Everyone online (including yours truly) has spent the better half of the college football season arguing and bickering over which teams deserve a shot at the national crown, and which teams are Alabama. The virtual discourse has turned nasty in many cases with SEC fans believing their superior strength of schedule trumps the records of Indiana or SMU.
The battle seems endless, and it's making my X feed nearly unreadable.
While many suggestions have been proposed in an effort to retool the postseason format--from the Band-Aid level to a total overhaul--a coexisting sport's format may just offer the necessary inspiration to spark positive change for a system that has left almost every fan dissatisfied across every level of football.
The perfect system may sit with college basketball; the second most popular collegiate sport is one of upsets, chaos, mega matchups, and most of all pure competitive fun. If you're tired of the nation at each others' throats over the validity of Lane Kiffin's Tennessee support, take a stroll through college basketball fandom.
Powerhouse programs who aren't afraid to play each other in non-conference, conference champions cementing a slot in the postseason tournament, and a hunger for upsets, chaos, and shocking results. Though the NBA's ratings continue to plummet, college basketball is a hub for fans of the game.
College football could learn a thing or two from its counterpart on the hardwood.
Fun in the Non-Conference
A popular response to the College Football Playoff's exclusion of several 3-loss SEC programs has been to cancel every difficult non-conference game and substitute with a sure-win buy game. While this practice would surely inflate the win column, it would make a quarter of the season nearly unwatchable.
Would you enjoy watching a 40+ point drubbing for 3 hours? How about four of those over a 12-game season?
In basketball, they don't play that way. The premier programs in the sport clash head-to-head, regardless of conference affiliation. This season alone, Duke has battled Kentucky, Arizona, Auburn, and Kansas--four top 25 programs before starting their ACC gauntlet.
The best part? Schedules like those are routine in the sport, as tougher opponents help stronger teams refine their chemistry, game planning, and overall execution in preparation for one of the most unforgiving postseasons in North American sports.
Who wouldn't love checking the week one schedule to see Texas square off with Oregon? Maybe check out Alabama's season-opening duel with Big 12 champion Arizona State, or watch a rematch of BYU and SMU? Aside from one or two annual exceptions (Georgia-Clemson was great for the sport, even if Clemson lost big to the Bulldogs), the most storied programs are often the least exciting before conference play opens up.
Basketball doesn't punish schools for a difficult schedule, the same could be true of football.
Earning a Seat at the Table
As I wrote in an earlier article, I think that basketball's policy of every conference champion automatically earning a spot in the field of 64 is excellent for the sport. The CFP has enacted a similar policy, but the execution of that policy has been messy.
As it stands, the 5 highest-ranked conference champions each receive an auto-bid, but that opens the door for much interpretation, as the ranking system is still entirely subjective; the fate of the sport lies on the shoulders of a rotating room of Athletic Directors.
My solution? All 10 FBS conference champions are in the playoff, rankings aside. This way, we avoid conference bias, we avoid subjectivity, and we can actually name a national champion based on factual merit, rather than apparent/historical value.
My main point from that article still stands:
"[With this format], every team has something to play for, and human bias is taken out of the equation. This solution prevents the chance that leagues like the Big 12 get left out entirely because they're deemed "unworthy" by the powers that be. The Big 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC, Mountain West, and even MAC get a shot at football's crown.
If the purpose of the expanded playoff format is to allow every team in the country a fair shot at a playoff berth, every conference champion deserves a chance to compete, from Oregon to Kennesaw State."
Conference tournaments, Bigger Brackets
The Big 12 was the most competitive conference in the nation this season, but their league will only boast one representative in the postseason this year in Arizona State. A four-way tie at the top of the league led to a tiebreaker-decided ASU-ISU conference championship, leaving BYU and Colorado in a pseudo 3rd-place game at the Alamo Bowl.
Perhaps a mini 4-team conference tournament could be in order for conferences with an extra dose of parity could have provided a more exciting championship than Iowa State provided. More football games are tacked on to the end of the season seemingly every few years. What's one more?
A whopping 68 teams will play for a chance at the national championship this year. Obviously, that number wouldn't be sustainable for a sport as physically taxing as football, but perhaps we could find a happy medium.
Is the 12-team format solid? Yes, and I think it's a better system than most fans give it credit for. Is it perfect? Not quite. 12 is still rather exclusive, and could do better to allow a few more wild cards into the picture at around 16 games.
This way, the culture may shift more upset-hopeful, and provide a greater bump in entertainment value. Conversely, this could also offer even more first-round beatdowns. Football is unlike basketball in many ways, and talent level is a real difference-maker in the postseason. NIL has largely leveled the playing field, but it could be years before we see a real shift in the narrative.
Football may be without an infallible solution forever, but more entertainment would at least provide a better product overall. Let's stop fighting about how the selection committee got it right or wrong and start focusing on progress. Basketball is having lots of fun--maybe football should start looking over their shoulder.