Major Problems With The Current System
For the vast majority of this blog, I will be discussing the NFL and the NFL alone. While the college game is fascinating on its own merits, it has nowhere near the level of talent or intrigue as professional football does for me. With that said, one of the pressing issues this season has been the method used to rank teams.
As most NCAA football fans know, the championship system works by ranking teams throughout the season. Before each season begins, the NCAA ranks systems based on their previous year’s results and newly acquired talent. As the season continues, teams move up or down based on losses and wins. And at the end of the year, the two top teams get a chance to play for the top title in college football.
The problem? This design favors weak conferences over good ones. Before last Saturday, Ohio State had a seemingly easy path to a national championship despite scheduling no hard out-of-conference teams and playing in the abysmal Big Ten. Meanwhile teams like LSU and Oregon suffered because they play in conferences where tough match-ups are the norm, not the rarity.
Even though Ohio State’s loss to Illinois has put the entire system back where it should be, the problem still exists. One loss should not be the difference between two equally good teams when the teams play different levels of talent. Strength of schedule should be a bigger factor then it currently is.
But this is not an easy problem to fix. There is no way that every team can play equal talent, it just can’t happen. And it isn’t fair to penalize a team for factors it can’t control like which conference it plays in. The only real answer would be to open up a playoff system for the championship. If four or more teams were allowed to vie for the title, there will be less of a chance of deserving teams being left out.
Of course, a playoff system simply is not ideal for the NCAA right now because of TV contracts and other reasons. So for now, we must just suffer through the possibility of deserving teams having no shot at a championship.