On both Monday Night Football and CBS's 60 Minutes, President-Elect Barack Obama said he wanted a 8 team college football playoff system. The current system is the Bowl Championship Series which, based on the BCS's webpage, is a five-game arrangement for post-season college football that is designed to match the two top-rated teams in a national championship game and to create exciting and competitive match-ups between eight other highly regarded teams in four other games.
The current bowl games are the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, The Allstate Sugar Bowl, The FedEx Orange Bowl, and the Rose bowl. The BCS championship game will be held at one of those sites after that sites regular bowl game has been played. This year the National Championship game will be held at the Orange bowl in Miami. If you want to find out more about the BCS system go to this link.
On the 16th of November on CBS Radio, Barack Obama said he would make a college football playoff one of his legislative tasks. Even though he was kidding, Barack could not force the BCS to make a playoff system in his first term because the BCS format is set to run through 2014, 2 years after Barack will try for re-election in 2012.
BCS Coordinator John Swofford responded to this by saying, "For now, our constituencies -- and I know he understands constituencies -- have settled on the current BCS system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports." Swofford further went on to say that he welcomes Obamas opinion and will listen to dialog on what's best for college football.
Coaches have also responded on this topic. Texas coach Mack Brown says he's a big fan of Obamas ideas. He supports a 8-team, 3 round playoff system, Obama's idea. One of the craziest ideas surrounding this topic comes from Texas Tech coach, Mike Leach. Leach wanted a playoff similar to collage basketball playoff; a 64 team playoff. Basketball teams can last that long, but with the hard-hitting action of today's football, and the weeks that could be cut off the regular season, that idea seams a little to far out.
"I don't think there's much of an answer unless you get to an expanded playoff system. If you went to a 64-team playoff, it would take care of itself," Leach said, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. "As it is now, if you're in a real weak league, there's going to be guys who can circle two, maybe three, games on their schedule, play well, then play mediocre and still run the table. There's just more margin of error there."
What do you think about the collage football playoff system? Please leave a comment.
