcise the BCS demons from college football once and for all: have a playoff system, but have the playoff games at the sites where the Bowl games would be played.  The National Championship Game would rotate from place to place every year like it does currently, but we could have the semi-final games in Miami (where the Orange Bowl is) and Pasadena (where the Rose Bowl is); the quarter-final games in Arizona (Fiesta Bowl), New Orleans (Sugar Bowl),  Texas (Cotton Bowl), and Orlando (Capitol One Bowl); and so on.  That way, the fans get their playoff system, and the sponsors still get their money.  Everybody wins!  So with this feasible solution in front of us, I believe it's high time that President Obama make good on the campaign promise he made on Monday Night Football and work to establish a playoff system in college football.  Because in the end, it just makes sense!

B-)