For the first time in college football history, a team ranked fourth was crowned the national champion. On Jan. 12, the Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Oregon Ducks in the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship game.
New Year’s Day did not just symbolize the start of 2015, but also marked the beginning of a new era in college football. The College Football Playoff began on Jan. 1, seeing the Ducks defeat Florida State in the Rose Bowl and the Buckeyes defeating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Without the new playoff system, neither the Ducks nor the Buckeyes would have competed for the national title.
The College Football Playoff selects the nation’s top four ranked teams and places them in a playoff bracket to determine a true national champion. The new system is head and shoulders beyond the now historic FBS system, but there are still flaws that need to be addressed. On Selection Day, fans were left wondering why TCU and Baylor, who both had the same record as three out of the four teams that made it in, were left out of the bracket.
Although the committee got it right by picking the Buckeyes as the fourth seed, TCU and Baylor should have been given a chance to play for the national title. I believe that a simple way to solve this issue is to expand the playoff to a six team bracket, similar to the one that the NFL uses to determine conference champions.
Deciding a champion for College Football is indeed a difficult task due to the enormous number of teams in the system and how the game of football is played. There are 128 Division 1 College Football teams compared to 32 in the NFL, making it harder for college officials to determine which teams are the best and deserve to be in the playoffs. It is also impossible for college football to completely mimic college basketball’s tournament style bracket because it takes longer for players to recover from football games than basketball games. Football players need at least a week to rehab after a game due to the hard-hitting nature of the sport whereas basketball players need a couple days.
As a sports fan, I am glad that the NCAA reformed the playoff system, but it is also my hope that they can do more to improve it. Successful teams like TCU and Baylor should have been given a chance to compete, but at least the system allowed Ohio State to earn the title they deserved.