NCAA College Football Playoffs
Michael D. Cruz
Post University

NCAA College Football Playoffs College Sports in America are a huge part of most people’s lives and in a way sports defines American culture. There are a lot of important topics related to sports and one of them is a change in NCAA College Football Bowl Championship Series to the College Playoff System that will decide which team is the number one college football team in the country. College football is currently based on a rating system that determines which team is to play in a specific bowl game and what two teams are selected to play against one another for a national title. Recently the CPS has been approved with much debate as to which system is better for the direction of college football. Every sporting event is competitive and it is important that the system reflects competitiveness while fairly recognizing the best. The BCS system is a series of five college football bowl games that features teams selected by different qualifications and polls where only two selected teams face each other for the national title. (CollegeFootbalPoll.com, 2013). The BCS has been around for 12 years marking the 2013 season the last of the BCS system and being replaced in 2014 by the CPS. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). There are several substantial reasons why the BCS system needed to be replaced with the CPS and why a playoff system is better for such a large sporting attraction with a great amount of teams, players, and fan base. The BCS system consisted of establishing rankings of eligible teams by two different polls, the Harris Interactive Poll and the Coaches Poll. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). The Harris Interactive Poll consists of 105 voting members who vote using a point system to determine rankings from 1 to 25 beginning every year on October 13 and the rankings continue to be released weekly until December 7. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). The Coaches Poll has a total of 62 voting members who rate teams based on a point system to determine ranking for teams from 1 to 25. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). Both the Harris Interactive Poll and the Coaches Poll use a mathematical formula involving the points given to each team to determine each teams ranking every week. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). Another component of the BCS ranking system is the Computer rankings which is an automated system that can determine the average rank of a team based on its own point system and mathematical formula. The BCS system of ranking teams involves all three ranking schemes to determine the rank of each team and which ranking team goes to which bowl game with only the final two teams playing in the BCS Championship game. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). Another factor that affects the three rating schemes is an automatic qualification of specific teams to be bowl eligible and how other teams fall under the automatic qualification based on the regional conference the teams are in. (CollegeFootballPoll.com, 2013). After considering all of the aspects of ranking and selecting teams to specific games it is clearly biased to specific colleges or universities and the system favors some teams over others based on their conference, history, power, and revenue. The new playoff system of selecting which teams will be eligible and participate in a playoff is a lot simpler and is based upon a playoff selection committee. The CPS Committee will consist of “former athletic directors, coaches, a media member, and an ex-Secretary of State” (Taylor, 2014). This committee will add a more realistic human aspect of selecting and ranking teams based on a team’s performance, skill, and record. (Taylor, 2014). The committee and the new playoff system will allow not only a bigger variety of teams with the possibility of playing for a playoff spot and a title it is not completely biased towards those larger and more recognizable schools. The CPS Committee is responsible for selecting four teams for the playoffs and in the future also may be moving from four to eight teams who will be competing for a national title. (Taylor, 2014). Even before the expansion at just four open spots it allows room for a greater level of competition for college football. (Taylor, 2014). Any team can beat anyone at any time and by allowing for now at least four teams to compete and in the future possibly eight teams it puts a perspective on competitiveness between teams facing one another. If a team is deserving of making the playoffs to compete for a national title it will be an opportunity for any team in any conference and no team will be stuck wondering or passed up for the chance to compete unlike in the BCS system. (Taylor, 2014). In the BCS system regular season games mean a lot in route to a title shot and with the CPS regular season games can make or break a playoff opportunity because of the previous rules in the BCS of how a team can qualify to get a title shot will no longer apply. (Taylor, 2014). The CPS will increasingly expand the length of the college football postseason especially if more playoff opportunities are added in the upcoming years. When just adding the semifinals to the post season that in itself is two games more than that of the postseason in the BCS system. (Taylor, 2014). Lower conferences will also be able to add 35 postseason bowl games on top of the games in the playoffs which will make a longer and more entertaining postseason college football experience. (Taylor, 2014). Something that has been big in the postseason was specific bowl games such as the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and the Orange bowl. (Vint, 2013). The CPS will still tie in bowl games to be played between two rival conference champions which is great to maintain in the postseason because these are known bowl games and the opportunity to participate in a respectable bowl game brings attention to the schools and winning one of these bowl gains against a rival conference team boosts confidence and promotes a team’s bragging rights over another team. (Vint, 2013). Looking over the last 16 years of history within the BCS there is a lot of controversial outcomes throughout the years because of how the system favored certain teams and conferences over others. Beginning in 1998 there have been 114 open slots for teams to play in bowl games and only seven times have non-automatic qualifying teams been able to play in the 57 different bowl games. (Shurtleff, 2011). In the year 2010 Boise St. who is not an automatic qualifying team only had one loss yet they were passed up for a bowl game while a total of three automatic qualifying teams who all had at least two losses played in bowl games. (Shurtleff, 2011). In 2008 Utah who had an undefeated season and was also a not an automatic qualifying team was not given an opportunity to play for a national title and instead the BCS system called for automatic qualifying teams both with one loss to play for the title. (Shurtleff, 2011). Utah did make it to the Sugar Bowl and defeated Alabama who was previously ranked as number one in the nation through the regular season. (Shurtleff, 2011). The BCS ranking system was proven over again to be controversial by ranking the only undefeated team as number two in the nation and the coaches poll had Utah ranked at number four all “because coaches had not seen them play” (Shurtleff, 2011). When looking at college football as a whole it is noticeably a very complex and huge sporting attraction because of how many teams are involved, how many games are played, the fan base, and revenue involved. To follow a different system than that of any other college sports which has a tournament or playoff system to determine who the best of the best is doesn’t fit. Even looking at professional sports whether it is basketball, baseball, or football there is a playoff system to determine which team the true champion is. College football should have a system that promotes these results as well not only because of the reasons already explained but because some of the players will move from college and have the opportunity to play professionally and need to be accustomed to a tournament or playoff type of system. Every sporting event is competitive and it is important that the system reflects competitiveness while fairly recognizing the best.

References
College Football Poll (2013, May 9). BCS Explained, Bowl Championship Series. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/bcs_explained.html
ProCon.org (2012, September 14). College Football - ProCon.org. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://collegefootball.procon.org/
Shurtleff, M. L. (2011, October 1). BCS has devolved college football into unfairness, greed. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2011/10/01/20111001con-bcs-shurtleff.html
Taylor, J. (2014, January 7). Buh-bye BCS, hello College Football Playoff | CollegeFootballTalk. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/07/buh-bye-bcs-hello-college-football-playoff/
Vint, P. (2013, October 17). What's good and bad about the College Football Playoff selection committee - SBNation.com. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/10/17/4846818/college-football-playoff-selection-committee