Fourth and inches … Adams’ flawed playoff ploy

By T Erickson  |   Thursday, January 17, 2008  |  Comments( 8 )

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University of Georgia president Dr. Michael Adams has nabbed a share of the college football headlines recently, saying he wants a college football playoff in Division IA** because "it is a matter of fairness and equity."

Yeah, right.

The Bulldogs didn't get invited to the Tostitos BCS National Championship game, so now we've got another whiner, albeit one with a little clout this time, making some noise and trying to replace a BCS system that works more often than not, with a playoff scenario that simply would not work at all.

Lest you forget, Florida president Bernie Machen began the whine last year before the Gators actually made it into the BCS championship game against Ohio State. To save face after the Gators' romp over Ohio State, he had to play his move through, and tried to get the rest of the SEC presidents on board with a playoff scenario last May. The idea was abruptly checkmated by his conference colleagues -- including Adams.

Now Adams complains that his Bulldogs shouldn't have been pitted against Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl and Illinois should not have played USC in the Rose Bowl because of the resulting blowouts.

Well, guess what? If the BCS didn't exist, Ohio State would have been playing USC in the Rose Bowl Game and Georgia might not have even played in a BCS bowl game because it failed to even win its own conference championship.

Then again, Georgia might have been granted the opportunity to play LSU in the Sugar Bowl, considering the two teams didn't meet in SEC action this past year. Additionally, Oklahoma and Kansas might have clashed in the Fiesta Bowl to determine the true Big 12 champion because they didn't meet in conference play in 2007, either. Then we could've left the final voting of who deserved to be national champion up to the sportswriters, just like in the good old days.

When you look back at the history of the bowl games and the national champions that were crowned by the sportswriters, they got it right most of the time. The regular season and winning a conference championship were all-important if a school wanted to secure the best possible postseason bowl bid.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of the BCS system. However, given the choice between what we currently have and a playoff structure that diminishes the tradition as well as the importance of the bowl games in college football, I'll take what we have right now over a playoff system any day.

No matter what type of playoff scenario presented, be it four, eight or 16 teams, there would always be a few strong arguments about who should've been included and was left out. And that wouldn't improve on the current state of college football one bit.

Just because there was a rash of upsets over top-ranked teams in the 2007 regular season and a two-loss squad made it into the national championship game is no reason to scrap the current system. So what if USC might have been playing the best football at the end of the season and might have whipped all comers in a playoff?

The Trojans still lost two conference games -- one of them a home game defeat to lowly Stanford -- and they barely ended up winning the Pac-10 Conference over Arizona State. For that they should be rewarded with a chance to win the national title in a playoff system?

USC still won a ticket to the Rose Bowl with its Pac-10 championship, and by virtue of winning that game soundly, the Trojans ended up finishing second in the USA Today poll and third in the AP poll for the year. That's a rather accurate reward for their season after starting out No. 1, losing two regular-season games, and then dropping to the 11th ranking as late as the Nov. 18 polls.

The bowl game system has always been a reward for the regular season, and the most prized bowl invites, beginning with the BCS money bowls, go to the most deserving teams, most of the time. There was little argument last year when Florida took the national title trophy home to Gainesville. Ditto for the 2006 season, when Texas and USC traded blows until the last seconds of the epic 2007 Rose Bowl Game.

The current system gets it right more often than not. This year's LSU-Ohio State matchup only occurred after West Virginia blew its season-ending home game to Pitt and Missouri stumbled a second time against Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship.

If those outcomes had been reversed, we would have witnessed a 12-1 Missouri squad squaring off against 11-1 West Virginia in New Orleans for the BCS national championship, and you can bet your bottom dollar we wouldn't have heard a peep from hardly any other school -- except, perhaps, uh .. Georgia.

# # #

In a few days, we'll come back and take a look at the only playoff scenario that could possibly work in the future, and discuss why.

**Please note that I am still part of a resistance that is opposed to renaming D-IA college football the ridiculously titled "bowl subdivision."

Todd Erickson is the author of Road to the Rose Bowl (Silverback, 2005), the definitive book on the last 50 years of matchups and tradition in the Rose Bowl Game. He is a member of the Football Writers Association of American (FWAA) as well as a senior editor and columnist for RealFootball365 college football.
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CommentsComments: 8  |  Sign Up  View all comments
No.1
Rick Chavez		08:15 AM
01/17/2008
I am sick of hearing about some new changes every year to college football. This year wasn't perfect but its hard to argue...
No.2
jerry a marullo		10:52 AM
01/17/2008
All of you are wrong.We need a 32 team playoff made up of every conference champ;no matter how weak the conference,and the rest...
No.3
Matt Taylor		11:31 AM
01/17/2008
I don't believe this... How can you say UGA is "whining"? They clearly are trying to say that the current system is flawed... all...
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