Opinion: Why the BCS Era was better than the College Football Playoff

When the college football playoff started back in 2014, there was a ton of excitement. Finally, one of, if not the most passionate sport in America finally had a playoff, and a computer was no longer deciding just two teams that could play for a national championship.

While the playoff has given us some great games and allowed more teams to have a shot at the national championship, I would argue college football is in a worse place now.

A large part is due to the playoffs than it was before the playoffs started. And I believe the BCS era was better than the playoff era.

When I say that, let’s get one thing out of the way. I am not saying the BCS was a better format than the playoff.

In fact I would actually argue to the contrary. I’m arguing the start of the playoff was part of a series of poor decisions that led to many problems that the sport faces now.

Let’s stick with the postseason to start and talk about bowl games. Think about the prestige bowl games used to have and how much fun they used to be. The postseason wasn’t just about the playoff like it is now.

Think back to Jadeveon Clowney’s big hit in the 2013 Outback Bowl, Texas A&M’s 21-point comeback in the 2013 Chick-Fil-A Bowl, or the year before when Clemson made a double digit fourth quarter comeback to shock LSU in the same game.

These games weren’t even in the major bowl games like the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl.

It was the one final chance for good football teams to compete together one last time in the postseason and lay it all out on the line, when the games were played in front of large audiences and packed stadiums.

Now, these games would be considered “meaningless.” What happened to destroy the decades-long glory that was college football bowl games?

Well, think back to 2014. All of the talk was on the playoff and the phrase “Who’s in?” was everywhere. We saw it again this year with the birth of the 12-team playoff.

Already in week one, so much of the talk was about who will make the first 12-team playoff before teams had even played one regular season game. It was the same back in 2014, and more and more, people paid less attention to all other bowl games.

This also led to bowl game opt outs, which is another reason why bowl games are less meaningful now.

The first time a player opted out of a bowl game was Leonard Fournette in 2016. In his situation, he was injured and couldn’t play in the game anyway, so he decided to focus on the NFL Draft.

However, that paved the way for more and more players to opt out of their bowl games if they aren’t playoff games, and fans don’t want to watch a bowl game where multiple star players, sometimes from both teams, are sitting out.

Also, let’s be clear, these decisions weren’t made for the betterment of college football. They were made to put more money in the back pockets of the people “in charge,” which is a funny phrase to say about college football.

The sport has no central leadership body. This has made it easy for the Big Ten and SEC to become as powerful as they are now and have TV deals that anger fans.

If you don’t believe me, ask yourself this question. When was the last time a decision was made in college football that didn’t increase revenue?

Texas and Oklahoma recently left the Big 12 to join the SEC. The Big Ten added USC and UCLA, who were then followed by Oregon and Washington who were desperate to get out of the Pac 12.

Both of these moves sent realignment into a whirlwind and increased the money and power to those conferences. But were they really better for the sport?

The 12-team playoff idea also had a lot of support from fans because many didn’t like the 4-team format, which made sense.

There were five power conferences but only four spots, and there were multiple large controversies about who was left out.

The 12-team format goes completely against what college football should be though. No sport has a better regular season than college football, and we can’t lose sight of that.

People flood to towns, sometimes turning them from small towns to one of the state’s largest cities, on a Saturday to watch a football game on a college campus.

Some people may not like the idea of how much damage one game could have to a team’s season, but it’s what has made every game so intense and passionate for decades.

Not only does the 12-team format challenge this, it rewarded losing this year. Ohio State became the first team with two losses to win the national championship since 2007.

It was an anomaly, and fans unfamiliar should do some quick research to find out just how crazy that year was.

The format took away from one of the greatest parts of the sport, rivalries, and specifically one of the best rivalries the sport has in Ohio State-Michigan.

In any other year, Ohio State’s loss to Michigan would have knocked them out of playoff contention.

Instead, they got a second chance. Think about how much more heated the rivalry could have been had Michigan’s shocking upset actually ruined Ohio State’s season.

Not only did they get a second chance, they, and multiple other lower seeds had an advantage by being the lower seed. Think back to those games.

The teams with the first round bye hadn’t played in a month, and they started the games sloppy, allowing the opponent to jump out to a big lead quickly, excluding Georgia in which there were other outside, devastating circumstances.

Ohio State jumped out to a big lead over Oregon, Texas quickly jumped out to a two possession lead before Arizona State was the better team for the last three quarters, and Penn State was up 14-0 before stalling out against Boise State.

Penn State was another team that benefitted from losing. They lost to Oregon in the Big Ten Championship game, and as a result, they played SMU and Boise State, two teams they physically outclassed, for their first two playoff games as opposed to facing Ohio State.

Under no circumstance should a team benefit from losing, and a rivalry should not be dampened by a new playoff format.

There are many other problems facing college football right now that I left out, and many people will point to NIL as the biggest. While those problems are real, they aren’t results of the playoff starting.

All of the issues listed above weren’t problems in the BCS era.

Again, I don’t think the BCS format was perfect, and I liked the 4-team playoff better than the BCS format, but college football could benefit from going back in time a little bit, and reminding itself of its roots and what makes the sport so great.

Jacob Rudy is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jar7371@psu.edu.