Current Playoff System Is Better But Not Perfect

We now have the four select teams for the upcoming playoffs in “big time” college football.

Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Washington have been chosen to battle for the national title in a few weeks. This current system is certainly favorable to previous decades when college football at this level had no playoff at all, but clearly there are still a few flaws in the system.

The most glaring error this year is the fact that Ohio State was chosen (as the No. 3 seed no less) over Penn State, which was the first team on the outside looking in at No. 5. Penn State played for, and won, the Big Ten title this past weekend while Ohio State, a member of that same conference, sat at home.

Penn State not only is the Big Ten champion, but the Nittany Lions defeated the Buckeyes during the regular season. Yes, Penn State has one more loss than Ohio State but two facts override that: 1. The Nittany Lions are the conference champs and 2. They beat Ohio State head-to-head on the field.

Ironically, in listening to those in charge of this selection process, it was actually Washington, also a conference champion, who was in the most danger of being bypassed in favor in Penn State. It seems Ohio State was simply not going to be left out under any circumstance. Someone who knows more about college football than I do will have to explain why. (The truth is, there is no believable explanation.)

The simple solution to all of this, of course, is to have more than four teams in the playoffs. Those in charge are going to balk at that giving us all kinds of so-called reasons it can’t be done. (Remember for years we were force fed reasons why any type of playoff would never would never happen.)

Truthfully, there is no reason an eight-team playoff cannot happen right now. There is also no reason a 16-team field cannot happen.

All one has to do is to look at the other levels of college football to see where it has been happening for years. At Division I-AA, Division II and Division III (and even other levels), national champions in football have been decided by a playoff system for decades. It can work because it has been working.

Maybe those on the current I-A committee hope people don’t realize it, but the fact is it’s not that hard to have a playoff bracket which features more than four teams.

In Division III, where there are no athletic scholarships in fact, the football playoffs last five rounds.

Unfortunately, we are left with just four teams who can participate in I-A. Alabama is the clear favorite and the Crimson Tide is playing on another level from everyone else right now. It would take a monumental upset for anyone to defeat them. It might take a monumental task for anyone to even be within two touchdowns of Alabama.

In fact, there has been an interesting debate recently online about how Alabama would do against the Cleveland Browns, the worst NFL team. While the Browns would be favored against Alabama (remember while Alabama will have some players in the NFL, all of Cleveland’s players are of NFL caliber), I think the game would actually be competitive for at least a half. It makes for a fun debate anyway.

We have a few weeks to look forward to the college football playoff at this level. Meanwhile the playoffs will continue, just as they always have, at all other levels of collegiate play. It didn’t take them near as long to figure it all out.

Still, I just can’t help but wonder if the past sins of the Penn State football program aren’t being taken out on the 2016 players. It’s something to think about.

Monticello native Chris Bridges is a long-time newspaper columnist. He welcomes feedback from readers of The Monticello News at pchrisbridges@gmail.com.