I agree that the importance of each game is amplified but what if you already have 2 losses? Take Oklahoma last year....they had the misfortune of losing their starting QB to injury, lost a couple of games early and that was all she wrote. If there were a playoff system, there would still have been hope.
Which generally only would have mattered to those who have an interest in seeing OU have a shot at the championship. Even as such...OU still had a chance to play for their league title and the support for OU among their fan base didn't die because it's much bigger than 2 losses or a season.
That's the reason that every major sports league has gone to the divisional format (some with wild card teams to boot in some instances). The idea is to keep fans of as many teams as possible hopeful that their team could still be champion. That concept needs to be brought to college football from my perspective.
A playoff system doesn't guarantee wider fan interest during the regular season. Teams in sport's leagues with playoffs are still subject to meaningless regular seasons based on their season's progress. In which cases, fans still lose interest.
Irrelevent? That's a bit strong. So if a team starts out 0-3, no big deal? I don't think so.
Yeah.."irrelevant". They could still win the remaining 13 games of their season and theoretically compete for the title. That doesn't add to the overall excitement..in fact it could be argued that it lessens the overall excitement as again, fewer games have necessary consequences.
Exactly. That's because you can lose some games and still have a shot at the title. Going undefeated is not the goal. Winning the championship is.
Again, I'm not arguing a teams record on it's bearing to win a title. Just differentiating between the overall excitement and interest created by teams competing to stay undefeated versus teams that are not competing for that. Honestly, there was more interest in the Colts and Saints last season beyond their fan base precisely because NFL fans wanted to see if they could stay undefeated or who would eventually beat them.
Can you imagine the excitement if the winner of the Cotton Bowl got to go on to the next round of the playoffs instead of just getting some meaningless plaque and a healthy paycheck? How excited does anyone get about the Cotton Bowl now? The answer is, unless your team happens to be playing in it, no one does.
Probably true. But I would imagine the most significant factor in interests of Bowl games are the match ups and what games are being shown in the same time blocs. Fans of college football are generally so starved for games by the time the bowls roll around that they will get their fix from almost any game. Now the best argument is probably the local commerce might pick up and the games would sell more tickets if the games had wider meaning.
I remember (boy am I dating myself here) the great hue and cry that was going on when MLB went to the divisional playoff format in 1969. All the purists were screaming about how the game was being destroyed, winning the league means nothing now, blah blah blah. I think that has worked out pretty well and I would predict the same result for college football.
People will accept what they can't change and a person can learn to live with a pain in their side. That doesn't mean they like it or the change hasn't had some negative implication.
