ARLINGTON, Texas — The momentum’s heart is in the right place, it really is, and when it comes to college football that good-willed positive thrust generally bears results. Eventually.
For decades, people railed about the old-guard bowl system, which was no way to determine a champion since, say, the winner of the Big Ten (committed by tradition and, later, contract, to the Rose Bowl) could never play the winner of the SEC (which has a similar tie-in to the Sugar Bowl) or the Big Eight (Orange Bowl) or the old Southwest Conference (Cotton Bowl).
Finally, that old silliness was scrapped in favor of the BCS: the two best teams in the country would be determined by acclimation and by computer. Believe it or not, next week — Jan. 4, to be precise — marks the 20th anniversary of that tectonic shift, when 12-0 Tennessee beat 11-1 Florida State, 23-16.
Of course, that was a fiasco.
How could you limit the playoff to two teams? It made no sense. And the criteria by which those teams were chosen, every year, was a nonsensical mess. Early on, it became apparent: We needed more teams. We needed a real playoff. So by 2014, the playoff system was doubled to four.
Now there were four teams. That’s what we have now. And for about 15 seconds, that seemed sheer bliss. At last, a wider field! At last, a wider net, which would surely (and fairly!) catch the best teams. But the good feelings evaporated as quickly as they arrived. A four-team playoff was too limiting. What about powerful second-place teams (like Georgia)? What about powerful teams outside the Group of Five (like Central Florida the past two years)?
No, the perfectly perfect setup would be eight teams. This would cover everything! The Group of Five could all send their champs. There would be room for everyone’s favorite independent (Notre Dame) if they were worthy. A team like Central Florida (or Boise State, back in the day) could get in, and so could Georgia, the best of the runners-up. That has to be the ideal, right?
Well, maybe.
It was something Brian Kelly, the Notre Dame football coach, said the other day that crystallized what college football truly needs in order for its playoff system to seize the nationwide zeitgeist that, for one reason or another, it never quite captures. Kelly brought Notre Dame to the old 2012 BCS two-team showdown, and the Fighting Irish got manhandled by Alabama. This is their first time as a participant in the four-team setup.
“I think, for us, you always knew you only had one game in the old BCS,” Kelly said. “Now this is two. You’re in a playoff bracket structure. It’s the basketball tournament, you’re in the final four. So you’re thinking about, certainly, this game is most important, but there’s more games to be played.“So it’s a little different feeling, where it’s not one-and-done. You got to win to keep playing so it has a little different feel.”
And, see, that’s it, right there. What we want out of this playoff system is to find a way, any way, to replicate what we get in the NCAA basketball tournament. But here’s the problem: college football in 2018 is — and has been, for years — far too top-heavy to get anyone too invested in a larger format.
That isn’t something the NCAA can simply legislate, of course, unless someone is able to pass a rule mandating term limits for Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney. When you do anything as well as Saban and Swinney have done them at Alabama and Clemson, you should be lauded, not loathed.
But … well, it makes for a pretty uninteresting playoff. Look, it may have taken until last year for a 16 seed to knock off a 1 in the hoops bracket, but almost every year we get an 8 beating a 1. Every year we get a 12 seed beating a 5 seed. Those are the games that nourish the NCAA Tournament.In football? Look, every once in a while we’ve gotten that terrific semifinal from last year, Georgia outlasting Oklahoma 54-48 in the Rose Bowl. More often, though, these are the scores that litter this round: 59-20; 37-17; 38-0; 31-0. This year, we have one game (ND-Clemson in the Cotton) that features a 12 ½-point spread and another (Clemson-Oklahoma in the Orange) that’s a 14-point spread.
The playoff — the sport — needs the Irish and the Sooners to defy Vegas and, simultaneously, defy what we’ve seen across the sport this fall. They need to deliver a couple of gut-grinders to prove there shouldn’t be a separate division for Alabama and Clemson, let alone doubling the field with pretenders. It’s a worthwhile thing to root for. But it also seems just a wee far-fetched.
Prove me wrong.