This post picks up where we left off in Chapter One with the history of the college football postseason.
In 1992 most of the power conferences and major bowls came together and decided that they would coordinate to try and get a #1 vs #2 matchup every year. The group was known as the Bowl Coalition. It consisted of the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Eight, Southwest Conference and Notre Dame. It also consisted of the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Cotton, Gator and Sun Bowls. Notably absent from the Coalition was the Big Ten, Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl, none of whom wanted to break from tradition when it would be necessary.
The first two seasons of the Coalition were successful in creating #1 vs #2 matchups in bowl games. But the third season, 1994, saw #2 Penn State committed to the Rose Bowl against the Pac-10 champion (Oregon, ranked #12), while #1 Nebraska faced off against #3 Miami in the Orange Bowl. With Nebraska and Penn State both winning, we had undefeated #1 and #2 teams who never got to play, though all the major polls crowned Nebraska as champion.
The Bowl Coalition gave way to the Bowl Alliance in 1995. This was mostly a cosmetic change that accommodated the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, and the Big Eight absorbing Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor, and becoming the Big 12. It also gave mid-major conferences the possibility of playing in one of the major bowls, primarily to avoid antitrust issues. But the Alliance still lacked the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl as partners. This again created issues in 1996 and 1997, when Arizona State and Michigan, respectively, could not round out a top two bowl matchup. 1997 ended up seeing a split national title between the AP (Michigan) and Coaches (Nebraska) polls.
Finally, in 1998 the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Rose Bowl relented and joined with the Alliance to form the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The union guaranteed that at the end of each season the top two teams would meet in a major bowl game. Well, at least that the #1 and #2 teams in the eyes of certain polls would meet. It consisted of four major bowl games (Orange, Rose, Sugar and Fiesta) in which the title game would rotate. That would last through the 2006 season, after which the title game was help separate from the bowls but still rotated among the four stadiums.
While the formula for rankings was tweaked during the BCS’s lifespan, it was primarily based upon a combination of the AP rankings, the Coaches Poll, and an aggregate of computer-based rankings. This system still did not produce a perfect solution in the eyes of many. The most notorious misses were in 2001, when Nebraska was blown out in its final regular season game, did not win its division, but was still #2, and in 2003 when USC finished #3 in the BCS rankings despite finishing #1 in the AP and eventually going on to be crowned the AP National Champion, while LSU won the BCS title.
Almost from its inception, college football fans believed the BCS was merely a precursor to a playoff, and the more a seemingly deserving team was left out of the opportunity to play for a title, the louder the voices grew. In 2012 many would finally get their wish, when it was announced that starting in 2014 there would be “plus-one” that added a semi-final round to the national championship. This was to be known as the College Football Playoff, and the two semi-final games incorporated the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Fiesta and Peach Bowls; with each bowl hosting once ever three years. The championship game was a separate event from the bowls to be hosted by the winner of any city that wished to bid on it for a particular year. The polls would be completely left out of the equation, with the four participants being selected by a committee, a la March Madness.
The Playoff Era
An interesting thing happened once college football went to the four-team playoff. Those teams that never had a chance to play for the title before, and did under the new format, probably did not deserve it in the first place. With few exceptions, the semi-final games have mostly been uncompetitive. Of the 16 semi-final games played thus far, only three have been decided by one score, and many have been thorough mismatches. Pretty much every year fans have been left to wonder, “Why are these guys here? What about so-and-so? There has to be someone better than this.” This discontent is becoming more and more reflected in television ratings for semi-final games.
Truth be told, there just hasn’t been anyone better. The Playoff era has exposed something that has largely been true of college football all along, but people were too wrapped up in “what ifs” to really notice: it is a top-heavy sport where in any given year there just aren’t enough elite teams to fill a four team playoff and expect competitive games.
The Solution(s)
So how do we make for a more exciting Playoff? It seems the number one answer to that question has been to expand the field. In June 2021, a working group that consisted of commissioners from the Big 12, Mountain West and SEC, plus Notre Dame’s AD, released a proposal that would expand the Playoff field from 4 to 12 teams. Obviously this is primarily about increasing revenues for the decision-makers; but commonly-held opinions seem to indicate a belief that an expanded Playoff draws in more teams, and their fans, and generally makes for a more exciting event, despite doing nothing to address the lack of parity.
That proposal was not met with universal approval, especially among those whose approval is needed; the conference commissioners. In February 2022, after months of meetings that caught to tweak the proposal to gain a consensus, the commissioners of the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 voted against Playoff expansion prior to 2026 (the year after the current CFP contract expires). That means we will have 4 more seasons under the current system. I firmly believe that come 2026, there will be an expanded field. Once the contract is up, it does not take a unanimous vote to set up a new Playoff system, as it did while the current contract is in effect. It only takes a critical mass among the interested parties to come up with something they agree upon and the rest, begrudgingly perhaps, will get on board or be left out. Whether the expanded field ends up being 12 teams or just 8 teams, as has also been floated, I don’t have a good feel for at this time. But it’s coming.
As far as the here-and-now, there really isn’t much that can be done at the present…if you believe that changing the Playoff format is what is needed. But I come back to what I said earlier; changing the Playoff format does nothing to impact the lack of parity among the elite teams. Can we fix that lack of parity? Maybe. Is it realistic? I’d say much less so than expanding the Playoff. It’s not a top-level problem. It really comes down to the individual school and program level, and it begins with an honest conversation and commitment. Do we really want to do what it takes to compete with the elite teams?
Of course, it’s a little more complex than that, and for some schools no amount of “want to” is going to vault them to the top. I’ll talk more about parity in Chapter 3.
College Football Analyst
Mike is a Baltimore native living in Portland, OR since 2007. He currently runs his own business specializing in video production and online marketing. Prior to that he was a legal technology consultant, worked for 9 years at Johns Hopkins University and served 6 years in the Air Force. He also enjoys travel, food, beer, and is a volunteer at the Oregon Humane Society.