Tell me you don’t know shit about the history of college football’s postseason without saying you don’t know shit about the history of college football’s postseason.
All the permutations we’ve seen over the past thirty years — the Bowl Alliance, the BCS, the CFP — all those have their genesis in BYU’s 1984 national championship. What’s happened since is nothing more than the manufacturing of a framework to make surer and surer that the powers of the sport aren’t beaten out by the BYUs of the college football world.
And why should we expect any different? The sport is run by people who have demonstrated over and over again that their primary concern is sharing as little of the power they control with anyone outside their circle. The CFP won’t be an exception to that. To pretend otherwise is moronic.
Get The Picture 
I’m sure Burns completely understands the background. Phillips can live with his conference getting a share of a 4-team playoff as long as the Greater Anderson Cow College remains one of the “rich/have” programs (same thing in an 8-team format). What his bosses can’t live with is their member for all of the other sports remaining independent for football and that impact on the lousy contract they have with Burns’s employer. If the Pac 12’s sticking point with expansion is the Rose Bowl, that’s just really stupid.
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Peter Burns works for Mickey. He should have stuck with writing. His first published novel was “Down the Flagpole”
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CFB sportswriters are either NFL fans trying to turn it into a version of their favorite sport, or they are obsessed with Hoosiers and dream of a Cinderella winning it all in a tournament. Combined they are going to ruin CFB for me and fail to achieve their goals in the process.
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Burns writes for ESPN. ESPN wants more of its inventory of postseason games have “CFP” in them so ratings will be higher. ESPN orders its writers and pundits to argue in favor of whatever expansion plan is the plan of the day, so Burns has to make some stupid argument that isn’t the same argument as other ESPN writers do.
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Most SEC fans were perfectly happy trying to first win their division, with an SEC championship the ultimate goal. Mythical national championships were not something you could control.
College football is a loose collection of regional organizations. Trying to nationalize the sport creates a Frankenstein.
ESPN is interested in one thing… Money.
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And here I was thinking that the point of a playoff was to decide the best team in the country, rather than to make middling teams feel special and loved. Silly me!
Seriously, I’d rather go back to the pre-Alliance days of arguing over split national titles than have a system constructed entirely on the hopes that a lightning-in-a-bottle three-loss team might catch UGA/Bama/Clemson/whoever on an off day.
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The more they try to include Cinderella, the more they will guarantee that Alabama, Ohio State, etc never miss the Playoff. That’s what will ruin the sport. Then the writers will bemoan the lack of interest that they created.
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The top (law…engineering…business…computer tech…ag…etc.) schools keep getting richer while there is no middle class. Where is the outrage and proposals for reform! Will there ever be parity in chess to stop the dominance of the University of Texas – Dallas?
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Why does everything have to have a political slant?
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Because everything does.
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More of clickbait B.S., college football has always been the haves and the have not so much, history will show that no matter the country or century, the rich get richer cause they can/will…most talking asswipes equal the mute button, nude female volleyball rules…GO DAWGS!
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Liked for the visual 🙂
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It’s kind of funny. It’s almost like the Senator is saying, because it’s always been that way, that’s how it should stay. Some interesting “logic” there. It’s always really something how those who have power and resources can find infinite reasons for why they should keep them.
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Need an explainer for the last paragraph.
If CFP expansion is an eventual outcome, won’t that necessarily trade some control to smaller confs for expected bigger $ in a pool?
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My friend, let me introduce you to the Big Ten’s proposal for an eight-team playoff, with the P5 conference champs, and them alone, granted automatic berths.
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The only option worse than this is an 8-team format with the Power 5 plus a Go5 automatic bid (which is the only way an 8-team format happens). The only way 8 works is with 8 10-team conferences with a champions only format. That requires so much realignment that the sport would be virtually unrecognizable.
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