A Bad Idea Whose Time Has Come

If you read regularly, you know I love college football.  The passion of players fighting to get to the next level, the traditions inspired by overcoming odds, and the things that can happen when one game is played combine to make it irresistible to old, romantic types like me.  The "Old College Try" means you take a shot at it, even if you're not supposed to stand a chance.

Growing up, it eluded my sensibilities that there could be more than one National Champion.  I remember the Miami Hurricanes returning to the national spotlight by beating the unbeatable Nebraska Cornhuskers thirty years ago, stopping a two point conversion in the Orange Bowl's final minutes.  I remember the BYU Cougars winning their championship game almost 10 days before the Number 2 team played and wondering why don't they decide this on the field.

The Fiesta Bowl, a mid level bowl game usually played around Christmas for most of it's existence, took the opportunity presented by independents Penn State and Miami, moving their game to January 2, 1987.  It allowed a match up of #1 and #2 to get a champion on the field.

It eventually gave stillbirth to the BCS, an idea with one too many letters.  While it got the top two teams on the same field, it sometime left you wondering how it picked those teams.  Several deserving, undefeated teams were denied the opportunity to win a championship on the field, and only allowed to win one in their hearts.  A couple of occasions, most notably the Miami blowout of Nebraska in the 2002 Rose Bowl, a team reached the "title game" without even playing for their conference championship.

It's a bad idea to allow players, who shelf life as a player is one play or less, to risk giving everything they have for a denial by a computer.  Sales are won and lost on arbitrary decisions and salemen's personalities.  Football games have millions more interested and the outcome is expected after sixty minutes or more, if needed.

I'm an old romantic, but play the darn thing off.  We have enough bowl games to have a 64 team tournament, allowing sponsors to use their money as they choose, get exposure, and showcase their city.  Should Shreveport have a National Championship Game?  Shouldn't be expected.  Too many games for such a physically demanding sport?  Aren't the Pop Warner Championships just as many games on younger bodies?  Junior hockey players, while a different kind of physical, play on a roughly weekly basis and play from October to April.  The NCAA doesn't seem to mind allowing schools to play games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights when classes are in session, what is the difference in playing extra weeks?

A four team playoff is a step in the right direction, and as we learned with the NCAA basketball tournament, deserving teams will always be left out.  Football's 65th team probably doesn't stand a realistic chance of beating the number one, but in one game anything can happen.  The NFL might even have to deal with the talk THAT could provide.

So...am I off base?