Playoffs?

Playoffs?

1) What I already know (and don’t know) about my topic

I know that Division IA football is the only sport that doesn’t hold playoffs to determine a champion. I have always been curious to why this is though. I grew up in a household where football was a big deal and have been intrigued by the controversy stirred up about the Bowl system in place. Sometimes I watch the National Title Game and wonder how the teams are chosen. I never really knew how the system worked. I just knew that a panel or committee chose certain teams based on rankings and conferences to determine which game they would play in.

For years I have seen teams go undefeated but not win a national championship. Some of these teams include: 1994 Penn State, 1998 Tulane, 1999 Marshall, 2004 and 2008 Utah, 2004 Auburn, 2006 and 2009 Boise State, and 2010 TCU. Typically if a team has no losses in other sports they are named the champion, but all of these teams failed to be named the National Champions. This is what baffles me and has sparked my interest in this subject. Its like Kanye West taking the mic from Taylor Swift at the MTV music awards. Oh nice season and I’ma let you finish, but Alabama had the best season all time!

After watching college football games through the course of my lifetime I have seen many teams have great seasons, but not make it into the National Title Game. I have always been curious why a committee or a computer had the final say in who the top two teams in the country were in a given year. This doesn’t make much sense because even a playoff model is used in the National Football League (NFL). By researching my topic I hope to shed light upon this question and provide research to show why Division IA doesn’t host a playoff s...

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Works Cited

"BCS Selection Procedures." BCS: News, Highlights and Insights into the Bowl Championship Series. Web. 04 Feb. 2011. .

Covell, Dan. "Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era." Journal of Sport Management 24.5 (2010): 601-604. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 7 Feb. 2011.

Murphy, Austin, and Dan Wetzel. "Does It Matter?" Sports Illustrated 15 Nov. 2010. Print.

NCAAFootball.com :: Where Every Game Counts Home. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .

PolitiFact.com. Web. 02 Feb. 2011. .

Thomas, Katie. "Political Heavy Hitters Take On College Bowls." New York Times 10 Jan. 2011. Print.

60 Minutes. CBS. 17 Nov. 2008. Television.