Exploring a Division IA Football Playoff

When December arrives, the argument is almost inevitable. Does the Bowl Championship Series need to be replaced by a playoff? This year will mark the ninth year of the BCS and first with the BCS National Championship Game (yes, that is its official title).

First of all, the addition of the BCS National Championship Game was a good idea. It will finally revert back to the days of major bowl games traditionally matching the best two teams from their respective conferences against one another (i.e. the Big Ten No. 1 vs. the Pac-10 No. 1 in the Rose Bowl).

However, does this mean they've fixed the BCS? Absolutely not. We will likely have one of the more competitive years of college football in recent memory this year. There is no clear dominant team, and the possibility of one loss teams reaching the national championship is likely. This, as we learned in the 2003-04 season, could cause quite a stir, and likely a more heated debate than one we saw last year, when it was obvious who the two best teams were.

So what are the advantages of a Division I-A Football Playoff. Other than silencing the so-called pundits, I would argue that the advantages are limited. Sure, we would have a clear cut national champion, much like we do in Division I basketball. One can't argue with that. But is a playoff an absolutely flawless entity? One could argue all they want that it is, but does that person really believe that Syracuse was the best college basketball team in 2003?

For my comparisons to the playoffs already in place in the rest of this article, I will use the Division III playoffs because I am more familiar with D-III than D-IAA or D-II.

Last year, I was witness to the worst loss my college's football team had ever suffered, a 73-12 drubbing at the hands of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. It might be even worse to consider the score was 14-12 at one point, but that's beside my point. For the remainder of the season, I argued that UW-W was the best team in the nation, having seen their balance and depth. For the following 11 weeks, they proved me right. They rolled through one of the toughest divisions in Division III (the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference), defeated defending champion Linfield and Gagliardi Trophy winner Brett Elliott, 44-41, in the national quarterfinals, and crushed helpless Wesley, 58-6, in the national semis.

But then, Mount Union, a perennial D-III powerhouse that had lost one game and wasn't even the No. 1 team in their region (the same region in which my Muskies got beat 49-22 in the first round by Augustana), ruined my prediction, beating Whitewater 35-28 in the title game.

So, for the first time since 1999, the Division III National Champion had one blemish on its record. The years in between had proven one team to be the best, hands down. But in 2005, it just wasn't clear.

Was the sight satisfying? Not at all. I fear that this could happen all too often in a Division I-A playoff. Teams just plain get lucky. Upsets happen more often in Division I than they do in Division III. The playoffs of the lower divisions are much more effective because of the uneven playing field. The top Division III teams are arguably on par with the lower Division I teams. (Last year, I even heard rumors that former Wisconsin running back Booker Stanley was transferring to Whitewater, just to give you an idea that the talent is there.)

That brings me to my second argument against the playoff: tradition. College football is known for it. College football thrives on it. Army-Navy. Michigan-Ohio State. The Iron Bowl. College sports are all about tradition, and with a playoff, college football would be lost of four of its biggest traditions: the Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta, and not to mention a lot more if you're a fan of the histories of the Cotton and Capital One bowls like myself.

The bowl games would be lost. The Rose Bowl just wouldn't feel like the Rose Bowl if it were the name for a semifinal game featuring West Virginia and Florida State, for example. (No offense to those programs, of course.)

In my mind, the loss of such traditions would be a huge blow to college football. There is nothing I enjoy more than New Year's Day, not because some consider it starting over (I always break my resolutions anyway), but because of college football.

I've never been one to advocate the BCS. In fact, I actually wrote an article about its uselessness a few years ago for my school paper. But I'm certainly not one to advocate the ditching of traditions in college football.

I'm not prepared to let one disputed national championship ruin a hundred years of tradition. I'm also not prepared to suffer more unsatisfying national champions like the one that resulted from the Division III playoff last year.

So as much as I think the system is still flawed, and as much as it pains me to say it, let the BCS play on.