Opinion

College football doesn't need a playoff

The move toward playoffs could ruin the very things that make the sport so popular

November 16, 2013 6:00AM ET

by Chris Huston @HeismanPundit

Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates with the trophy after defeating Louisiana State University Tigers in the 2012 Allstate BCS National Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome on January 9, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Ronald MArtinez/Getty Images

The first college football game was played 144 years ago this month, as the Rutgers Queensmen beat the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) Tigers, 6-4, in front of 100 spectators on a simple field in New Brunswick, N.J.

Since those tentative baby steps, the sport has evolved into a multibillion-dollar business, as universities, media and fans have contributed to making it one of America's favorite pastimes.

Last year the power brokers in the sport got together and formed the College Football Playoff, a system designed to give four teams a legitimate shot at a national title through a playoff format. The four teams will be selected by a 13-member committee made up of venerable former coaches like Nebraska's Tom Osborne, current athletic directors like USC's Pat Haden and, in a move out of left (or is it right?) field, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The goal was to form a group of above-the-fray operators who could not be charged with regional bias or political maneuvering when making their playoff decisions — the same type of sentiment behind the Simpson-Bowles commission that was formed in 2010 to recommend solutions to the nation's fiscal challenges. (How did that turn out?)

This move is a radical departure from college football's traditional methods of crowning its champion, which for years have been based on media polls, computer formulas or a mixture of both. The move to a playoff is intended to cool the passions of fans and commentators who are dissatisfied with the current system. By instituting a playoff, the thought goes, a true champion can be crowned and the controversies surrounding the sport’s postseason can be minimized, if not ended.

For those who follow college football closely, however, this sentiment is best seen as the triumph of hope over experience.

If there is one thing that characterizes the fandom of college football, it is arguing. The sport’s culture is a never-ending constitutional convention, with participants sporting foam fingers and pom-poms rather than powdered wigs. Fans argue about whose uniforms are sharper. They argue about whose fight song is more inspiring. They argue about which school has better academics. They argue about which mascots are most imposing.

Above all, they argue about which team should be ranked No. 1.

For years, the system as it was set up seemed to encourage such discord. Few complained. With over a hundred teams competing in dozens of leagues playing vastly different opponents under vastly different circumstances, any attempt to find a ranking system that could satisfy everyone seemed pointless. Playoffs? That was for the NFL, the sport's little brother, founded in 1922 and ignored by much of the public until the late 1950s. College football had bowl games on New Year's Day, pegged to regional festivals like Pasadena’s Rose Parade. Its postseason was a national holiday in itself, celebrated in different ways across the country. The sport was king.

The odds are that the College Football Playoff will be just as unpopular as the BCS — and arouse just as much passion.

This unique culture beloved by the sport's fans has not stopped some from trying to institute a playoff system. In the late 1990s, college football's power conferences joined with the major bowl games in an attempt to find a more equitable way to determine the national champion. Above all, they wanted to manufacture a process that would guarantee that the top two teams would play each other after the regular season. And so the Bowl Championship Series was formed in 1998.

The BCS rankings, used to select the top two teams to compete in the championship, were determined by a combination of media polls and a series of computer formulas. The computers were introduced to provide an element of objectivity in the process. After all, computers cannot be biased, so the fans should be satisfied, right?

But the BCS did not settle the matter one bit. Controversy still embroiled the sport's method for picking its champion. Heated debates over where teams deserved to be ranked still reigned. Alternative methods for crowning a champ were retained.

The BCS did not end the old arguments; it cultivated them. But this turned out to be a good thing. For while the BCS remains as unpopular as ever in its final season, that has not stopped college football's popularity from growing during its reign.

That's because the BCS inadvertently stoked what lies in the heart of every rabid college football fan: the fear that one's team, player, conference, coach or school is going to be slighted by another's. This fear whips up a passion for the sport that can be rivaled only, perhaps, by those who religiously attend English Premier League matches.

Now comes the new playoff. But the odds are that it will be just as unpopular as the BCS — and arouse just as much passion. In the short term, this will be a good thing. In the long term, it could be dangerous for the sport.

For now, the argument over which two teams should make the title game will merely shift to which four teams should make the playoff. Fans of the No. 5 and No. 6 teams willbe outraged over being left out (and they will often have a good case to make). The ire currently reserved for the nontransparent computer algorithms of the BCS will now switch to the private meetings of the selection committee. A group made up of people chosen for their ability to be above reproach will be viewed with just as much disdain as most political bodies.

In other words, the new College Football Playoff is not going to resolve the controversies surrounding the crowning of a true national champion. And that is not a bad thing, since the sport has never lacked for an undisputed champion in its long and successful history.

But once it becomes clear that the first iteration of the College Football Playoff has failed, the call will be to add even more teams to the process in the name of fairness. Eventually, there will be eight teams, then 12, then 16, then 24. When that happens, college football’s regular season — the most meaningful regular season in sports because of the importance of every single game to a team’s claim to being the best — will lose its value, and the popularity of the sport will decline. Many of its grandest traditions will fade away.

That would be a shame. Better to go back to the old pre-BCS system of bowl games and pollsters rather than risk such a move. College football is about more than just this never-ending quest to make billions of dollars while finding the No. 1 team. It is about in-state rivalries. It is about cheerleaders, mascots, fight songs, marching bands and debating the strengths of one's team with opposing fans during tailgate parties.

It is a sport in which every team will always be No. 1 where it counts: in the hearts of its fans.

Let's keep it that way.

Chris Huston, aka "The Heisman Pundit," is the creator and publisher of HeismanPundit.com, a site dedicated to analysis of the Heisman Trophy and college football. He also covers college football for NBCSports.com.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.