Thats fair and I totally respect that point. For arguments stake I will say this then. Great/Amazing teams don't lose their biggest game of the year at home. Sorry Alabama, Stanford, and Virginia Tech you lost your chance at a National Title. Oklahoma St, you lost in Ames Iowa??? Boise State got upset by a 9-2 team that is coming off of a BCS Bowl Game win, sorry you are out of the title chase. Houston, your ranked 6th, sorry you haven't lost a game this year. Your conference sucks and you don't get any respect for going undefeated. We have no need for a bowl game. LSU is National Champions.
Also if it is so easy to make a call between #2 and #3, what do you do in 2004. Oklahoma and LSU go to the National Championship game dispite USC being ranked #1 in the AP and the Coaches poll? Also, in all seriousness. The current system is setup to reward the best two teams against the hardest comeptiton. I agree 100% with you. The problem is that the system doesn't work and it seems like yearly there is some sort of controversy.
I didn't say it's always easy to tell #2 from #3. What I think, on average, is that it's usually a sharper drop-off from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 than it is from 12 to 13, 15 to 16, etc. Which is why I think it's a slippery slope to have 8, 16, 32 team playoffs because the discussion of who gets in is actually tougher and then dilutes the playing field for a championship. Yes, I agree with you the system has it's flaws because without a strong inter-conference schedule its tough to tell which teams and schedules are hardest based on a few data points (ex. MN vs USC, LSU vs Oregon, etc etc) - a couple data points doesn't necessarily mean one conference is that much tougher than another every season. However that is part of the fun to me. Polls matter; people watch each week and see how the humans and computers shake out. How scheduling weak non-conference games (ahem Wisconsin) can keep you out of a top 5 season with a loss or 2 whereas LSU scheduling both West Virginia AND Oregon then winning means even a loss would put them at #2. Yes, the system doesn't work but only because people want to see a playoff system, not because playoffs actually crown the best team in the country. That's my argument. Last year a 10-6 Packers team that didn't even win its own division won the Superbowl. Were they a good team at the end of the year? Yes. Have they proved this year that the playoff run maybe wasn't a fluke? Yes. But last year, they were not the best team in the NFL.
GoAUGopher: I agree that culturally college and pro football are much different. But are we really so naive to think that it couldn't, won't, or ISN'T already changing? Look at our own board and see that there are plenty of people in favor of paying players - a complete departure from everything that college football is. If rivalries are so important to schools, fans, coaches.. I don't see how people can overlook teams ditching 100+ year rivals for a slightly better monetary situation. How is it any different to say "this years matchup against Main Rival U isn't worth injuring starters and jeopardizing the big money that can come from a national championship run in the playoffs." ?? I'm not saying it will happen over night. And no, perhaps you're right that the Michigan-OSU game will forever mean something. Maybe a select few others. But if you had told me that Kansas-Mizzou, Nebraska-Oklahoma, Pitt-WV, and Texas-aTm wouldn't be playing yearly just 14 months ago, I would have called you silly. I also think it's odd that the paying of players up to $2,000 happened SO fast at the NCAA. It is a legitimate concern and clearly conferences, schools, athletic departments aren't fighting hard enough to affect anything.
And yes, the end of year rivalry thing is a sting at Gopher fans such as myself. But that doesn't mean it isn't an indication of a larger problem - the B1G clearly recognized that tv revenue and relevance were bigger than allowing team 1 to play team 2 in historical rivalry at the end of the season. Hence PSU-Wisc and Iowa-Neb. And no, Iowa was always our last home or away game. Wisconsin was TYPICALLY our last at home and not as much in Camp Randall. Regardless, NW and Ill are not what we'd like to see.
Again, these are my opinions. If they implemented a playoff I'd probably watch since I watch college hockey playoffs, March Madness, etc. But I prefer the system of selecting the top 2 teams based on body of work. Would 4 be acceptable to me? Yes, I've said that before as I think 95+% of the time the top 4 ranked teams include the best team in the country.
