"The BCS is in an unprecedented state of health."
As a lawyer, I'm trained in the ways of spotting flawed logic. And this whole excuse that a playoff in football would somehow cheapen the regular season happens to be the biggest example of sophistry in college sports that hasn't come out of Lee Corso's brain (and I use the word "brain" quite loosely.)
Let's end the verbal gynmastics right now. Wikipedia, which is never wrong (according to Wikipedia) defines a play-off as "a game or series of games played after the regular season is over with the goal of determining a league champion." To reiterate, a play-off need only be one game by this or any other sensible definition. The only real quality that a play-off need possess is that it not be a part of the regular season.
Sound familiar? Well, it certainly should, being that college football does indeed have a play-off, and it's called the BCS Championship game.
We are not, then, discussing the merits of whether there should be a play-off; rather, we are talking about degree. Right now, we include two teams. In basketball, we have 64(ish).
The regular season can tell us, in a general sense, which teams are the elite, but nearly always fails to clearly determine which one is the best. A play-off is the tool to be used for that task. In evaluating any play-off system, one must balance two competing goals: selecting enough of the most qualified teams from the regular season to be eligible for the post-season, and on the other end of the spectrum, not selecting so many teams that it defeats the purpose of having a post-season to begin with. The BCS commissioners, allegedly, fear the latter evil so much as to want avoid a "play-off" altogether, for fear that the post-season would become a second-season and thus devalue the regular one. As a consequence, they sacrifice the first goal almost entirely.
If we were to take the commissioners at their word (see: Bridge, Brooklyn), then the logical conclusion of their argument is to eliminate the BCS altogether and simply declare a champion after the regular season is over. This would place the maximum value on all those beloved regular season games. And just think, (Big Ten commissioner) Jim Delany: Ohio State would enter 2008 as two-time defending champions!!!
Of course, it only took one more game to prove that the computers and voters had erred in giving the Buckeyes the #1 ranking. They were both unable to account for differences in schedule strength, conference opponents and various other factors that confused them into thinking OSU was a better team than LSU. And the same held true the year before that.
Eliminating the championship game and declaring a champion after the regular season ends effectively draws the line at one team. And as the past two seasons have proven, this is a system with a great potential for error. The present system draws the line at two teams, which, while certainly more preferable, is still fraught with the possibility that we might be overlooking a better team. A four to eight team play-off would reduce this margin of error to acceptable levels. True, even then some teams who feel deserving will be left out, but time and feasibility constraints must be factored in after we get beyond eight teams.
But hey, as Kevin White said about the issue "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Perfect, we're back to talking about "unprecedented" states of health. Here are some examples of other entities basking in unprecedented health and unbroken-ness:
Amy Winehouse
North Korean civil liberties
The housing market
Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign.
