Sooner or Later, the NCAA Is Going to Approve College Football Playoffs

This year it is Miami and Penn State. Last year it was Oklahoma and Penn State. Next year it might be Texas A&M; and Penn State.

A showdown for the national championship during the holiday season will always draw a crowd, which most everyone agrees is good for college football and certainly good for the city holding the game.

The rest of the bowls, however, become secondary attractions, just as most of them are anyway because the Bluebonnet Bowl and Peach Bowl, among others, do not have a chance of landing a match-up for the national title.

No matter how much the coaches and bowl officials fight it, the NCAA will ultimately decide to have a playoff. And here is a suggestion of how it might have worked this year.

There are many arguments against a college football playoff. The academicians claim there would be too much time away from class, the weakest argument of all.

“Missed class time is a cop-out,” said Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, whose team faces Miami for the national title on the night of Jan. 2 in the Fiesta Bowl. “Look at the Final Four. In football, kids are on vacation in late December and early January anyway.”

The bowls contend their role would be usurped and the public spirit of the various bowl cities would disappear along with the money to run the games. But bowls are hurting for money anyway with corporate sponsorships becoming necessary.

There can be no question that a quarterfinal playoff game in, say, Memphis between two national powers will attract more attention than a routine meeting of slightly better than average teams.

“It’s unfortunate the kids don’t have the chance to win the title on the field,” Paterno said. “The bowl people have to re-evaluate what they want to do in the 1990s.”

And then there is the biggest reason of all--money. The NCAA draws much of its working capital each year from its basketball tournament, and football would bring in another giant bundle.

The same problems would appear in a football playoff as those each year in the basketball tournament--but they would be minor.

People would grumble that their team got left out, certain cities would not be pleased with a quarterfinal game instead of the championship. But, like the Super Bowl, the NCAA football championship (College Bowl?) would be moved to cities with the appropriate stadiums and hotel space.

Automatic bids would go to the champions of the Big Ten, Pac-10, Big Eight, Southwest, Southeastern, Atlantic Coast and Western Athletic conferences--all of which have had national champions in the past two decades. The other spots would be filled by at-large teams with the field amounting to 16 schools.

Cities that have staged bowls over the years would host the tournament--at least to start. Ultimately, domed stadiums in Detroit, Minneapolis, Syracuse and Indianapolis would come into play.

With those as the guidelines, the opening-round pairings would have looked like this in 1986--all games having been played on Dec. 20.

The upper bracket would have had Miami vs. Clemson in Atlanta; Nebraska vs. Arkansas in Houston; Texas A&M; vs. Ohio State in Jacksonville; and Oklahoma vs. Alabama in Tampa.

The lower bracket would have consisted of Michigan vs. Arizona in Memphis; LSU vs. Washington in San Diego; Arizona State vs. Auburn in El Paso; and Penn State vs. San Diego State in Birmingham. No home-field advantages allowed.

The quarterfinals, all of which would be on Jan. 1 to preserve the New Year’s Day football tradition, would take place in Dallas, Miami, Anaheim and Orlando. Teams would know in advance which city they would be playing in on what date as long as they kept winning.

The Miami Hurricanes, for instance, would start out in Atlanta, then go to Dallas, New Orleans and to Pasadena for the championship.

New Orleans and Phoenix would host the semifinals the first year with those games on Saturday, Jan. 10. The survivors would play the following Saturday in the Rose Bowl for the championship.

The Rose Bowl would not host the title game every year, but should probably get first shot at it. That, of course, is the same site as this year’s Super Bowl. Maybe it would be a good idea to have the two games played in the same town every year. Maybe not.

That, along with a lot of other little problems, would be worked out in time. It is not a question of whether it will happen. It is just a question of when.