Sunday, December 31, 2000
Playoff not the answer for college football
The BCS is fine; the other bowls are the problem
The people who demand a college football playoff don't sweat the details. They give you brackets and matchups. They tell you how wonderful it would be to have the championship game — call it the College Bowl — on the Saturday between the NFL conference title games and the Super Bowl.
Use existing bowls to stage the tournament, they say. Take the top eight teams, or even the top 16. Play 'em off. That way, nobody gets snubbed, the way Miami and Washington claim they've been this year.
It's all good, in a fantasy-league kind of way. But here's a question:
Who's going to go to the games?
An eight-team format is the most popular proposal. That's three games to get to the College Bowl. If you're an average, season ticket-holding nut at Florida State, which games might you attend?
All of them? Swell. Prepare to hand over your first born to the airlines and the Holiday Inn.
Say you play the first round in the Rose Bowl, the second in the Sugar and the championship in the Fiesta. Unless you're hitch-hiking, that's planes to L.A., New Orleans and Phoenix. By championship Saturday, you're pawning the patio furniture you bought for the living room.
You could sleep in a box under a freeway. Or you could rent a hotel room. Hotels love bowl crowds. They jack their rates and force you to stay multiple nights.
You could feed off the energy of your Seminoles. Or you could eat food. Unless you're Tommy Lasorda, three days is nine meals.
Multiply the airfares, the hotels and the food — and, oh yeah, the cost of the tickets — by the three trips you're making to watch your team in this wonderful tournament, and you're talking a Beverly Hills mortgage. By the time you reach the College Bowl, you look like Tom Joad.
Too many bowls
Who goes to the games? What's to keep the College Bowl from looking like the Motor City Bowl, which had all the ambience of a prison exercise yard? Sis-boom-boo.
This is what the playoff horde doesn't figure. The playoff horde is led by expense-account media people, who just haul their corporate cards and their golf clubs from playoff site to playoff site. Think of the Marriott points.
A playoff won't solve the Bowl Problem, either. Bowls divide and multiply like cells. A total of 113 schools field Division 1-A football teams; this year, 50 got to bowl games. That's not a reward. It's the NHL playoffs.
Forget for a moment the thrill you felt when you watched your first Galleryfurniture.com Bowl. Wasn'titthegreatest?
A playoff wouldn't eliminate the Motor City Bowl. UC's players were trapped in fabulous Pontiac, Mich., for eight days, including Christmas. The highlight of their stay was — seriously — an afternoon of free game-playing at a mall arcade. Talk about a token effort at making a team feel welcome.
The BCS does a good job
If you want to perform a public service, don't crackback on the BCS. Find a way to eliminate 15 bowl games.
The BCS works. It usually identifies the two best teams. It ignites debate, which promotes interest. The fans seem to like it, judging from the crowds.
As for Miami: Next year, beat Washington, and don't play McNeese State. Come back then, and we'll talk. In the meantime, try not to punch anyone.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at (513) 768-8454.
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