Division I College Football Should Implement a Play-off System

The BCS: The Bull Sh*t Championship. Look at any sport, where do computers and peoples opinions play any factor in who wins a championship? The best team is decided on the field, and through a play-off. Look at the MLB, MLL, MLS, NBA, and NHL they all have play-off systems. The NHL, MLB, and NBA all even have play-off systems for their minor leagues teams (NFL, MLL, and MLS don't have minor leagues). Each sports uses their own system, but they all work and at the end no one can doubt that the team that survived the test of the play-offs is not truly the Champion. The BCS has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, because for all the hype and prestige that college football gets: The championship is rigged. When the Magic where facing the Cav's in the Eastern Confrence Finals, everyone wanted to see Kobe/Lebron, Stan Van Gundy (The Magic Coach) angerly replied to reporters on the question of everyone wanting to see those 2 in the finals, "This isn't the BCS where people get to vote [on] who gets to play. This is real sports where it's decided on the court." But WAIT, these are just kids where talking about…poor little college althetes who could in no way stand the tests or pressure of a play-off system. BS, look at NCAA College Football FBS-Subdivision, NCAA College Football D-II, NCAA College Football D-III, NCAAB (D-I, D-II, D-III), NCAABW (D-I, D-II, D-III), College Soccer (Men's and Women's), College Volleyball (Men and Women's), College Baseball, College Softball, College Hockey (Men and Women's), College Lacrosse, and even College Water Polo. Let's even look below college, in all division of High School football in every state of America, and Washington D. C., High School football teams span the rigiourous test of a play-off system to win a state championship (When my high school team won state last year we played in 6 play-off games), also High School Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Baseball, and Softball teams all compete in play-offs. When everyone at every level, everywhere is competing in a play-off what's stopping D-I college football? The Plan: Have one 16-team play-off system seed 1 through 16. The winners of each 11 conferences getting an automatic bid (To be determined by the conferences themselves) and 5 at large bids to be determined by a committee similar to the basketball selection committee for the NCAA Basketball Tournaments. The System would see games staged the week after the conclusion of the regular season with the 1 vs. 16 seed, 2 vs. 15 seed and so on. The tournament would be standarded bracketed with the one seed hitting either the 8 or the 9th seed in the second round. The first two round would be played with the lower seed having the home field advantage, where the semi's and final's would be held at neutral sites (Most likely the Rose, Orange, and Fiesta bowl locations). [Please, keep in mind this is only the most ideal and competative format. Their are dozens of other possibilities for a play-off system, I am only suggesting one to fall back on in this debate. Simply because any voters or my challenger disagree with the system I am proposing doesn't mean you should vote against me. You have to see the logic of my analysis based on why we need a play-off system, not which one is perfec] Contention #1- Stuck on an Outdated Bowl System Dan Wetzel may have said it best, when he stated, "Ignore outdated bowls games. BCS bowl games are the single worst deal in American sports." Basically the bowl system works like this: Copurrate sponsors set up and run bowls, make huge profits of advertising and sales while dish some money to the teams participating. I have nothing against using bowl games to celebrate a winning season for a college football team, if anything it's a good reward for having a successful season, But the problem resides in the fact that no one is willing to think outside of the Bowls for any practical solution. The Rose Bowl, and Orange Bowl, and Fiesta Bowl hold so much history in college football to let them slip the way side would just be terrible. Not when the real solution is better. As far as bowl games are concerned: They can remain. As long as teams are eligible and willing to participate in then why not host them? But this must be done con-current with a 16 team play-off system where the best teams compete against each other to produce a champion. Contention #2- The Season Would be TOOOOOO Long Again, I really want to talk to the people that feed America this bull. What if I could tell you that with in a college football play-off the season would be shorter, fewer teams would have to play/practice as long, and thus midigate the risk of injury? Ok, so eight teams would play and extra game, four two, and two three. A relatively small price to pay: a total of seven extra games for over a hundred schools in D-I. And the play-off system could have some sense about it and start the week after the conclusion of the regular season, taking a way the month of practicing and extra workouts coach put their players through because they are play in a bowl game Jan. 7th when the season ended Dec. 3rd. Also conferences, like the Big Ten would not have to play with the severe handi-cap of taking almost 2 months off before playing in a BCS game just because they finished their seasons earlier due to more compact scheduling. People argue that to many kids would miss class with this longer season: 1) I just shortened it 2) Look at these football programs, all of them demand so much time from a student its unrealistic to think they're man focus is on school and not football. If I still haven't convincied you look at this: Due to the way college football runs its clock, there are about 10 percent more plays in a college game than a pro one (135 to 122), which means they're already playing an extra game, game and a half now. Change the clock timing, and boom you shave the number of games being played by almost 50, and then you add 7 extra. That saves 43 games players could get injured in, nice. Contention #3- College Football Would Be Fair How would you like to play in a league, where at the beginning of the season the coach sits your whole team down and says, "Look guys, I don't care if we blow everyone out by 50 points, Go Undefeated, and winner the MAC. The Truth is we can't win a championship this year, because we don't have a ‘history' of being good." Why even have teams in a league who can't win? You laugh, and say ‘everyone has a fair shot'. Go bring that up with the people from Utah, the only undefeated team in D-I this year, where is their Championship? Or what about Boise state in '07? Or Utah(again) in '02? What happened their? You know what happened, the system is rigged. It is fixed towards the big schools, who will draw the big crowds and get the big rating and consequently make the big bucks for the cooperate sponsor's of the BCS games (Tostitos, FedEx). A play-off system would allow un-bias and fair results by allowing champions of smaller conferences to play with the big boys, and if they lose so what? At least they had their chance, but when they win that would be something else. The magic of the NCAA Basketball tournament resides in the ‘Cinderella' run of a huge under-dog. Why not allow that in College Football? Quite simply their is only one solution. College football must change over to a play-off system. If they want to keep their credibility, or even pretend they are a 'real' sport. With die hard competion. Then prove it, what are they scared of? In America we have a system, one system to determine the champion, the best, and that system is a play-off.