# Poll: should college football have a playoff?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [January 8, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107 "2010-01-08T01:22:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107/81 "2010-01-11T22:20:09Z")

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> [@whole\_bean](#):
>
> Gotta agree. I don’t like using the conference championships this way because the conferences are too disparate.

You can’t use conference championships until all of the conferences use the same method of determining their champion, and have equal number of teams in each conference. Big XII, SEC, ACC, etc. have a one game playoff to win the conference (East -vs- West, North -vs- South, or Atlantic -vs- Coastal). Other conferences do not have that (Big East, Big 10, etc.).

That’s an extra week of rest for those teams, and one less chance to screw up a good season by possibly playing the 2nd best team in your conference.

To have playoffs, I think you’d have to start by evening out the number of teams in the conferences. Then the conferences could be almost like divisions in pro football.

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**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107/82 "2010-01-11T22:23:09Z")

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> [@Gadarene](#):
>
> I’ve always thought that the best, most common-sense solution would be this:…
> 
> We should get right on it.

That’s essentially the “+1” proposal, expanded to 4 teams. So it’s “+2”. I agree it’s darn near perfect.

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**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107/83 "2010-01-11T22:25:52Z")

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> [@Enright3](#):
>
> To have playoffs, I think you’d have to start by evening out the number of teams in the conferences. Then the conferences could be almost like divisions in pro football.

It’s a good thing you used pro football as your example, instead of, oh, baseball. Major league baseball uses division champions, and doesn’t have balanced divisions.

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**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-should-college-football-have-a-playoff/524107/84 "2010-01-12T00:03:14Z")

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> [@jsc1953](#):
>
> It’s a good thing you used pro football as your example, instead of, oh, baseball. Major league baseball uses division champions, and doesn’t have balanced divisions.

Yeah, but the schedule is 162 games long, and balanced about as good as you can get it.

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