The Argument Against a Playoff

On Monday, we asked: "If you're against a playoff, we have one question for you: Why?"

John Walters of NBC Sports.com respectfully disagrees with our belief that college football would be better off ditching the Bowl Championship Series for an eight-team playoff, a position shared by President-elect Barack Obama.

Walters has authored two pieces in the past week addressing the damage that could be caused by a playoff system. The first is titled "Imagine a world with playoffs, and it ain't pretty."

The second is a policy paper for Obama titled "Dear Mr. Obama ... playoffs not change we need."

Comments

[Jeremy]

How about this. Let's say that you know which team is the best, and further the real probabilities of winning. As an example, number the best team 1, the next best 2, the next next best 3, and the worst team 4. Let the P(1 beats 2) = 2/3, which means the best will beat the next best team twice as often as the other way around. Let P(1 beat 3) = 4/5, P(1 beat 4) = 8/9, and P(2 beat 3) = 2/3. These are actually much higher than real chances of 1 beating 2. The the probability of team 1 (the best) winning a four game tournament where the winner of 1 versus 4 plays 2 versus 3 is only 63.21%.

In other words, while a playoff determines a single winner, that winner has a very high chance of NOT being the best team. Theoretically, by the BCS taking into account several features, it has the potential to produce the winner equaling the best more often. However, they need to change the formula to remove redundancy and make it more transparent (i.e., release the computer formulas).

[T-Bone]

Playoffs in college football suck! Why take the most interesting aspect of college football which is the debate and get rid of it? Also, an 8 team playoff isn't going to end any problems, what about the 9th team? or the 10th team? They will get screwed every year!

[jswinn]

Here’s the best thing about college football- it’s not pro football. I think we can all agree that we much prefer the sport to the one played on Sunday. Why is everyone clamoring for a playoff to make it just like pro football? In the past 11 years of the BCS only once has there been a split title. In the 10 years previous to the invention of the BCS- three times we completed the season with a split. Criticize the BCS all you want, the fact is that the sport has been vastly improved. We’ve had matchups that we never would have had with the old system- and some great games to boot.

Michigan v Alabama in overtime in ‘00
Miami v Ohio State in double OT in ’02 in the Championship game.
Texas kicking a field goal to beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl in ’05 in the greatest single performance I had ever witnessed by a football player. Vince Young scored 4 td’s and threw for another.
BCS Championship in ’06. Vince Young surpasses his performance from the year before and single handedly beats USC.
JoePa and Bowden go at it for 3 OT’s in Miami that very same year.
’07 Boise State v Oklahoma. Hook and ladder, halfback pass and a Statue of Liberty to win. Amazing.

I was in Lubbock the Saturday before last and everyone is glued to the television rooting for LSU to beat ‘Bama. Before the BCS, no one cared and now they’re cheering for the Tigers like they’re the Red Raiders. The intensity of the regular season is the best thing about College Football.
So everyone that covers pro football, go back to the monotony of your regular season, patiently wait for your playoffs that don’t arrive until January and leave our sport alone.

[willwc]

T-Bone, how can you say that a playoff takes away debate (which is not the best thing about football, in my opinion--seeing the actual game of football is) and then in the very next sentence complain that there will still be debate over who gets into a playoff?