knapplc
Nebraska is a Volleyball school
Buckeyeskickbuttocks;1609445; said:Yes, and I would say that for all sports. The idea of a "true" champion is an illusion and if that's the goal of a playoff, it is unobtainable.
Baseball is a bit different. The reason is that in the "good old days" the world series participants were selected after having played 154 games. In the "good old days" there were, as there are with the BCS, only two teams which played in the post season. The American League Champion and the National League Champion. The important thing to remember here is that the American League and the National League have their beginnings as competing professional leagues. They were not under one umbrella, they were two separate and distinct entities. The regular season winner of one, met the regular season winner of the other to determine which league's champion was better.... more for bragging rights than anything... The American League could say "hey, come watch our baseball! Our best beats their best, so you may as well spend your money on our league instead of theirs"
The NFL was like this in some respects early on, when the AFL and NFL were distinct leagues as well, which also, like Baseball, eventually got together to determine which league's champion was "the best"
I don't know about Hockey history to say much about it, but I did a quick search and found that the Stanley Cup was originally simply "awarded" to the best team in Canada (under what process, I do not know) In 1917, the NHL became a league with 5 teams and was won by the Toronto Arenas. After winning the NHL, they went on to face the PCL Champion Vancouver Millionaires for the Stanley Cup. NHL and PCL were separate and distinct.
The point in this historical discussion is to illustrate the genesis of playoffs at all. These competitions were not born of trying to settle something as between one unified league. The regular season was the determinant factor. After each seperate and independent league had settled on its regular season Champ, only then did those two teams play for any particular reason.
What made playoff pools expand? Simple. Money. More teams wanted more games. As much as I agree with BL's assertion that the BCS is about money, the fact is - playoffs are also about money. Neither system is crafted with the sole point being to determine a "true" champion.
College football is very much unlike MLB, the NFL and the NHL. You have over 100 teams competing for the same Title. In the professional leagues, you have a manageable number of teams, playing a sufficient amount of games to determine which teams should move on. This is a critical difference in as much as every pro team will have the same opportunity to expect that their competitors for the title have had to experience the same level of competition in obtaining the berth for the "larger" prize. That's simply not the case in College football.
If there was some way to balance the schedules across these 100+ teams, then a playoff isn't - in my mind - as objectionable. But, as I've mentioned a couple of times now - a team like Boise State, going undefeated against a schedule that any number of teams could also go undefeated against does not deserve the same chance to compete against a team which went undefeated against a much stronger set of opponents. Ironically, this means I actually do care about fair, despite my protestations to the contrary. Again, we expect the Texas' and Florida's and Ohio State's of the world to play "big boy football" against "big boy" schools in order to qualify, and we don't expect the same from mid majors? That's not "fair." Not even close.
College football simply does not lend itself to a playoff, unless we treat each league as an equal, and give that league's champion a berth. This, as I argued in my playoff hypos threads a year or so ago, is decidedly not what Playoff people are asking for. No one wants to see SEC's Champ Florida v. Sun Belt Champ Troy in the first round. That game is a blow out in September, and it's a blow out in December.
Instead, Playoff people want a bigger pool of teams they perceive to be deserving. At the end of the day, all this is is a discussion about teams on the bubble. It doesn't matter where you draw the line, 2 teams, 4, teams, 8, teams, 16 teams.... There will be some team which will say "How come team X gets a bid, and we don't, even though we beat team X in October?" There will be some team left out which people think probably are better than some team that made it. A playoff doesn't do anything to solve controversy of this type. It was never designed to do so in the first place. All it does is move the discussion to teams standing in a different position, where ever that bubble team line has been drawn.
You've done what Playoff people always do, and jumped to the position that we non playoff folks must be arguing that playoffs are not legitimate. They are a perfectly fine way of determining a champion. The whole point is that they are not a better way of determining a champion.
When one fairly considers the risks and rewards of these systems - BCS or Playoffs - I just see no compelling reason to make any change as the risks of a playoff simply outweigh the alleged benefits. The chief reason I cite is devaluation of the regular season. Again, Ohio State doesn't take a chance against USC or Texas in the OOC if there is no reason in scheduling a potential loss when you can go out and pay YSU for a beating. That's less compelling football, just like the NCAA basketball regular season is, in my opinion, far less compelling than the NCAA Tournament.
Which I've now answered.
It's telling to me that you've made this realization about yourself in as much as you advance a playoff system. At the end of the day, cutting out all the biases we have towards our favorite team, you just want the Buckeyes to have a shot at a National Championship that they simply did not otherwise earn. I would love it if Ohio State won 25 Championships in a row - under any format, BCS or Playoffs - and I won't tell you otherwise. But, removing this clear bias, and focusing on the sport itself, the concept is bad for CFB more than it is good.
The current system asks teams to strike a balance between a daunting schedule which keeps fans interested in filling 80, 90 and 100,000 seat stadiums and gaining enough Ws to get a shot. It's not an easy balance to strike, and sometimes despite your best intentions, it's not enough. So be it. A great OOC game on September 12 is just as good as a great playoff matchup on December 8. I don't see any reason why we should want to rid CFB of early season marquee games just so we can see some of these same type of games in December. It's just a stupid reason.
JXC, you want it both ways. It can't be both ways. This is the realization you have to come to in order to appreciate the consequences of what you're chiming for. Different does not mean better. You have to establish how and why a change is necessary, and in order to effectuate that change, it has to also be based on principle, not passion... with an honest assessment of the consequences as they relate to the alleged benefits.
Disagree.
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