COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS

College football should be playoffs. 77% of people polled by ESPN think the four-team or eight-team playoff is the right thing to do. There is even a law suggested in Texas saying that any game proclaiming itself as a championship is illegal if it does not result from a playoff system. The national champions in other major college sports are determined by playoff systems. Football should not be any different. The only reason that the BCS is still controlling the football post-season is because the system has become almost traditional. If multiple teams are at the top of the standings with the same record, they shouldn’t be left out of a championship game because of a human poll. With the BCS in place, the selection will be made by misjudged computers and biased humans. Even though BCS may be statistically the best way to match college teams up, it should be playoffs because BCS is unfair and biased and playoffs would generate a lot of revenue and be more competitive.


The Bowl Championship Series (BCS), a self-described "five-game arrangement for post-season college football," is a system that ranks teams and matches the top two in the national championship game to determine the national champion. The annual controversy about whether the BCS should be replaced by a playoff system centers on the BCS rankings (also called standings). The BCS standings are calculated by averaging three elements: the Harris Intercollegiate Football Poll, the USA TODAY Coaches' Poll, and the average of six computer rankings. Proponents of the BCS say their rankings are as accurate as possible because the BCS incorporates human polls and computer ratings to calculate the standings, but critics counter that the BCS rankings often place teams in the wrong order and discriminate against smaller schools.

Playoffs would generate a lot more revenue than a BCS system. If a playoff system was put in place, it would mean more games for teams, meaning more ticket sales, meaning more money for the school. Annual television contracts for the playoffs are estimated to generate revenues ranging from $600 million to $1.5 billion. A playoff system would also give each school an opportunity to earn a fair share of the revenue distributed to the 11 conferences in the FBS. Since the BCS conferences automatically qualify for BCS bowl games, they receive a largely disproportionate amount of the annual bowl revenue. Since football earnings fund other sports, this unfairness affects athletes in all sports.

It would also make college football more competitive. Instead of champions being decided by a computer, they have to fight to see who wins. It makes winning much more rewarding when you beat your opponent than when it’s just decided that you win. If a team loses one game early in the season, they are probably out of contention for the National Championship. If they lose two or more, they could even lose the possibility of going to a BCS bowl game. This would make the rest of the games lose their excitement if they didn’t matter in BCS standings. The BCS system does not work, because it has named two teams national champions 110 times in the last 140 years.


The most important reason that it should change to playoffs is because the BCS system has been known to be unfair and biased. This year, Auburn and Ohio State, two teams with the same record, were ranked number 2 and 3. The reason that Auburn is number two is because they won unlikely games and their only loss came early in the season. Ohio State lost in their last game of the season, and they dropped 5 spots to number 7, so they are now out of contention for the National Championship. Computers were introduced to the selection process to offset human bias. However, the computers were very misjudged and inadequate in their selections. The two teams selected for the championship are not always the best teams. In 2004 and 2008, The University of Utah was excluded from playing in the national championship because they were in a non-BCS conference, despite being the only undefeated team. Teams with one or more loss were playing in the championship game while Utah had no losses. In 2003, USC ranked number one in the two interactive human polls but the computer rating placed USC at number three and thereby excluded them from competing in the national championship. Also, if a team begins the year ranked lowly or not ranked at all, it becomes very difficult to increase their rank because of early season polls. Preseason polls are really pretty worthless in football and basketball, but only in football can they have a detrimental effect on your future and essentially put a team out of the running for the top spots.


Even President Barack Obama stated his support for instituting a playoff system. He said, “If you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear, decisive winner. We should be creating a playoff system... It would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this."

In conclusion, although the BCS system seems like it would work, it should be playoffs for two main reasons. First, playoffs would generate a lot of revenue and be more competitive. But most importantly, BCS is unfair and biased, and we should get rid of it.