{"id":1258,"date":"2014-09-11T16:13:12","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T20:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2014-09-11T16:13:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T20:13:12","slug":"until-the-whistle-blows-college-football-playoffs-are-finally-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2014\/09\/11\/until-the-whistle-blows-college-football-playoffs-are-finally-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Until the Whistle Blows: College Football Playoffs are Finally Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ALEX MULHALL –\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>STAFF WRITER<\/strong><\/em>
\n2014 marks the first year of the college\u00a0football playoff system. The playoff\u00a0will replace the much-maligned\u00a0Bowl Championship Series (BCS),\u00a0which had been utilized since 1998.\u00a0Gone are the fan bases claiming\u00a0they didn\u2019t get a fair shot at the title.<\/p>\n

Gone are the arbitrary rankings and\u00a0selections that don\u2019t agree with the\u00a0majority consensus. Finally, college\u00a0football will be a perfectly harmonious\u00a0system with no controversy.<\/p>\n

Or not.<\/p>\n

The playoff teams will be selected\u00a0by a 13-person committee, who will issue\u00a0a set of rankings seven times each\u00a0year based on their own criteria. The\u00a0committee is not bound by any of the\u00a0major polls that dictated BCS rankings\u00a0in the past.<\/p>\n

One would think that reasonable\u00a0people, all of whom are knowledgeable\u00a0about the game and the progression\u00a0of the season, would be most\u00a0suited for selecting the top four teams\u00a0in the country. But this is unprecedented\u00a0territory for college football.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the College Football\u00a0Playoff will point to the NCAA Basketball\u00a0Tournament, a tournament that\u00a0is selected by committee and has run\u00a0successfully for decades. However,\u00a0that doesn\u2019t mean March Madness\u00a0has been free from controversy.\u00a0Just last year, the selection committee\u00a0was torn apart by fans and\u00a0media members alike for underseeding\u00a0teams such as last year\u2019s national\u00a0champion, the University of Connecticut\u00a0Huskies, which was a seven seed.<\/p>\n

The NCAA selection committee\u00a0also placed several of the best teams\u00a0in the country in one section of the\u00a0bracket. Last season, the University of\u00a0Kentucky Wildcats, the national runner-up, the University of Louisville\u00a0Cardinals, and Wichita State Shockers,\u00a0both legitimate title contenders,\u00a0were all in the Midwest region.\u00a0Because only four teams will make\u00a0the playoffs every year, the committee\u2019s\u00a0margin for error is non-existent.<\/p>\n

If this playoff does not go over well in\u00a0its first year, it could very well be over\u00a0before it even begins.<\/p>\n

If the playoff does succeed, however,\u00a0it will not survive in this format\u00a0for long. Four teams are far too few\u00a0to maintain the level of hubbub the\u00a0NCAA wants.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, it should expand to\u00a0eight teams within the next five years,\u00a0but it could easily go to 16 or 24, mirroring\u00a0the FCS playoffs (a level of\u00a0competition one step lower than Division\u00a0I).<\/p>\n

A tournament expansion would\u00a0open up spots for advertisers who\u00a0would gladly pay millions of dollars\u00a0for primetime slots. Playoffs could be\u00a0held in NFL stadiums, which would\u00a0equal even more millions of dollars in\u00a0ticket and merchandise revenue.<\/p>\n

Why wouldn\u2019t the playoff expand?\u00a0Despite their official stance of promoting\u00a0scholarship among their athletes,\u00a0basically every decision made by\u00a0the NCAA is made on the basis of maximizing\u00a0profits \u2026 excuse me, \u201cfunds.\u201d\u00a0It would look really bad if a nonprofit\u00a0organization was making billions\u00a0of dollars a year \u2026<\/p>\n

And yet, despite all the obvious\u00a0speed bumps just waiting to ruin the\u00a0playoff system, I could not be more\u00a0excited. Tournaments make every\u00a0sport more interesting and exciting.\u00a0Tournaments give more closure to everyone\u00a0involved.<\/p>\n

To be a playoff Champion, you\u00a0must prove yourself against more than\u00a0one opponent in an incredibly high pressure\u00a0environment.<\/p>\n

Playoffs also help establish equality\u00a0between conferences. For the past\u00a0eight to ten years, it\u2019s been a virtual\u00a0guarantee that there would be at least\u00a0one Southeastern Conference (SEC)\u00a0team in the championship. Now,\u00a0they\u2019ll have to prove they belong in\u00a0the championship game by winning\u00a0the first round of their playoff.\u00a0That being said, the SEC will most\u00a0likely have at least one representative\u00a0in the playoff this year.\u00a0I believe it will be the University\u00a0of Alabama Crimson Tide, a perennial\u00a0juggernaut, with the addition of\u00a0possibly Auburn University Tigers or\u00a0maybe the University of Georgia Bulldogs.\u00a0I think the other two spots will\u00a0go to a combination of the Florida\u00a0State Seminoles, Oregon Ducks, or the\u00a0University of Oklahoma Sooners.\u00a0My personal pick for the title is\u00a0Alabama, but I\u2019ll probably change my\u00a0mind about that in ten minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ALEX MULHALL –\u00a0STAFF WRITER 2014 marks the first year of the college\u00a0football playoff system. The playoff\u00a0will replace the much-maligned\u00a0Bowl Championship Series (BCS),\u00a0which had been utilized since 1998.\u00a0Gone are the fan bases claiming\u00a0they didn\u2019t get a fair shot at the title. Gone are the arbitrary rankings and\u00a0selections that don\u2019t agree with the\u00a0majority consensus. Finally, college\u00a0football […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-until-the-whistle-blows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}