Death to a Playoff: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is pretty impressive in the way that it takes quotes out of context and makes a big, and simple, math error. The entire chapter, like much of the book, is littered with quotes from conference commissioners or school presidents about how a playoff will destroy the bowl games and system. While I enjoy the bowl games myself, I will say that I think there are too many, but to think that the authors' playoff proposal will not eliminate ANY bowls as they repeatedly claim, is simply fiction.

First, let's analyze the first 2 quotes, from Bill Hancock and Jim Delaney, about how the bowl system will not survive a playoff. I'm not sure in what context these quotes are made, and without citations, it is impossible to know, but I will say that I have heard such claims before. The problem is that since we don't know the context, we don't know what type of playoff system the quoted remarks are referring to. I have seen some playoff proposals of 16 or 32 teams where every game except the final round is played at a bowl location instead of the home field. This may be the plan that Hancock and Delaney are referring to. To their credit, the authors' proposed playoff seems to be a fairly good one in keeping the bowls intact. Yet, they treat these quotes from Hancock and Delaney as though they are responding directly to a question about the authors' playoff proposal. More than likely, the speakers are not referring to the authors' proposal, but you really have no idea. Unfortunately, this does not stop the authors from including these senseless out-of-context quotes throughout the chapter and book. An unfortunate oversight.

Perhaps a more unfortunate oversight, maybe more of a miscalculation, is their claim that no bowls would suffer if their playoff was installed. The fact that they missed some simple math is really an egregious error. But they just go on and on about how bowls would likely remain unaffected if their playoff was implemented. Let's take a closer look. In the 2010 college football season, there were 35 bowl games, which obviously means there need to be 70 teams invited to these games in order to play them. We had 72 total bowl eligible teams, so no problems there. However, if we are to take 16 teams and place them in a playoff, with those teams playing their playoff games in home stadiums, we take 16 teams away from the list of bowl eligible teams, leaving us with 56 teams. 56 teams only allows us to play 28 games, so it sounds like 7 bowl games are going to be eliminated, unless they allow teams with losing records to compete in bowl games, which they absolutely shouldn't. With all the thorough research included in the book, you wouldn't think a simple math problem would discredit their entire claim about bowls being largely unaffected.

This is another weak chapter because the quotes included are not referencing the authors' playoff proposal, so they are worthless, and the claim that bowls would not be affected by a playoff is mathematically impossible. These are not small details, yet they were overlooked. It is a wonder what else may have been left out.