College football’s playoff format still stinks, and the reasons are easy to see

There is one over-arching flaw that I see with the new 12-team playoff in college football.

I’m not talking about the format, though I do think there’s room to question seeding Arizona State No. 4 and giving the Sun Devils a first-round bye ahead of Texas.

It’s not about the number of teams, either, though I get why the lower right-hand corner of our country might feel there should be more than three SEC teams in the field. Personally, I have no issue with Alabama being excluded, though. I do not believe any team that loses a football game to Vanderbilt has any right to complain about anything that happens after that.

The problem I see with these new playoffs has nothing to do with logistics, and everything to do with the premise of using a playoff to crown an annual champion in college football. There’s too much difference in quality between conferences, too much chaos across the country. College football is too unruly to be saddled with something as corporate as a tournament.

Not that I expect anyone to stop trying.

For more than 30 years we’ve watched as people in business attire tried any number of different plans that they believed would “fix” this little problem. First there was a Bowl Coalition (1992-1994), which became the Bowl Alliance (1995-1997), which grew into the Bowl Championship Series (1998-2013). For the past decade, we’ve had a four-team playoff.

Each was presented as an improvement on determining the sport’s annual champion. All created problems usually relating to structural advantages benefiting the most powerful members of the most powerful conferences. I’m not one of those people who believes that the move toward a playoff system has made things worse, but I don’t think it’s made things all that much better, either.

I used to get really indignant, even outright mad, about the playoffs. I was adamantly opposed to any change in the format for the Rose Bowl. When the Huskies won the conference, I wanted them to go to Pasadena and play the Big Ten champion. In fact, back in 2016 I was insistent that I would prefer the playoff committee pass over the Huskies so they could go to the Rose Bowl right up until the day Washington beat Colorado to win the conference. Then, I had to admit that I’d be bummed if they weren’t chosen for the playoffs, and I was there in Atlanta that year, cheering for the Huskies as they played the Crimson Tide. I was in New Orleans last year, and the mixture of relief and joy I felt after Washington’s goal-line stand against Texas in the Sugar Bowl was the single most emotional experience I’ve ever had at a sporting event.

As much as I’ve enjoyed those two trips to the playoffs, I don’t see a tournament as some huge improvement over the old bowl system. It certainly hasn’t ended all the arguments or erased the instances in which schools feel slighted or overlooked. I simply accept that this is the way the sport has been headed. Every few years somebody decides we need to build a better mousetrap, but what that really means is that someone has found a way to make a little more money from the TV network(s) who are going to carry these games.

This year’s tournament starts Friday with Indiana playing at Notre Dame in the first of four first-round games. The quarterfinals begin with the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve followed by the Rose, Sugar and Peach Bowls the following day. The title game will be Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

The argument for a tournament is as simple as it is persuasive: pretty much every other team sport in this country decides its champion with some sort of playoffs even lower levels of college football. Why should the highest level of college football be any different?

In theory, it shouldn’t be. Then again, communism works in theory, too. In the real world, the difference in quality between the conferences makes it impossible to sort out a playoff field without making some very subjective decisions. You’re not just being asked to compare apples and oranges, but you also have to sort in an occasional kiwi or a quince.

This leads to not just heated debates, but decisions that are demonstrably unfair, like an undefeated Florida State team being omitted from the playoffs last year because the committee wanted both Texas AND Alabama in the field.

This year, the question was about a two-loss SMU team being included ahead of teams like Ole Miss and Alabama. I’d go a step further and question the credentials of that one-loss Indiana team, which doesn’t have a single victory over a team currently ranked in the top 25. Then there’s Arizona State, which has a first-round bye because of the stipulation that in order to be one of the top four seeds, a team had to have won its conference championship.

These are issues that people will want to see addressed. It’s possible the field could be expanded to 14 teams as soon as next year and I suspect it will be a 16-team tournament before too long. That won’t eliminate the concerns over equity and fairness, though. It will just change what we argue about because this simply isn’t a sport that lends itself to a playoff format.

Danny O’Neil was born in Oregon, the son of a logger, but had the good sense to attend college in Washington. He’s covered Seattle sports for 20 years, writing for two newspapers, one glossy magazine and hosting a daily radio show for eight years on KIRO 710 AM. You can subscribe to his free newsletter and find his other work at dannyoneil.com.

This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 6:00 AM.