1. NCAA presidents approved the addition of a 12th regular season football game, but they have no interest in a playoff. Am I missing something?
If you are, you're not alone. The 12th game is a curious and contradictory addition. Even as Division I-A university presidents wax eloquent about the importance of taking control of oversized football and basketball programs, they add a game to the football schedule. Even as they refuse to consider implementing a playoff that would solve the sport's championship mess, on the grounds that it would send an inappropriate message about the relationship between education and sport, they approve lengthening the season.
Know this: The 12th game is a money grab. Most power programs will use the extra contest to schedule a seventh -- and in some cases, an eighth -- home game in their mammoth stadiums, thus pocketing several million dollars in revenue to help balance their precarious athletic budgets. Most smaller I-A programs will use it to go play a power program and collect a six- or seven-figure paycheck for getting the snot beat out of them, also helping fund their impoverished programs. When I visited South Bend, Ind., in March for a story on rookie Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, it was explained to me that the Irish are building an entirely new scheduling policy around the addition of another home game. The 12th game will produce a bunch of money, a lot of lousy games and an occasional upset.
Meanwhile, a playoff would also produce big dollars, several weeks of terrific games and probably heart-stopping upsets every year. Oh, and also, an undisputed national champion. Of course, we have never been further from any kind of playoff. At this point it seems just as likely that when the new BCS contract with FOX Sports expires in 2010, college football will return to the old free-for-all bowl system, with only occasional No. 1-vs.-No. 2 matchups. (Unless, of course, FOX can somehow induce a post-bowl, plus-one game, which thus far the presidents have not been willing to consider, either). Sadly, presidents have chosen to stand and fight their ideological battle on the issue of a playoff. It is the simplest, most public manner in which to show their concern for academic values, even as they run quasi-minor league football programs for the NFL.
