College bowl games were established as glorified exhibition games to end the season (ever heard of the Pro Bowl?). In fact, until 1968, the National Champion was crowned BEFORE THE BOWL GAMES. If we really want to get back to tradition, shouldn't we start voting on teams as soon as the season's over. Congratulations Ohio State on winning the 2007 National Championship!
I guess tradition didn't matter so much in 1968. I wonder why it matters so much now? Might be because the people directing such endeavors didn't do their history. Or maybe they're still living in a delusional world where you can't double the number of competitive football teams in 50 years even though the population of the country doubles. Or where we can't easily travel long distances to play outside our conferences even though we have easy access to charter jets. Or where all you have to do to be the "best" in the country is beat up on some lower tier non-BCS teams and then only lose once or twice in your conference.
What we want is a champion - forget the so called tradition of playing games in certain stadiums (half of which need to be razed anyway) and let's get to the matter at hand. People might resist change, but give it two years and new traditions will already be solidified. If we want a champion, we need a winner of the winners. Let's turn the debate to how we're going to implement the playoff rather than if we need to.
Or, I suppose we can return to tradition and say that the bowls don't actually matter - that keeps the regular season important where each game counts as a playoff. And then we can trust the pollsters to choose the national champion who can't name a single player on half of the teams in the country.
Unless, of course, you don't happen to be coming from a team that is a member of a BCS conference, then you can win all the games you want and still won't be in the mix.
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