By
Denny O'Brien
©2010 Bonesville.net
All Rights Reserved.
Opposition to a college football playoff
is the equivalent to an endorsement of the Bowl Championship Series.
At least that's the message this week from my inbox.
My steadfast refusal to support a postseason tournament for the Football
Bowl Subdivision has evidently lumped me into an alliance with Ohio
State president E. Gordon Gee, who recently referred to BCS non-AQ
schools as the “Little Sisters of the Poor.” Those and other comments
painted him as an uninformed elitist with an agenda to keep schools
outside of the BCS power structure at a complete disadvantage.
Apparently some both inside and outside of East Carolina circles
consider me a champion of that message. Perhaps that is due to the
assumption that a college football playoff would close the gap between
the financially privileged and those schools struggling to stay in the
black.
But that isn't necessarily the case. Given the likely configuration of
any such playoff, the point can be made that the gap would actually
widen more.
I believe it would.
ESPN and the six BCS AQ conferences – not the NCAA – have complete
control over how the college football postseason is run. Neither has
taken an overly benevolent approach to the non-AQ leagues, and there is
no reason to believe they would suddenly do so in a playoff scenario.
Any future shift towards a playoff model would occur only if it proved
even more advantageous to those conferences and the television partner
that owns the broadcast rights. In neither case would you find that duo
seeking to protect the interests of Conference USA or the Mountain West
Conference.
Gee's rhetoric is evidence of that.
Truthfully, you have to wonder why Gee and his colleagues haven't
pursued a playoff yet. It would generate a bidding war among the major
networks and potentially establish a monopoly on the deep-pocketed
sponsors.
The result would be an even bigger stage for college football's elite
and would potentially dissolve many of the struggling middle and lower tier
bowls. With so much interest in a playoff, it would be difficult to
attract casual fans to even more meaningless games and make them more of
a television afterthought.
While some might contend that a world with fewer bowls would be a better
one, think about this: if several bowls were to sunset, it would
decrease the opportunities for a 6-6 East Carolina team to take 10,000
fans to the nation's capital to play an Atlantic Coast Conference foe.
That would be one less opportunity for the Pirates to knock off an
attractive opponent. And it would be one less month for Ruffin McNeill
and his staff to build the depth of the program for the future.
Now, in a perfect world, the NCAA would somehow wrestle control of the
postseason away from the AQ conferences and establish a playoff that is
equitable for everyone. At a minimum, that would involve a 16-team
tournament with all conferences receiving an automatic bid.
Just don't hold your breath on that one.
The NCAA is too frightful of the potential backlash from the BCS AQ
leagues should it try to intervene in the college football postseason.
Tulane president Scott Cowen once told me that, while he believed the
threat was remote, the BCS AQ conferences might attempt to branch off
should the NCAA meddle in its affairs.
I happen to believe it is realistic possibility. Because the BCS has
already demonstrated enough greed that you can't help but conclude that
it would stop at nothing to protect its financial status in college
football.
There is no doubt that forming a college football playoff would gratify
the craving that many have for crowning a national champion on the field.
But that would hardly solve the primary problem in college football,
which is the exclusivity that has been deliberately manufactured into
the sport.
As long as the BCS AQ conferences are running the show, a postseason
tournament would hardly address that issue. That's why you won't find me
picketing for a playoff.