Owen Good chimes in with his weekly Stick Jockey column. This week he sims a 16 team tournament with NCAA Football 10. Does he have the right idea? What would you change about it?
"Do you want a college football playoff? Do you love the tradition of a New Year's Day packed with A-list bowls? You can have both, as shown by Stick Jockey's video game simulation of a 16-team tournament - and 27 bowls.
One of the most false debating points in the college football playoff argument is the idea that somehow the bowls diminish a playoff, or vice versa. I maintain that the bowl postseason should be preserved, running alongside a meritorious, 16-team playoff inviting the champion of every conference. The bowls - the better ones, anyway - have a majesty that far surpasses any "football NIT" label some think they'd acquire if the NCAA implemented a Division I football playoff.
My idea is that, while a game like the Orange Bowl may not prefer a pairing of conference runner-ups, provided the sides are appropriately matched the games can be no less memorable. The bowls relentlessly tout their tradition, but forget that tradition, until the early 1990s, felt no obligation to help determine a national champion. And for a sporting culture so built on haves and have-nots, a holiday-based bowl structure as a consolation prize offers a much more meaningful postseason "reward," as one of the talking points always describes the bowls, to teams that rarely, or have never visited fabled venues like the Sugar or the Cotton, rather than sending them to Birmingham to play in an advertisement for Papa John's."
One of the most false debating points in the college football playoff argument is the idea that somehow the bowls diminish a playoff, or vice versa. I maintain that the bowl postseason should be preserved, running alongside a meritorious, 16-team playoff inviting the champion of every conference. The bowls - the better ones, anyway - have a majesty that far surpasses any "football NIT" label some think they'd acquire if the NCAA implemented a Division I football playoff.
My idea is that, while a game like the Orange Bowl may not prefer a pairing of conference runner-ups, provided the sides are appropriately matched the games can be no less memorable. The bowls relentlessly tout their tradition, but forget that tradition, until the early 1990s, felt no obligation to help determine a national champion. And for a sporting culture so built on haves and have-nots, a holiday-based bowl structure as a consolation prize offers a much more meaningful postseason "reward," as one of the talking points always describes the bowls, to teams that rarely, or have never visited fabled venues like the Sugar or the Cotton, rather than sending them to Birmingham to play in an advertisement for Papa John's."
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