Why a playoff wont work

Any eight-team playoff will be forced to expand because the power imbalances will create more controversy than the playoff resolves. This is the reason Division I-AA football quickly expanded their playoff to 16 teams after starting with four teams. They currently allow 18 teams and have already voted to grow to 20 teams next year.

The NCAA basketball tournament started with eight teams and recently voted to expand from 64 to 65 teams. Playoffs are like government entitlements. They just keep growing and growing. The most popular eight-team format fantasy these days is six BCS conference champions plus two wild cards. Consider the following scenarios this season. Georgia Tech wins the ACC. Georgia beats Georgia Tech the last week of the season. For one, with J. And on the other side of the ball, there are two overwhelming areas of concern.

Schwarber and Bogaerts might need to homer every game if the Red Sox want to win their fifth title this century. In run prevention, all four likely playoff starters recorded ERAs between 3. Astros fielders also ranked second in the majors in outs above average in the regular season, at plus The Astros also boast plenty of playoff experience, with four consecutive ALCS appearances, and while the pitching staff is fairly new, the position player core from that run is largely intact.

When healthy, Robert was one of the half dozen best players in the majors this year; teammate Yasmani Grandal, who hit. Chicago also played more like a. Mallory and Joanna break down the sci-fi epic and answer listener questions. Danny, Danny, and Craig review the injuries from the weekend and discuss waiver strategies heading into Week 8.

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For arguments sake, we will say that the NCAA found a way to keep those problems at bay. Make no mistake about it, the bowl system is now dead. A quick moment of silence for the Rose Bowl I am sure that Big Ten and Pac fans will mourn its passing Once the NCAA decides to move forward with a playoff, first things first: How do they decide who is in, who is out, and how to seed the teams?

The NCAA will probably create a selection committee, similar to what is used in college basketball. It will likely involve some form of RPI, strength of schedule, etc. You will not hear me arguing with that. I think that the basketball committee does a pretty good job for the most part.

They miss a team here and there or seed someone wrong, but for the most part they do a pretty good job. Okay, so they have found a way to keep enthusiasm up, found the funding to make up for lost revenues from the bowls, and have found a way to pick and seed the teams. Here comes the fun part, which is coincidentally why a playoff will fail: selecting the number of teams allowed in the playoff. This is where the real problems start. Everything before this is difficult, but manageable.

A four team playoff Plus One sounds like the most logical. It is probably the easiest transition as well, but it will never get approved. Look no further then for evidence. Following the conference championship games, there was no question about who the top four teams were: Florida, OU, Texas, and Alabama.

There was consensus among the powers that be that those were by far the four best teams in the country. The problem is that all four teams came from the same two conferences. In , there were two teams in the top four from the SEC. In , there were two teams from the Big Ten. It is an almost certainty that whatever conference is perceived to be the strongest will have multiple teams in the top four.

For better or worse, the conferences will not agree to this for fear of having a great team from their conference left out of the playoffs because of that conferences perceived weakness. Those problems exist in a Plus One so there will be a dog fight. End of story. To keep the conference commissioners from the Big Six from blowing a gasket, it would include the conference champions from the six BCS conferences and two at-large teams.

This is similar to the original set-up of the BCS. All of the big conferences are represented. The non-BCS teams can still get in. This one will work, right? There are two insurmountable roadblocks. Roadblock No. I will use as an example. The teams final BCS ranking is in parenthesis. There are five teams with resumes as good, or better than both Virginia Tech and Cincinnati. All five teams are also ranked higher than both of those teams. Utah takes up one of the at-large spots as the highest rated non-BCS team, only one of those teams can get into the playoffs.

Who do you leave out? Those conferences would be well within their rights to do so And they would win the lawsuit. I would venture a guess that they already have the paperwork written and are just waiting for a chance to file suit.