From: v262xxve@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Timothy C Pitts)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
Subject: Re: Proposed Playoff system (long)
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:47:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

Since the proposals for playoff systems keep coming up time and again and
all suffer from the same problems (IMHO), I will break my vow of silence
on the issue and address the current flawed proposal.

In article <16DEC199218204078@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov>, acdendy@lims02.lerc.nasa.gov (ROGER DENDY) writes...
#I've gone to the effort of laying out how a playoff system might be 
#structured within the existing bowls.

First, your proposal does *not* keep the existing bowl structure as you claim.
You simply assign names and playing sites to games.  They are not, and should
not be considered ``bowl games.''  A bowl game is a reward for a good season,
both for the players and the fans of the team.  Fans have the ability to
arrange week-long vacations at these sites and the trip culminates with the
final ball game of the year for the team.  Your proposal sends teams all
over God's green earth with no provision for fans to follow.  Perhaps this 
would be a television bonanza, but it would hardly ``preserve the existing
bowls'' as they would probably go bankrupt, unless you provide them some
proceeds from the later round matchups.  If you wish to have a proposal
that would be financially stable in the early rounds, you must have either
home-field advantage or local bowl games for the participant teams.

#  I reason that since currently 36 
#teams go to bowl games, a playoff system ought to include 32 teams, so as 
#to offer nearly as many schools the chance for post-season play.

This is a problem with every one of the proposals that come down the line:
why do they all assume we need so many teams in the playoffs?  Certainly
after 11 games we will have eliminated enough teams to not need this many
entrants in the playoffs.  Besides, making the field smaller will allow one
to actually ``preserve the existing bowl structure.''  It seems to me that
rarely do we really consider more than 4 or 5 teams real contenders for the
national championship, so why do we need to have a playoff that encompasses
6 times that number of teams?

#  Also, 
#there is just enough time to play 5 rounds between the end of the season 
#and New Years Day, when the Champion is crowned.

*Five rounds*, you mean five more games for each team?  Why in God's name 
do we need to have the teams play nearly 50% more games than they do already 
to crown a champ?  No other sport in the world requires that many games as 
a proportion of games played in the regular season to crown a champion.  If
you're so concerned with deciding a champion in this way, why not eliminate
the regular season altogether and just have every team in Div. I-A play
a single elimination tournament from September on?  I also propose that
16 games for the winning teams would require significantly better conditioning
than is presently required for the 12 games currently played.  It seems to
me that we only need one or two extra games after the bowls to decide the
champion in any year (total of three extra games after the regular season)
and the proposal to have 32 teams is completely unworkable.

#There's a whole lot of good football here.  Pick some games the other way, 
#you get some different good matchups.  You get some rematches.  You get 
#some upsets.  And you get a National Champion.  (And it's Texas A&M).

But we could also have gotten a reasonable champ the last two years by
simply restructuring the bowl to force the right matchups.  Had Colorado
played GaTech in 1990 and Miami played Washington last year, it seems that
there would have been little debate over who was number one.  Most years
provide similar situations and there could be in place some playoff system
played on Christmas in those years when there are three or four teams that
are deserving going into the bowls.  For example, a Christmas doubleheader
featuring Miami against Texas A&M and FSU against Alabama could lead into
a NYD matchup between the winners in the Sugar and the losers in the Cotton.
No other bowls need be affected (save moving ND to the Orange)--and there
would be a boon to travel agents as they provide trip packages that are 
contingent on the bowl each team goes to!  Note that these games are 
unnecessary in most years.  I also propose that extending the regular 
season to twelve games with no ``extra'' games for any teams would eliminate 
a decent proportion of the remaining undefeated teams in most years.

The Bowl Coalition is a step in the right direction, IMHO, Mr. Dendy's playoff
proposal is one in the wrong direction.

___

Timothy C. Pitts             
Canada US Trade Center
Department of Geography
University at Buffalo        
V262XXVE@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu