COLLEGE SPORTS
How should the college football postseason change?
BACKGROUND: Its bowling season, not literal bowling, but the college football bowl season has begun. The biggest issue with the current system is how the national championship game is decided. How do schools who don’t play in the major confer- ences get a shot at the bigger bowl games? Around the nation, people call for a playoff system within college football, but are playoffs really the answer to deciding a national champion of college football?
Sweet sixteen is the way to go BY SAM LEVY |
samuellevy@csdecatur.net
tem. Why should the most lucrative and popu- lar of the college sports not? A 16-team playoff system should be imple- mented in college foot- ball. Te 16 top-ranked teams would earn spots in this system, creating a more intriguing and fair process to determine a national champion. A regular season for college football programs would be decreased by two games,
P Sam Levy Do it like the pros BY JAKE RODGERS |
jacksonrodgers@csdecatur.net A
six team playoff system should be the system
for deciding the national championship in college football. Have the cham- pions of each conference – Southeastern, Atlantic Coastal, Pacific, Big Ten and Big 12 – receive an automatic spot, with the sixth team being a wild card chosen by an informed panel of voters. Te conference champions would receive rankings also given by the same voters who chose the wild card team. Te number one and two teams would not play in the first round. Te fifth highest -ranked
Jake Rodgers
team would play the number three team and the wild card against the number four team. In order to have a playoff system, the
regular season schedule would have to be cut two games, reducing the number of regular season games from 12 to ten. Another critique of a playoff system is that more games equals less time around the school. A good point, but by reducing the regular season from 12 to ten games the play- ers will actually be at school more because playoffs wouldn’t occur till the beginning of December, is when most colleges let off for the holidays. Now, the playoff system would only re-
place the current Bowl Championship Series system. Te rest of the bowl games would stay in place. By having playoffs, we could
truly see who the best team is. Te best teams from each major conference would end up playing each other to see who deserves a chance at the national championship, and from there, to the victor goes the spoils.
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FACE OFF DECEMBER 2011 • CARPE DIEM 7
ractically every other college sport has a playoff sys-
leaving a ten-game season. Tis way, student- athletes would not be playing in different cities during academic finals. Te national champion would be determined before the semester is finished. Te Bowl Championship Series, the com- mittee that ranks the teams, often favors undefeated teams. Tis causes coaches to schedule easier teams and to increase their chances of a perfect season. By bringing in a playoff system, undefeated teams might still make the playoffs, but they would have to show themselves against other top-of- the-line teams to demonstrate that they are worthy of a national championship. A playoff system would also help college
football become more about actual football instead of money. Six of the most powerful conferences play in the highly-profitable bowl games. Te team that actually plays in the bowl game gets most of the money, and the rest of the it goes to the conferences. If a playoff system were enacted, the profits from the games would be more widely spread. Money would no longer be the biggest motive – winning would. But what about the schools that don’t
make the playoffs? College basketball has found the answer to having a post-season for schools who don’t make playoffs. By introducing the NIT tournament, teams who did not make the national champion- ship tournament can still have a chance to compete in the postseason. College football could add a similar tournament. Replacing the bowl games in college
football with a playoff system would let the fans know who the best team is. Te national champion would have to win a tournament consisting of the top 16 schools. Tis would separate the champion from the rest of the pack.
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