We're almost near an awesome time if you're a sports fan. The Super Bowl, March Madness and then the NBA playoffs. And (as the Grammys would say, that's just the first half of the year.
Yes I know tomorrow is the college football national championship game between Clemson and Alabama. But this matchup came as a resulted of a flawed playoff system.
Many cynics and critics said that Notre Dame didn't belong in the College Football Playoff because they don't belong to a conference. Others said UCF and even Georgia belonged. Either way, the past few years have showed many holes in the current playoff format.
One, there is no set criteria. A committee of experts chooses the four best college football teams at the end of the season. Secondly, conference championships or appearances do not matter. Third, four teams is far too few. This is only a couple of steps up from the BCS.
A possible solution would be to expand to eight teams, five teams being the Power 5 conference champions, and three at large teams. Criteria would include quality wins, SSI rankings, strength of schedule, rank in conference, good and bad losses. People will still argue and complain but this improves things.
And to those that say the regular season does not matter, refer to the introductory paragraph. People still watch football of all levels every weekend. NASCAR fans still watch races weekly. A small playoff is usually better for a sport like baseball with a lot of teams that play a lot of games. It doesn't work for a sport that only plays about 11-13 games, period.
Finally, before you judge which teams do or do not belong in a playoff, think carefully again. College football (the Division I) is the ONLY sport that suffers from this. Money aside, what is everyone else doing right and what all is college football doing wrong?
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