It has been a long hiatus. Like everyone else in the United States, except apparently the football bloggers, I was caught up with end-of-the-year tasks, holiday travel, and (let us not forget) the holidays themselves.
Speaking of the holidays, I will say that I am getting a little tired of all the righteous indignation I hear about the "over-commercialization" and the political correctness of the holidays. It makes me angry, sure, to hear sacred hymns re-written as sales jingles, or to see the holidays represented as incomplete without a new car or a piece of jewelry, but I have long since resigned myself to the fact that entities with a product to sell will do anything they can to sell it. There is very little respect left for traditions or ethics. I am a pretty serious Catholic, and I am accustomed to celebrate Christmas and Easter (and several other holy days) in my own way. Furthermore, Christmas is about "peace on earth, goodwill to men" (cf. Luke 2:14), and I don't see how forcibly stated criticisms are in keeping with that statement. Let everyone else celebrate their non-religious, pagan Yule holiday. I'm just glad that it still includes a spirit of generosity and benevolence.
I celebrated one of the best Christmases I can remember, for those interested. Last year my sister, now a nun, was unable to come home; this year her attendendance made all our holiday cheer glow a little brighter. It was a busy time--mass on Christmas eve, family over for Christmas, travel to see family the day after Christmas, an a pre-New Year's party on the 28th. As there wasn't much time for anything except socializing with loved ones, my memories of Christmas 2007 will be filled with people instead of errands, things, food, and so on. And, for the first time I can remember, we had snow on Christmas day.
I spent much of my free time these last three weeks watching and agonizing over college football. For the first time in my life I entered a bowl-pick'em with my co-workers, and I was surprised to find that I did all right. But I cannot say that anything about this bowl season was fun or entertaining. I confess I am rather fond of the ranking/bowl system, if only because a playoff doesn't necessarily guarantee the two best teams play (a mediocre team with a couple of good games could advance to the title game, and a great team could stumble once and be completely out), and the playoff system marginalizes the regular season. I know, I know--anything but a playoff is subjective and therefore unfair. True. I concede that. However, I recognize that the ranking system attempts to put the best team up as the champion, regardless of (perhaps) a stumble along the way. Also, I enjoy the regular season--you often see two high-ranked teams face each other September, in a game that will have serious bowl repercussions. Also, upsets mean a lot more when they knock a team out of contention.
I know these are weak arguments. For a playoff system to be even remotely just it would have to include high-ranked teams even though they may not be their conference champions. And rankings mean that the regular season matters. For my alma mater, Notre Dame, to be even considered for a spot in the playoffs, it would have to earn a high ranking, presumably by beating quality teams consistently during the regular season. And so I also concede that a limited play-off system of eight or 16 teams is not only workable, but also not detrimental to the character of college football. Like every other college football fan, I have a plan in mind.
Between the last weekend in August and the last weekend in November there are 14 weekends, enough for a 12-game schedule with two bye weeks. The first weekend in December would be devoted to conference championship games, the second weekend would be off (for finals and such), and the third weekend would start the playoff. Sixteen teams would be included. They would play over the next four weekends, extending into the second weekend of January. It is a slightly longer season, sure...but that means more money for the college football networks, the conferences, and the schools who participate. And we get to watch more football. It's really win-win.
How to choose the 16 teams, though? a simple answer would be to take the six BCS conference champions and the ten highest-ranked teams who are not BCS conference champions. Though we saw some good football from non-BCS conference teams over the last several years, perhaps leading some to suggest that the playoff include the 12 conference champions, I think that by and large the top 3 teams of a BCS conference such as the SEC, the Pac 10, or the Big 10 are generally better than even the champion of a non BCS conference. I therefore reject that proposition (we don't want our playoff games to be meaningless blowouts). I personally don't like conferences at all, and would rather simply have the top sixteen ranked teams play, but since TV and bowl contracts are tied to conferences these days, I don't see how it's avoidable to pay them some lip service (despite the fact that a top-16 slate in any year is likely to include members from all six BCS conferences). In any case, non-BCS teams and non conference champions would be equally fighting for a high ranking and a chance to make the playoffs. Hence big match-ups during the regular season would still be important, and teams who schedule inferior opponents (like Ohio State's 2007 season) could still be punished in favor of teams who play a harder schedule (like USC this year).
But what shall we call these fifteen playoff games? nobody cares, probably except the marketers of the current BCS bowls. Yet the beauty of this system is that the Sugar Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Orange bowl could split the round of four, consisting of two games on the first weekend in January, and the round of eight, consisting of four games on the last weekend in December, between them, allowing at least the Rose bowl to be scheduled on New Years' day, which falls between the last weekend in December and the first weekend in January--and they can also then keep their precious Rose parade. And, if the Rose bowl would suffer itself to be always part of the round of eight teams, it would be extremely likely that the organizers could schedule a Pac 10/Big 10 match-up (this could even hold true for some of the other bowls). The other two games in the round of eight could be occupied by other worthy bowl games, such as the Cotton bowl or the Gator bowl. The round of sixteen (eight games) could be filled by other, lesser, bowls, and the National Championship game would be just that, with no fancy name required. The marketers would get their piece of the pie, the bowl games would be sufficiently important in the grand scheme of things--they would certainly be big games!--and we would all get to see a team crowned national champion in a reasonably non-subjective way. I say "reasonably," because the ranking system is subjective, though taking (theoretically) the top 16 teams would largely equalize the subjectivity.
It's a pipe dream, I'm sure. But it would at least prevent much of the grumbling and discontent at this most recent college season. You can also check out similar opinions from the Wizard of Odds and Larry Brown.
