This is the argument I never understood from the opponents of the playoff system. If you make a Top 4 playoff, a loss probably still eliminates you from the "playoff" race. Maybe not always, but it's not like we would be going from having undefeated or one-loss teams playing for the national championship to having a 6-5 team or something. It's still only the very best teams that will get a shot at the end of the year. Therefore, the sanctity of the regular season is still intact. We just widen the pool by 2 teams.
a 16 team playoff would be unreal and exciting. It will never happen. Way too much money tied into the bowls. Teams Traveling expenses would increase. Maybe the TV contracts/bowls could help out with that.
(Note: I wrote this to my family, which includes 2 Auburn grads and a Tulane student, last year the week after Auburn lost to USC. Tulane was considering dropping football. I didn't edit it because I think the points are important for this discussion, though the LSU NC total is clearly outdated. Also, any NCAA-sanctioned playoff would require the inclusion of all Conference champions; that's why there are 65 teams in March Madness now. Short version: I favor an 8 team playoff. GEAUX TIGERS.) If you really wanted to distinguish between the "haves" and the "have nots", you would take on the European soccer model--relegation. Take all the teams in div 1-A and 1-AA. Divide them into 8 regions of 36 schools. Further divide the schools into 4 nine-team tiers. Every team would play every other team in their region's respective tier. That's 8 conference games for each team. Then, have a lottery for each team to host a team from another region's respective tier. Each team would then have a home and an away game from another region. Let teams then schedule the last game on their own, with the larger schools probably scheduling a "rent-a-win". The top team from each region would enter an 8 team playoff for the national title. Each tier would have a national title game as well. The bottom team from each tier would be relegated to the next lower tier and the top team from that tier would replace them. For example, last year the southeast region would have had UF, Miami, FSU, UGA, Ga Tech, Auburn, AMAB, South Carolina and Clemson. Miami would have won the region, while USC and Clemson's season ending game would have been to hold off relegation. This year, USF would replace Clemson in the southeast region's top tier. Can you imagine the reaction if UF had to play USF at the Ray-Jay? It won't happen, because of the money. The Big Least will do anything to keep the BCS membership because losing it will destroy the conference. The conference system as we know it is too strong. Let's say you are Vandy. Why would you have any interest in changing the status quo? Every year, you put a non-competitive team on the field, but still gain the money from the SEC's tie-ins. And, you don't have to pay to send your players to a bowl. Is the BCS a cartel? Probably, but the rest of the gang won't dare allow market forces to take their logical conclusion, which would be dropping div 1 athletics for some schools. There are only two schools that I can think of that haven't sold out (to some extent) for the almighty dollar in sports--U of Chicago and Sewanee. These schools either dropped football or accepted a drastic reduction in their division. Note, LSU and Sewanee were in the same conference for years, but LSU never visited the Sewanee campus (which is the only place I have been too where the grandstand is shaded by trees.) Quite frankly, Tulane is probably the only school that can even consider dropping football. They don't have to foot the bill for upkeep of their stadium (don't get me started on the deal the Saints have with the state), their alumni base is not regionalized in New Orleans (or even Louisiana), and they are located in a city that has so much going on (much of it a lot less wholesome than college football). But LSU is about to embark on a deal to raise $7.5M a year just to keep up in the facilities arms race--dropping or de-emphasizing football is out of the question. LSU has to have 7 home games a year just to fund the other sports at the competitive level expected (LSU has 35 National Championships in all sports) and they are still paying on the East Upper Deck. The best that we can hope for is that the administrators do their best to instill a culture of excellence in the class room as well as the football field. I think that Nick Saban is doing that at LSU, but I have to admit that it's an uphill climb. Every school has football players who could have succeeded at a school with more prestige--see LSU OT Rodney Reed, who has a 3.9 GPA in Accounting. But we will always live in a world where this past weekend's loss will sting more than the C you got on your English paper. Sorry, Auburn fans, but that is the way it is.
