We may be moving toward a four-team college football playoff, but we’re not moving anywhere close to fairness in college football. Too much opinion. Too many subjective decisions. Too big of a beauty-contest factor.
In the Big Ten’s world, that’s the equivalent of a revolution.
Now we know for sure that an expanded playoff is coming. Big Ten schools would burn down their libraries before they would mess with their Rose Bowl relationship. If the Big Ten is getting on board, the ship is sailing.
But before the playoff crowd takes to the streets in revelry, be forewarned. A four-team playoff, in any format, bowls or no bowls, will not solve the fundamental problem of college football.
The opinion problem. The subjective problem. The beauty-contest problem. The problem that has plagued this sport since leather-helmet days.
College football relies on what people think. And that’s bogus, no matter what kind of playoff format you unleash.
It’s a cultural curse that is dang near impossible to shed. We see that not just with the sport’s clinging to the polls, but the fortification of the polling process. The polls mean more than ever.
A four-team playoff in 2011 would have been no better. Including anyone’s level of satisfaction.
