Penny Thoughts: What of the College Football National Championship Playoffs

About two weeks ago, we witnessed a game for the College Football National Championship between two universities from the South – Louisiana State and Clemson.  In the 21st Century, there have been 20 College Football National Champions.  And in this most recent contest the two conferences which have won a combined preponderance of those Championships – 14 – were well represented. LSU is in the SEC, and Clemson is in the ACC.

As a matter of record, it is interesting to cite a breakdown of the National Championship successes of each of the five Power Conferences – SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 12 – in the first 20 years of this Century.  The PAC 12 has 1; the Big East (before Miami joined the ACC) has 1; the Big 10 has 2; the Big 12 has 2; the ACC has 3; and the SEC has 11.  That speaks volumes regarding the strength of the SEC!

Even with the SEC Network, a subsidiary of ESPN, and the dominance of the SEC on the field and in the NFL draft, the SEC nearly blew up any type of playoff when Alabama and LSU played for the National Championship in 2011.  LSU had won the SEC Championship and Alabama received an “at-large” position.  Alabama won the National Championship Game 21-0, but the Nation had developed “SEC Fatigue”.

Add to this the fact that from 2006 through 2013 an SEC team had either won or was in the national championship game.  After this, the Nation was ready for a change.  That change came in the form of the College Football Playoff (CFP), a four-team playoff which debuted in 2014 and gave rise to the distinction of the Football Bowl Series (FBS).

Now, in the sixth year of the CFP, there are calls for the playoff to be expanded to eight or more teams.  For far too many years the opponents of any kind of playoff in the NCAA I (FBS) have spewed up some rather lame excuses like “the season would be too long for the students who play football” or something of that ilk.  They ignored the fact that the NCAA IAA (FCS) division DID have a playoff, which began in 1984 with 12 teams.  Coincidentally, in 2019 the NCAA FCS Playoff included 24 teams!  It covers five weeks after the end of the regular season.

The pleas for not extending the season and causing the NCAA I football players to miss so much class rings hollow when compared to the NCAA FCS Playoffs.  AND nothing is said about the baseball season which takes place in the Fall and Spring and encompasses something like 56 regular season games, THEN there are the playoffs to the College World Series.  I guess the “old guard” believes NCAA FCS and the baseball players are smarter than the NCAA FBS players so they do not need to be in class as much as the football players.

Now that the “old guard” is convinced that there does need to be some sort of expansion for the playoff, the question remains regarding the number of teams to be placed in the bracket. There are voices which prefer a bracket with eight teams and there and there are those who want more.  The nay-sayers claim that no matter what the ultimate number of teams in the bracket, there will always be those teams who just miss the cut-off claiming that the system is not fair.  For instance, if an eight-team bracket is adopted then the number nine ranked team will be disgruntled, as well as others behind the number nine team.  Thus, I concede that there will always be detractors.

The FBS can take its cue from the FCS Playoffs in 1984.  They had 12 teams with the top four teams seeded in and eight others placed.  I prefer the present bracket format for the FCS which has 24 teams.  There are eight teams seeded and another 16 teams which have “play-in games”.

The FCS Playoff with its 24 games would easily dove-tail with the existing bowls, since the bowls actually call the shots in terms of venue and administration of the games in post season play for the FBS.

Whatever the final decision it is clear that American College Football holds a very dear place in the hearts of Americans.  College football fans do not seem to ever grow tired of their favorite sport.

An expanded bracket will only enhance the fans’ love of the game and will expand the fervor and influence of American College Football.