Posts from December 5, 2007

I used to write a column with the following content about once per year, but especially since 1998 when the Bowl Alliance and the subsequent Bowl Championship Series have replaced the old bowl system which had existed for much of the past 75 years.

Here’s the bottom line: I do not believe there should be a playoff for major college football.

In fact, I believe a playoff would hurt what I believe is the best game we have in America.

And what I really don’t like are the BCS bashers, who either have a memory as short as Mike Hart or already prefer pro sports to college football anyway.

Why do I feel this way?

Pull up a chair.

I think college football is the BEST game in the country, BECAUSE there is no so-called playoff.

THE REGULAR SEASON:
For starters, because every game is so important, college football owns the best and most exciting regular season of any sport.

Is there any sport where the first month of the season is so interesting? All the way through the final games, it remains so. Do you really pay attention to the NBA in October? Or Major League Baseball in April? What pro sports essentially does is play an entire season to determine 60 percent of its playoff participants. And that’s when the real season begins.

In fact, I wouldn’t watch a regular-season NBA game over an Andy Griffith re-run (black-and-white only), if you paid me. As for baseball, only the pennant races and then the playoffs are crucial to determining a champion. The Yankees can sweep the Red Sox in May, but who cares? If the Red Sox come back to beat them 4-3 for the ALCS, that is what matters.

During a normal college season — and this season was anything but normal — if you lose once in September, your chances at a national championship are severely damaged. If you lose twice in a season, you are out (like I said, during a “normal” season). This season became historic with two-loss LSU in the national championship game.

In other words, the regular-season IS the playoff. For example, think of the past two weeks as the final stages of the playoff with as many as eight teams in the running for the championship game. Oklahoma got beat by Texas Tech and didn’t advance. Kansas got beat by Missouri and didn’t advance. Neither did Oregon, etc. Neither did Arizona State. Then Missouri and West Virginia dropped out at the last minute.

It is simple — if you win as the season progresses, you advance to the title game.

Think of the 12-game season for each team as a body of work. On Dec. 2, who had the two best bodies of work? Nine times out of 10, those ARE the two teams ranked 1-2 by the BCS. Too many critics get caught up in the rankings before they really matter.

THE BAD OL’ DAYS:
Now let’s go back before the BCS and before the Bowl Alliance System. Look at the national champions over history. In many years, there were TWO per season. I mean Oklahoma and Alabama shared more titles than twins share clothing.

As recently as 1997, we had 11-0 Michigan in the Rose Bowl and 11-0 Nebraska in the Orange. Both won and both were declared national champions. (good thing for Lloyd Carr he didn’t have to face that Cornhusker team).

But really, nobody back then seemed to complain much. This type of season was common on throughout college football history. The record books are full of dual champions during the same season. There was virtually no uproar. Because it was the season, the tradition, the rivalries, etc. that mattered.

Now, all of sudden since the BCS was created, there is an annual uproar.

It seems to me that the critics of the BCS forgot how bad the old system, which lasted for 100 years, was when it came to declaring national champions. It was always by a vote.

BOWL DEALING:
In the early days when I covered college football, up until the mid 1990s, I had to write weekly stories beginning in October about what bowl committee was striking early deals with what teams. We had the Cotton Bowl being arranged in mid-November and then the invitee (by secret handshake) may have lost a game or two after the deal was struck. It was absurd. Now we have bowl tie-ins with conferences and matchups are not determined until following the regular season.

Now that we have adopted the BCS, there is no vote — it is a BCS championship game. It also took away those old bowl allegiances of conference champions, so No. 1 vs. No. 2 teams could meet in a bowl and it has worked perfectly almost every single season since 1998.

We had two of the games of the centuries with Texas-USC in the Rose and Ohio State-Miami in the Fiesta — both for national championships. Another time, in 1999, we had a clear-cut No. 1 versus No. 2 with unbeaten Florida State and Virginia Tech. None of these matchups would have been possible without the BCS.

TV RATINGS:
As it is, despite de-regulation so we can have five or six games on TV at any one time, college football TV ratings continue to climb. It is an extremely popular game as it is.

