Sorry doubters, College Football Playoff already a winning idea
LAS VEGAS — The 12-team College Football Playoff is already an unmitigated success before the field has even been chosen.
That’s not to say the system isn’t in need of any tweaks. The bracket will almost assuredly be a mess when it’s ultimately selected by the committee, and expansion to 16 teams to include all conference champions is badly needed.
But, admit it, this season has been incredible, and the tournament is shaping up to be fascinating from start to finish.
Can you believe there were loud voices in the college sports world campaigning heavily against this for years, standing in the way of what is sure to be a post-holiday treat for fans around the country?
Someone posed the question at a Thanksgiving gathering of why this took so long to happen, which triggered a journey down a Google rabbit hole of old hot takes about why a playoff would be bad for the sport.
If you’re bored in the next few days, run some internet and social media searches. There are some wild opinions out there.
Old arguments laughable
That’s too many games to ask these kids to play, and they will be missing too many classes. People love bowl games and those would be greatly diminished in significance. The pressure on elite programs and coaches would grow far too intense. (Seriously, that was a Barry Switzer gem.)
Of course, much of it was just propaganda from those who benefit from the bowl system, and you can’t really fault people for trying to preserve their golden goose.
But among others, one of the most popular arguments was that a playoff would render college football’s regular season meaningless.
LOL.
It would have been fun to invite some of those who had that opinion to Thanksgiving with my extended family of very casual sports fans in the Bay Area this week.
Some new college football fans were made among folks hanging on every play of a November game between Tulane and Memphis because of the playoff ramifications for a certain football power in Las Vegas.
The next night, some of those same family members were fascinated by an eight-overtime game between Georgia and Georgia Tech, asking questions about the playoff ramifications while getting a lesson in the college overtime rules.
Sure, the four-team playoff created some of the same intrigue. At times. But that was mostly limited to many of the same teams year after year after year.
A 12-team bracket, especially with automatic bids for conference champions, greatly expands the number of teams involved in all the drama.
It leaves a lot more room for fans of nontraditional powers to dream.
Like, for example, UNLV supporters.
Rebels are relevant
What a wild ride this has been for a school that has previously been linked to potentially dropping divisions more often than being mentioned in any sort of national championship context.
The program certainly picked the right time to make itself relevant.
Regardless of how the rest of the season plays out, the Rebels, who routed Nevada Saturday night to set up a Mountain West championship showdown against Boise State, have been relevant to the national conversation. That could have never happened under the old system, but it’s the way it should have always been.
It might not be UNLV next season. Maybe it will be James Madison or Florida Atlantic.
Or even Nevada (OK, that’s probably never going to happen).
But the point is, a whole lot of fan bases now have a reason to dream that really never did before.
And some of the arguments that were made against it look downright silly now.
Can you believe one of the sport’s top power brokers once opined a playoff would be a major problem because band members and cheerleaders wouldn’t be able to make holiday plans if they were waiting on their school’s potential inclusion in a bracket?
Somehow, I think they’ll figure it out.
College football finally did.
