While the BCS committee marches toward a July deadline on figuring out what the heck they’re going to do about this mess we call college football’s postseason, we are reminded yet again that this all could have been avoided years ago.
Appearing on the Paul Finebaum Network today, former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson said that in 1992, CBS went to the NCAA with the idea of an eight-team playoff. But with the current BCS set up being what it is, Pilson admitted that a four-team playoff -- or, a plus-one; six of one, half-dozen of the other -- starting on New Years Dy that would somehow incorporate the bowl system is the more likely alternative.
The Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC have recently admitted their ears were open to listen to playoff ideas, although to say there’s still a disagreement in format is quite an understatement. Couple that with the fear of “playoff creep” -- the idea that a four-team playoff would give way to eight teams and to 16 teams and to 32 and to 240 --and the BCS committee is pursuing postseason change as though they’re surrounded by a pack of sleeping lions and a single objection would wake them.
We reference Bryan Fischer‘s CBS report about a NCAA-sponsored playoff a lot on here, but there’s a reason. Such a format could generate up to a “billion dollars a year into the organization’s coffers to pay for everything from recommended books to grocery money to student-athlete cell phone bills.”
Just imagine what that number could be now if a playoff was started two decades ago.