ATTENDANCE ISSUES:
Have you checked what has happened to attendance for the 119 Division I-A teams? Across the board, it increases every year. Many of the traditional programs have long waiting lists for season tickets.

Now here’s the catch and most proponents of a playoff haven’t thought this far.

For an eight-game playoff, as most BCS critics want, attendance would be a real problem. You would want the playoff to be fair and to be played on neutral sites, right?

So say I am a Buckeye fan. When I look at the bracket, perhaps Ohio State’s quarterfinal game is in Orlando, the semifinal would be in New Orleans and the final would be in Pasadena. Which one can I afford to travel from Ohio to attend? Do I go to Orlando, or save my money for the championship game in Pasadena? I can’t take off work for all three on three consecutive weekends, nor can I afford it.

But I can save enough to go to ONE bowl per year.

And believe me, the locals won’t fill up these huge stadiums in the quarterfinal games of teams of which they have no affiliation.

When critics point to not having this issue in the NCAA basketball tournament, which lasts three weekends, I answer, “Duh … basketball arenas hold 12,000-18,000 fans. Major football stadiums hold 72,000-105,000.”

RIVALRIES:
Most rivalries are played during the final two weeks of the season. Take last season for example. No. 1 Ohio State hosted No. 2 Michigan on the final week of the season. If there had been an eight-team playoff beginning the following week, what happened to that rivalry game?

You’re right — it isn’t worth a $3 steak. If I am Jim Tressel, I would be resting Troy Smith for the playoff. Hey, I have already qualified for the playoff with an 11-0 record. So has Michigan. The bottom line is that a playoff would severely hurt the huge rivalries, which are undoubtedly one of the best aspects of college football.

THE BOWLS:
Like them or not, they serve a real purpose. Ohio State for example, fields 36 men and women’s sports. Most major programs have somewhere in the 20s. From women’s field hockey to lacrosse to synchronized swimming, etc. You know what helps pay for those women’s sports, etc.? That‘s right — bowl money.

Frankly, my daughter is a pretty good fast-pitch softball player. I want her to go to college. I wouldn’t mind if she received an athletic scholarship. She has a better chance of getting one at a BCS school because they have the means to pay for it, because there are 32 bowls generating almost $200 million annually.

If there were a playoff, there wouldn’t be 32 bowls. They would begin slowly dying like an un-watered plant.

OTHER SUB-CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION’S PLAYOFFS:
This time of year, some critics always point to the playoffs held in what was Division I-AA, as well as Division II and II. Then they say something like “See, if they can do it…”

Can any of those critics name three Division I-AA teams? Three Division II teams? Probably not. Did they ever watch a Division I-AA regular season game (not counting Appalachian State’s victory over Michigan)? Probably not. Do they check out the attendance of these games. I know they don’t. Believe me, it’s paltry.

So to cap this off, I will quote former NFL Coach Jim Mora.

“PLAYOFF? PLAYOFF? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

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Former Ohio State Quarterback Rex Kern was on of 13 former players and coaches who were inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame during a banquet Tuesday December 4 in New York.

During his 3 year career, Kern went 27-2 and capured 3 Big Ten Conference Titles and a national championship in 1968.

He capped the championship season by being names the Most Outstanding Player of the Rose Bowl in 1969 when the Buckeyes defeated USC 27-16 in Pasadena.

Kern is Lancaster, Ohio native and 3 sport star at Lancaster high, Kern was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics for Baseball, and offered basketball scholarships at UCLA and North Carolina. Kern chose to stay close to home a play football at Ohio State under Coach Woody Hayes.

Kern credits much of his athletic success to his hometown Lancaster coaches. Longtime football fans might remember seeing the play called 15 Expo; Kern woould fake a dive handoff, pull the ball back and run around the end. The play almost always resulted in a nice gain for OSU. Coach Woody Hayed loved that play, but he did not teach it to Kern. Kern learned how to fake a decade earlier in Lancaster.

After his career ended at Ohio State, Kern was drafted by the Baltimore Colts as a defensive back and lasted 4 years in the NFL before a back injury ended his career.

The rest is College Football and Ohio State history.

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