Tuesday, December 14, 2004

College Football

Here's a great article at msnbc.com about the college football bowl system.

The writer made one point that I had thought about this past week.

There are 117 Division 1-A teams.

56 of them are going to bowl games.

That means 47.86% of the teams play in a bowl.

That stat alone tells you both why the bowls need to go and precisely why it is highly unlikely that they ever will.

It also illustrates why most opposition to Playoffs is silly.

Lets say we instituted a 16 team playoff. That would still leave 20 possible bowls to exist if they wanted. And the matchups they would get wouldn't be any less intriguing than under the current system.

It's time for a Division 1-A Football Playoff.

NOW!

2 comments:

oso diablo said...

i agree with you about a playoff, though would probably limit to 8 teams. also, i don't get how you'd get 20 bowls with a 16-team playoff. That'd only be 15 games, unless you're doing some funky sort of double elimination.

The Radical Texan said...

56 current teams in bowls - 16 teams in new playoff system = 40 teams left to play in the remaining bowls.

I don't agree with the folks who try to roll all the current bowls into a playoff plan. That isn't realistic.

An 8 team playoff isn't really enough. Plus, there is no really good reason not to have 16. I'd be willing to compromise at 12, giving the top 4 seeds a bye in the first round.