As usual, this time of year there is always talk of playoffs. The playoff proponents however want to have the best of both worlds, which simply won't work. In other words they argue very loudly against the championship being based on "opinion" however they want to use "opinion" to put the teams they think should be in a playoff, into the playoff.
Well you can't have it both ways. Even in the NCAA basketball tournament your first qualifiers are the conference champions. The committee only puts in all the at large teams and the seeding, which oh by the way, can be argued as "opinion."
So in a football playoff, your conference champion will be the representative in the playoff. It would have to be just like the NFL and even more so really. There are too many teams to deny the conference champion plus I thought this was suppose to be about "proving it on the field." The conference championship games are part of the would be playoff.
Also, you will have to go to home field playoff games. This notion that you can use the bowls is not only unreasonable, it's ridiculously stupid as well. In an eight team playoff fans won't travel 3 weeks in a row at least not en mass. Besides pro football has home field advantage. This use the bowls as playoff sites are just playoff proponents trying to justify that a playoff system and a bowl system will work together at the same time. It won't and they know it.
You will probably have to go to an eight team playoff system with six confernce champions and two at large teams. Since there will be two at large teams and for this example lets use the BCS standings to help select the two at large teams. Also assume if you lose late you won't be an at large team. Let's assume a couple of upsets in the conference championships too. So under the playoff scenario and using geographics and seeding to set the four home sites this year your possible first round playoffs could be as follows:
West Virgina @ Oregon
Florida State @ TCU
S. Carolina @ Wisconsin
Stanford @ Oklahoma
Clearly there is some interchanging in the teams listed. Nebraska could be in place of Oklahoma, Virginia Tech in place of Florida State and Auburn in place of S. Carolina. Even Oregon could be out if you use the lose last elimination process, if they were to lose to Oregon State in the final game of the season. Only TCU, Wisconsin and West Virginia are officially in under a playoff scenario at this point. You could literally have TCU the number one seed (using the BCS as our at large committee for this example.)
West Virgina @ TCU
Virgina Tech @ Wisconsin
S. Carolina @ Stanford
Nebraska @ Ohio State
Let's be honest that really isn't a very appealling playoff scenario is it? Nevermind it takes away that every game is a playoff game regular season.
The final anyalysis is that it is about money. A playoff system severely cuts into the money in the long run. Since it is about money that doesn't mean it's corrupt. The world is about money. I don't see the people accusing the system of being corrupt returning any of their salary because they think they make to much. They can just get off that arguement.
Clearly the pundits would be yelling and screaming under the propsed potential playoff scenarios I have listed here because Oregon and Auburn got left out. Would both of them lose? Probably not! Could Auburn lose to S. Carolina? Sure, they should have lost to them the first time they played.
Playoff propenents aren't really against the BCS because it's an opinion poll. They are against the BCS because the poll doesn't fit their opinion. They offer up a playoff solution also largely based on opinion as well, largely so the team they think is the best can get one last chance to prove someone else's opinion wrong!
