Playoff coming to college football? Matt Hayes says so.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/feed/2011-10/lsualabama/story/even-with-playoff-coming-sec-still-big-winner-lsu-alabama-national-title-game?eadid=EL/SICOM&sct=cf_t2_a4

God, I hope he's right.

 

God I hate the tone of that article.

 

I agree. The relative merits of the enjoyment from Monday night's game has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

 

That article was more than 24 hours ago. Obviously, he had written a BCS title game column, then gotten word from a source late that the playoff was coming. He added that as a topper. I actually think it works well.

 

If we're going down the road to a playoff, I think four teams is perfect. I don't care that each of the major conferences doesn't have a participant; in my lifetime, there's never been a season in which five or more teams were legit contenders for No. 1.

 

From the Thamel piece:

So in other words, we'll get a "plus-one" system starting in 2014. Not exactly what many around here are hoping for, I'm sure ...

 

Hopefully they won't screw this up by having 75% of the playoff be from the SEC...

What would make this really easy is to have four "super conferences" and the top team from each be represented in the playoff.

SEC, Pac whatever, ACC/Big East/ConfUSA, Big 10/12/24

 

Interesting... Definitely a step in the right direction...

I'm assuming they would revert back to the old system and basically make the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta Bowls the first round of the playoff and then the winners meet in the semis. Maybe it's not quite that clear cut and it's just the top four ranked teams after the bowl games are done.

I'm sure there are a lot of things that would have to be worked out. As Thamel mentions, the Rose Bowl agreement with the Pac-12 and Big 10 could fuck this up. Also, they'd have to figure out what a team has to do to be eligible to play in those games.

I think for this to work you need to eliminate the conference championship games.

 

Don't underestimate how the Rose Bowl could screw this whole thing up.

 

Or the Cotton Bowl, which has a contract with Fox Sports, whereas the other major bowls are all on ESPN/ABC.

 

Honestly, I think this would help the conference championship game argument. Those games eliminate the possibility of multiple teams from each conference.