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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
Saying the regular season would be meaningless completely ignores the fact that there are these little things called conference championships. First off you need to have a 16 team playoff tht includes every conference champion like basketball. Add to that 5 at large teams which surely would include the top 12 teams in the country. Ply the first round at home fields, seed the playoff so that the at large teams go on the road so that the championship still means something. Eliminate one regular season game off of every teams schedule (I mean do we really need to see FL play 3 rollover teams a year?)
I'm surprised to see a bleeding heart like you not see the patent unfairness in a system that doesnt give every division 1 team a chance at winning. The regular season would be more important as virtually every team with more than 1 loss would be close to the edge. Your idea that a national championship is one the line everytime a team takes the field is not that accurate since as we have seen some teams losing means a lot less than others as evidenced by LSU a few years ago. Not to mention it favors teams that play a weak non conference schedule as to beat up on weak teams and not lose. There have been far too many seasons where you are left thinking that the team that is the national champion isnt the best team but the team that had the most fortunate timing. In hoops, you earn it. In football you play the system and then hope everything falls into place.
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I certainly see the points in favor of a playoff, and I'm not saying I am completely opposed to it, but I do think
something would be lost. There is no doubt that the regular season would be less meaningful for the top 5 teams in the country under a playoff system. Your idea regarding conference championship has its merits, but obviously the big non-conference games that do exist (Alabama - Va Tech this year for example) would lose a great deal of meaning with regards to the National Championship. Under the current system the national championship was on the line that first game. Under your proposed playoff system, that game really wouldn't matter.
The thing I don't like about a 16-team playoff is this:
Let's say Florida goes undefeated through a regular season and beats LSU in the process. LSU finishes the regular season at....let's say...10-2. Then in the SEC championship game, Florida beats LSU again.
In a 16-team playoff they both make it in and have to win four games for the title. What is Florida's reward for their two victories over LSU? Just home field in the first round? I think that sucks. The business about "settle it on the field"
sounds good - and there are good points about it - but I'm not sure that a system which gives a three-loss team an equal shot at the title as an undefeated team is really embracing a "settle it on the field" approach, because it is basically saying that none of those previous games matter.