Does the current bowl schedule support a playoff?

The Game Room
1

Even assuming the best two teams got in this year. Yes, TCU may deserve a chance along with a couple other schools but that is not important in this thread.

When the BCS national title started, it was rotated among the Rose, Orange, Fiesta and Sugar Bowl because as some BCS proponants pointed out, it was keeping student-atheletes away from classes too much to have a game after New Year’s Day and therefore the BCS was better than a playoff - even in a +1 format.

Today is January 10th. Where is the outcry from BCS proponants about the students not being at Oregon and Auburn for almost 2 weeks of the new semester? In fact, I’ll go further:
Orange - 3 Jan
Sugar - 4 Jan
GoDaddy - 6 Jan
Cotton - 7 Jan
Compass - 8 Jan
Kraft - 9 Jan

So 14 teams counting the NC game tonight has teams playing after 1 Jan and 8 teams are playing a week or more after New Years. Remember that originally that making students play so long after New Years Day is bad according to the original “BCS is better than a playoff” argument.

Now look at this playoff system:
All 1 Jan
Rose
Fiesta
Orange
Sugar

8 Jan
Rose winner v. Fiesta winner => West winner
Orange winner v. Sugar winner => East winner

15 Jan
West winner v. East winner

What system is better for the “student-athelete”?

2

The idea of incorporating a football playoff into the bowls is impractical. Sufficient fans and students don’t have the money or vacation time to make two or three trips in that short time.

Consider that a football stadium seats 60K and up, as compared to a basketball arena, where the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament are played, which seats 15K-20K and which is divided between fans of four different teams. Good luck getting enough fans to be able to travel to 3 playoff games in 3 weeks.

Playoffs will only work in football if the opening round games are played at on-campus sites, othewise there are going to be a whole lot of empty seats at those opening round games.

3

Oregon started classes on the 3rd. Auburn is scheduled to start classes today (they were canceled because of an ice storm). Just looking at the schedule for other ranked teams, most start today, a few start next week, and a few start the third. So at most, the last BCS game is only a week after classes begin.