🏈 Stewart Mandel: Conference champion requirement surefire way to undermine playoff

[TerryP]

In an interview last weekend with the New York Times, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott became the latest prominent voice to express support for a potential four-team playoff. It was more good news for anyone still skeptical that this thing might really, finally happen.

Scott also gave credence to an increasingly popular notion that said tournament should only be open to teams that win their conference championship. "So much of the passion of a move to a playoff is to see it earned on the field," Scott said. "What more clear way to have intellectual consistency with the idea of a playoff than to earn it as a conference champion."

Scott, as we've learned, is incredibly intelligent, even when he's not using fancy phrases like "intellectual consistency." He's also hardly alone in holding this opinion; former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, the BCS' original architect, told CBSSports.com much the same thing recently.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm on an island primarily full of Alabama fans. But this seems like a terrible idea.


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[psychojoe]

Well written and thought out. I had this thought as well. Suppose Georgia had stunned everyone and beaten LSU in the SEC CG. The proposed 4 bracket tournament would have had Oklahoma State, Oregon State, wisconsin and Georgia. It would make the distaste at the rematch seem mild by comparison.