Good-Bye Big Cash Scheme, Hello College Football Playoff

As long as the BCS v. non-BCS (or haves v. have-not's) issue in college football is dominated by money, and by the conferences, networks and sponsors that are part of the Bowl Championship Series, nothing will change to improve the system, to get rid of the favoritism and corruption, or to make college football more about football and fair competition. Instead, it will only get worse.

Welcome CFP.  Eager to turn the page from the complex and convoluted BCS era, college football's power brokers gave the most basic name imaginable to the four-team playoff that will crown the national champion starting with the 2014 season.

They announced Tuesday that the new event will be branded simply "College Football Playoff" --- a name that, for all it lacks in creativity, underscores the reality that fans are getting what they long demanded and were long denied.  

But what really changes?  Sure, four teams will be selected for a semifinal and final rounds in order to name a national champion.  But will any team not belonging to the six power conferences ever be in the Final Four of football, even if they are undefeated?  

In our dogged pursuit of "who is the best" , what really changes?  The same BCS power brokers will determine the final four teams.  More money for ....who??  Television networks will take the biggest cut.  Will the four participants get millions?  Football is an NCAA sponsored and regulated sport, yet does not sponsor or oversee a football championship at the FBS level.  Strange.  It does conduct plays offs at the FCS, Division II and Division III levels.  Hum, not nearly as much money involved at these levels.  

For some reason the NCAA is duped into approving 32 bowl games, most of which are loser bowls with teams that have 6 loses during the regular season.  Why not just have a 64 team playoff like the NCAA conducts for the FCS level?  That would be too logical and not fair to the Power conferences who would risk losing to a team in Conference USA, for instance.  After all it is partly about status, perception, and ego at the top level anyway.   Sort of the country club set versus the  community center crowd, don't you think?

Oh well, reality is that television and the" haves" are always in control.    

Dear Charlie,

Hi-while perusing the web this p.m. in search of people who may know of this issue so that I could find some stress relief I came across your article. As a middle school track coach I do believe all these elite travel squads in the team sports have all but destroyed school sports. There is no longer any school loyalty. Kids competing on several sports at the same time will sacrifice their school sport obligations for the travel team.

 Alas what comes from it is injuries & extreme burnout at the wrong time when we are poised to win a state title. I tried like hell to convince them of team responsibility, loyalty to fellow relay members, but they told me flat to my face that at their age they are entitled to choices & if it means they care more about soccer then so be it. When I spoke of the concussions & injuries that I woke up to yesterday, they made it clear that soccer was worth any concussion. They didn't care if it meant they would burn out, lose the track title, see their academics go downhill from brain dementia, or end up in a group home. They didn't care. I asked their opinion about the NFL players saying that they were not made aware of repercussions in the concussion dept. They said it was worth the concussion. I spoke to the school nurses--they agreed with me & said it's broken & I can't fix it--13 years of bad parenting. It's not so much that they are playing a second sport that bothers me is that they would not sacrifice that sport for the final 2 weeks of my season so that they could peak properly. 

And then I learn that some of these kids have travel games 4 schooldays a week plus the town league on weekends. When do they do homework & sleep? As a coach I'm lost for a solution & believe me I'm reasonable-I allow kids to attend say jazz band after school & then come to practice, etc. but these club sports must be feeding these kids some kind of fuzzy baloney & they are making much more than I do. They have taken over the schools' tradition. Now the devil's advocate may say well what about clubs in your sport. Well, they dominate the middle school track title meet-the kids are far better but these clubs are located mostly around cities where the schools are too poor to offer any kind of sports at the middle school level. They don't attend meets every week but they will occasionally travel out of state. The clubs are also run by volunteers & I don't believe they have practice every day. I just don't get it anymore.