Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Mo' Teams, Mo' Problems By Dan Murphy After years of deserved complaints about an unfair championship format, college football is scrapping the BCS for a four- team playoff. The new College Football Playoff will enjoy its universal popularity for the next four months, until some team is inevitably jilted and decides the new approach is all wrong again. This time, though, instead of one or two teams having a re- alistic claim to being left out of the title hunt, the list will double to three or four who think they've been robbed of a spot in the national semifinals. Choosing four teams opens up the field to a larger group of one- and two-loss teams and the pleas of an undefeated Cinderella from one of the smaller conferences. No matter what teams the 13-person com- mittee selects, their picks will be met with a mountain of perceived biases. BCS contenders were picked by a mix of polls and computers so convoluted that is was hard to figure out who to blame if your team was left out. Future playoffs will be decided by 13 men and women with names, faces and addresses. Good luck defend- ing even the most logical choice to an army of message board conspiracy theorists. On the bright side, this is the fun part. Contro- versy and uncertainty fuel the debate and the passion that make college football our country's most unique sport. So sit back and enjoy ... until your team gets hosed. A Better, If Imperfect, Solution By Andrew Owens It's hard to believe the BCS era is over, but don't worry, college football fans. We'll still have something to complain about. The move to a four-team playoff is a long awaited and much needed move for college football. Increas- ing the number of participants that decide the championship on the field decreases the ability of selec- tion methods to screw it up. While four is better than two, it remains an imperfect solution. For practical reasons, college football will always be a lightning rod of criticism for how it selects postseason members compared to the four ma- jor sports and college basketball. The complaints filed against the selection com- mittee, whether the first perceived injustice comes this season or next, will be over which team received the No. 4 spot in the playoff. Considering the unlikelihood of five teams finish- ing undefeated — it happened only once in the BCS era — the team left out of the playoff will almost certainly be one with a loss. In this case, the squad could have assured itself of a berth by not losing a game. This is a much better outcome than when the BCS excluded at least one unde- feated team three times in the system's final 10 years of operation. Come December, chances are at least one pro- gram will feel slighted by the new system. It's not perfect, but it represents change in the right direction for college football. Point ✦ Counterpoint: WILL THE NEW COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF CREATE MORE OR LESS CONTROVERSY THAN THE BCS SYSTEM? Click here to listen to the complete discussion. ▼