Why the BOWL SYSTEM is GREAT for College Football

How fun would the Texas v Ohio State game have been if someone would have to play again next week?
It wouldn't...and here's why.

As the new year is alive and kicking, and the cold wather snaps keep coming, the media is still calling for the college football playoff system. Now, keep in mind, I've been saying for years that the BCS system is actually the greatest thing that has happened to college football. I've told this to my students, my family, and anyone that will listen. None of them agree...(note: most of them are Texas fans, so they definitely don't agree this year!)

Sooooo...why DOES that Bowl System work? To understand it, you have to take it back to it's origins. For some in-depth look, click here. The long and short of it is this: people were calling for a unified National Champion. The AP polls vs the coaches polls were constantly splitting national championships, and society just can't handle that debate. It was designed so that #1 and #2 were going to play each other at the end of the season...

That didn't quite work from the beginning because the Pac-10 wasn't part of the Bowl Coalition. Without the Pac-10, and the Rose Bowl, no USC...um...right...

Once USC was involved, and through a few years of experimentation, some more controversy of not only who is number one, but who is NUMBER TWO, and another "split national title" (even as recent as '03 with USC and LSU never being able to duke it out), and another contoversy in '04, they finally settled on their system. But nothing is ever controversy free.

Anyway, the system now basically promises the following: the champion from each of the BCS conferences (Big XII, SEC, Pac-10, Big-10, ACC, Big East) get to play each other in a bowl game. Number 1 will play number 2, some mid-majors get rewarded for having great seasons but not playing anyone tough, and the world is happy.

Now, I have a simple question...with all of the worry about finding out who is number 1, what happens to all of the schools that don't have that shot? Are they failures? Did they play for nothing? I'd say no.

This holiday bowl season has done nothing but prove my point. Take a look at the great games this year with teams that would have had to leave on a "down" if there were playoffs. Games like R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl where Southern Miss beat Troy in OT. TCU by 1 in the Poinsettia Bowl, West Virginia and North Carolina in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. If you didn't see that game, you missed alot. The great plays, the highlights, the just act of watching college football and knowing that they are playing for their school, their alumni, their friends and their fans.

Everyone forgets a few things:

1 - These guys are COLLEGE students, just 18-22 years old. Though physically gifted, still just mentally young, right out of high school. Ready to go out there and make mistakes...yet any mistakes they make are amplified in the media, in the classrooms, on campus, at frat parties. It's hard for them to escape, good or bad.

2 - The economic impact of the cities hosting these bowl games. If you ever wonder why they won't go to a playoff...ask the Cotton Bowl has much impact Ole Miss coming to Dallas v against Texas Tech brought....ask San Antonio a year or two ago when Texas A&M played in San Antonio. Ask them if a playoff would bring 80,000 people to town. Some would say yes...others would say how many playoff games can Texas, Oklahoma, USC, or Florida actully travel to? Not them, but all the fans at a nuetral site...

3 - Everything is media driven. How ridiculous would it be to give away big games in week 2, knowing that it won't really matter anymore? ESPN/ABC, CBS, FOX...keep asking for a playoff, and you'll get exactly that. And it will turn into regular season basketball...irrelevent. I want Texas and Oklahoma to matter every October. I want Florida v Georgia...and I want Auburn and Alabama. And I want them to determine something THAT week.

If you really want a playoff system, then let EVERYONE go to the playoffs. All 113 teams. If not, if won't matter who you are asking to be #1 v #2...you'll be asking who didn't make the playoffs at #9 or #17...is that what you REALLY want? To say, hey, we were just as good as the number 12 team that made it???

The bowl system works...you may not like it, but it works. While you debate whether Texas or USC deserves its chance, I'll smile and say that they had it, and lost it to Tech on the last second, or to Oregon State in a shocker. And I'll tell you they should schedule someone decent in the non-conference...and we wouldn't even be talking.

While you are moaning about it, I'll be watching the Hawiian bowl and see Notre Dame try to make their way back to the big time...and Utah shock everyone with their special shoes. It's fun for the moment...and memorable for THOSE kids...THOSE fans...and THOSE students. Isn't that what college sports is supposed to be about anyway???