by Brad Sullivan
It’s been an incredible NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this season, and the Final Four should be no exception. When you look at this year’s remaining teams, there are two teams that very few had advancing to this stage.
VCU and Butler have punched their ticket to Houston by taking down some of the highest-ranked, talent-flush teams in college basketball. The strong play of these underdogs proves once again that a playoff system is the best way to determine a champion. It is the most equitable method to determine who should take home the trophy.
In college football, the opportunity to win a national championship is only available to those who run in the same circles. A school must belong to a BCS conference to even be considered. Meanwhile, NCAA basketball shares the same equitable method to determine a champion as Division II Football, Division III Football, women’s field hockey, squash, and every other NCAA sport. You can get hot at the right time, make a run, and win a title. It’s the American way!
Unfortunately college football is more of a mafia cartel. The teams without the name will never have a chance to get hot and make a run due to the BCS. You’d think John Gotti himself set it up.
With the NFL in a lockout, College Football has a great opportunity to make some headway increasing their fan base, and what better way to grab more fans then by creating a playoff system?
We all know this won’t happen without pressure from the fans, but it would be epic. You would see some smaller programs get hot at the right time and run the table.
The fans will continue to be forced to watch lopsided routes and terrible teams play each other in terrible tradition-less bowl games rather than experience all the excitement and fairness of a single elimination playoffs system.
Michael Bradley Sullivan serves as an SFC Sportswriter Fellow. He is a senior broadcast journalism major at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. He was born and Raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is a fan of the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Dallas Cowboys, and the San Antonio Spurs. Follow him on twitter here.
exactly how does a situation where 2 teams, teams who have proven over the course of the regular season that they are not among nation’s 4 best, making it to the final 4 PROVE that a playoff is better than the BCS? as i understand it, the purpose of crowning the champion is saying that they were the best team of that season. i don’t care how far VCU may get in this tournament, but they proved during the regular season that they are not among the nation’s best. UConn finished 9th in their own conference!
the problem with playoffs, especially bloated ones that include 68 teams, is that it renders the regular season virtually meaningless, and that is really where you determine the quality of a team. don’t get me wrong, march madness is fun. i fill out a bracket like every other sports fan, but i also don’t watch any of the regular season, like every other sports fan. college football has the most exciting regular season because it means something. you have to perform well ALL SEASON in order to make their 2-team playoff (and yes, it is a playoff). you can’t just have a mediocre season and hope to get hot at the right time. all that proves is that you are the best team for 6 games, not the entire season. i would rather watch an exciting and meaningful regular season for 3 full months as opposed to a 3 week playoff.
if the seahawks had gotten hot this in january this year and won the super bowl, would you be happy calling them the best NFL team this season? i hope not, because they clearly weren’t. they went 7-9 in a weak division. but hey, in the NFL, they could’ve won the Super Bowl and been crowned champions for the season. it almost happened in the 09 Super Bowl when Arizona got hot and darn near won the whole thing. they were a bad team from a worse division, but somehow no one would have a problem with labeling them the best team had santonio holmes foot been on the line during the final minute.
say what you want about college football and their process, but their champions earn it more than any other major sport. most of the time, you have to go undefeated. none of this tanking during the regular season and then hope to get lucky during your conference tournament. one little slip up can cost you the chance at a title, and that’s what makes the regular season so exciting and every game so important.