The NC game was lit, but college football still needs a better playoff system

After last night’s National Championship game between Alabama and Georgia where a freshman QB from Hawaii led the Crimson Tide to victory, there is no doubting that college football is one of the most electrifying and entertaining sports out.

And while this year’s postseason was full of intensity, that hasn’t exactly been the case since the College Football Playoffs started in 2014.

The college football postseason has always consisted of a magnitude of bowl games but the problem with the format is this: are the best teams actually getting to compete?

To put it simply, the selection team favors bigger conferences. Have you ever heard of the term Power 5 Conference? The Power 5 conference stands for a subdivision in the Division-1 level of collegiate football.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDvRKYyQL_Q

It is made up of the most competitive conferences in football which are currently the Pac-12, SEC, Big 10, ACC, and the Big 12. These conferences bring in the most revenue, they have the most watched games, their games get televised on popular channels, and they gather up the best recruits in the country.

So when selecting teams for bowl games and for college football playoff selection, obviously teams that are in these 5 conferences are going to have a leg up from teams in the “smaller” conferences.

This raises controversy because there are many teams that aren’t in the power five conferences that should be getting picked for big games like the Cotton Bowl, or the Orange bowl but aren’t getting the looks they deserve simply based on their conference.

An extremely recent example of this favoritism occurred this past season. The team rankings fluctuated this season with many smaller programs breaking the top 25. One of which included the University of Central Florida Knights.

UCF went undefeated this season but still didn’t get selected for the playoff.

People argued that UCF’s conference should keep them from getting into the College Football Playoff, but in the Peach Bowl they went on and a beat a ranked Auburn team that beat both Alabama and Georgia.

One idea to fix this problem of favoritism in the selection committee would be to expand the college playoff bracket into more teams.

Would be a real shame if a Billionaire funded a true National Title game between UCF and the Georgia/Bama winner to show up the NCAA. Real shame indeed. @mcuban

— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) January 3, 2018

This not only would’ve made more room for teams like Ohio State and Central Florida that deserved to be there, but it would bring about many more viewers.

There would be matchups that before would have been unheard of, new rivalries would come about, the college football realm would be crazy. Why can’t this happen?

ESPN has a contract with the NCAA to keep the format at 4 teams for a very long time over the next 10 years. What is being missed here is the amount of money they would be making if they make the bracket larger.

According to Forbes:

“The revenue for each of the Power Five Conferences during the 2015 CFP reached $70 million, more than doubling the revenue under the old BCS system (more on that here).If the NCAA were to add another week of the playoff, that number would hit north of $100 million for each conference. This is a much higher total than each conference would see during a normal regular season week of action.”

I think it’s safe to say that a three week long College Football Playoff system would be insane. One flaw I could see with this is that, that is a lot of football for the team that is making it to the championship game, but other than that I feel that this is the best move for the NCAA to take with the playoff.

It gives way more teams a chance they never had, and more of a chance for players to get the exposure they deserve to make it to the next level. We need this to happen!

End the monopoly the Power 5 conferences have on college football and let the kids play.