Death to a Playoff: Chapter 8

The authors provide a cute anecdote about the USC Trojans claiming they were going for a 3-peat in 2005 while LSU fans were wondering how they could make this claim when USC did not win the championship in 2003. They then weakly try to connect how USC not making it to the BCS Championship game merits expanding the college football postseason to a bloated 16 team playoff system. Unfortunate as it may be that USC was left out, this does not warrant a playoff system to include 8 times as many teams as the current system. Instead, an appropriate change was made by the BCS placing more emphasis on human voters, and the system remains better than any 16 team playoff could be.

As we see every year during the college basketball tournament selection process, no matter how many teams are included in a playoff, teams are going to complain about being left out of any playoff system. Thus, simply because teams are complaining about being left out of the playoff system doesn't mean the system needs to be replaced. The BCS corrects itself if it has problems, and the BCS admits that it can be improved upon. The BCS has never claimed to be perfect. When a revolutionary ranking system is implemented without any testing, mistakes are going to be made. A tragedy would be if none of those errors were addressed or correct, but the BCS has done both. If we had another situation like we did in 2003 where a team was ranked #1 in both human polls, the team would not be left out of the BCS Championship game. The problem has been appropriately fixed. Blowing up the system as a knee-jerk reaction and replacing it with an inferior playoff system is not an appropriate solution.

It doesn't matter to me what shirt Matt Leinart wears to a press conference, what Bronco Mendenhall says, what Urban Meyer says, or anyone else, because they are being quoted at times when the system does not work in their favor. There are plenty of coaches and players that are in favor of the current system. Every playoff can leave teams with complaints. The authors make some ridiculous claim that the 2003 LSU team is a “forgotten” BCS champion. I'm not sure who they are talking to, but they certainly aren't talking to LSU fans. The LSU football website has a great description of the 2003 season as well, so they haven't forgotten about it. “LSU can't claim a national championship it owns?” Are you kidding me? They claim 2! Why do you think they can't claim any? Silly and weak points in support for a ludicrous argument.