Kaiser Ken raised some great points in his analysis of the finale of the Notre Dame football season. There is a cartel in College Football. The Playoff Committee pretty much gives the playoff spots to Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama and insert SEC school or Oklahoma. Its theirs to lose from the beginning. Now are those schools symbolically “in bed” with the playoff committee? I choose to say yes but I am finding it to hard to provide a solid burden of proof. However, as my search continues, I would like to offer up a solution of sorts or maybe just food for thought.
Imagine, you are a 5 star recruit with all colleges knocking on your door, having sleepovers in your childhood bedroom, and have your choice of program. You want to compete for a national championship. You want a sufficient spotlight that would be able to create NFL hype. There are 4-6 programs that will undoubtedly check all of those boxes. So you choose to attend Clemson, Ohio State, or whichever program that promises you the most. Where my argument resides is in the idea that expanding to the playoff to 8 teams might alleviate the current competitive crisis. Power 5 champs receive an auto bid, the best conference winner from the group of 5 receives a bid, and the rest lie in the playoff committee’s rankings. I envision this move allowing more conferences to draw talent they hadn’t before because they now have a chance to compete for a championship. The College Football Elite will you have believe that this is simply too large of a schedule for student athletes but keep in mind these are the same people who believe a free college education is enough for these athletes whose jersey sales, ticket generation, and television appearances are the reason their university opened up a brand new astronomy department equipped with the third most powerful telescope known to man and the deans, chancellors, and presidents were all able to pay off their beachfront properties 5 years early. That was a really long sentence and I’m positive it is not grammatically correct. I always got points off for doing that in my essays in high school. I think you really did not have to pay much any attention to how this season turned out to see how much college football is just one massive money maker not only for their respective schools but for the US economy as a whole. The decisions made by the conferences and the playoff committee exemplified that almost willfully. How about we all grow up, accept it, call it what is and expand the playoff so that this sport can return to its beautiful competitive nature. Oh and maybe compensate these guys a bit for their effort.