This is The World According to Buchs - Keepin’ it moving since 2003!

It’s a tight race, but my all-time favourite sporting events are the first day of the NFL season and the first 2 days of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament. There are many reasons I love those two things, and one of them is that it’s a wide-open field. Anyone can win. Sure, you’ve got favourite and powerhouses that have a better-than-average shot, but there’s nothing precluding any team from winning it all.

And then there’s college football.

This summer, I stated that there were several events in the Olympics that I didn’t consider to be “sports”. My #1 criteria for what defines a sport was that there had to be a definitive winner and loser. Anything that involved the opinion of a judge or judges - no matter how impartial they may be - is still just an opinion. While I have a great amount of respect for the athletic ability and skill it takes to pull off a Triple Lindy, diving is not a sport. Nor gymnastics and a dozen other events.

So while each game played in the NCAA “Bowl” division counts as a sporting event, the season as a whole does not. Right from the get-go, if your team isn’t (a) ranked in the pre-season top-10 and (b) part of a major conference, you can forget all about a shot at the Mythical National Championship. And even if your team is in, oh, say The Big East - going undefeated might not be enough to give you a shot, because your “strength of schedule” wasn’t good enough.

Why is there no playoff system? Every other major sport, college and pro, all use one. College football is clinging to the antiquated “bowl” system that does nothing but generate money. It’s about the money, pure and simple.

One of the arguments I hear against a playoff from the talking sports heads is “but every week is like a playoff”. Another is that having a playoff bracket would take away from the importance of regular-season games. And my favourite, that extending the season by two weeks for a playoff would put too much pressure on the kids and affect their studies.

Bullshit on all counts.

Let’s say that we start slow, with just a 4-team bracket. You could use two of the existing bowls as semi-finals, and extend the season by one week. They’re already playing the Mythical National Championship game almost a week after the other bowls, and the bowl season is spread out over a month.

How anyone can say with a straight face that a regular-season matchup between two conference rivals would lose some of its luster and intensity IF those teams were both eligible for a “playoff” is beyond me. Michigan/Ohio State, Texas/Oklahoma… those games are going to be the same whether or not there’s a playoff. Oh, by the way, every major conference besides the Big Ten ALREADY uses a one-game playoff to determine their championships.

I realize that there has to be a limit on the number of teams involved in whatever playoff system there might be - we’re never going to see a “March Maddness” type tournament because of the logistics of football. But an 8- or 16-team tournament isn’t out of the question. And there’s no reason that the current bowls can’t be repurposed and used as quarter- and semi-finals. The BCS already rotates the Mythical National Championship game among the top-tier bowls, and it could continue to do so.

The coaches like the current system because they can say that they “won their bowl game” when they’re out recruiting the new class. The schools like the system because they get paid big, big bucks to play in the bowls. The fans… well, sorry.

College football isn’t a sport - it’s a sad, sad joke.