methomps;683044; said:
Their regular season is less meaningful because it is so much longer. If college football had 162 games and then a BCS championship, the regular season games would be pretty meaningless. It isn't the presence of the BCS system that makes the regular season meaningful. It's the short length.
Each game of a 162-game season is less meaningful than each game in a 12-game season. Each game of the 162-game season is 0.6% of the season, but each game of the 12-game season is 8.3% of the season. So, if that's your angle, you're right.
However, if you're talking about the season, as a whole, it doesn't really matter how many games in the "regular season" (as long as there's enough games for people to make educated guesses as to who's #1, #2, #3, etc.). If only 2 out of 119 teams make it into the play-offs (if we call 1 game a "play-off"), then the regular season is more important than if 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 teams make it to the play-offs. The more teams there are that make it into the play-offs, the less important the regular season, as a whole, becomes.
Although I am against it, play-offs may be better for the NCAA regular season games. Currently, one loss and most teams are out of it. Only the historical power-house teams (Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Florida, etc.) have any chance at ever making it to a national championship game with one loss. And, even then, all those one-loss teams that fit that category have to duke it out in a war of finger-pointing and name-calling. With a play-off, that one loss isn't the end of the season, to the fans of all of those teams. Instead of only Ohio State, USC, Florida, and Michigan fans excited about chances at winning a national championship, you can throw in the fans of Oklahoma, LSU, Louisville, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Auburn, etc.
By the way, I don't know that I buy into the whole bowl-money idea. Why can't the money go to teams for winning each round of the play-offs? If $X million is involved in the BCS bowl games, why can't all of the teams that make the play-offs get a small percentage of that, then the winners of the first round get a little more, the winners of the second round get a little more, and so on? It's not like the money that comes from those bowl games gets put in a box and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Is it?