Thank goodness — I’m out of my misery. As I declared two-thirds of the way into this hideous mess, we were witnessing the worst college football season ever. I have no doubts. The fact that we have a two-loss national championship team is a joke. I’m not buying it. The fact that no team was good enough to go undefeated is sad. The fact that we couldn’t find more than one respectable one-loss program is sad. And most of all, the fact that everyone is screaming for a playoff now, not to mention the fact that everyone is rushing to stack their schedules with patsies, is wrong.
There is no right way to arrange post-season play in college football. Heck, I’m not even fond of March Madness. I’m big on the regular season; teams should prove over the course of the long haul that they are superior to their competition. I’m not keen on the idea of teams getting hot at the exact right time to get some hardware. That’s what I’ve always loved about college football — one loss and you’re done. What could be better than that? Every single week is a playoff the way I see it. We have 13 weeks of playoffs! Why would you want to cheapen that?
I still believe firmly that schools should continue to play difficult non-conference schedules in order to prove their mettle. I also believe that this happened to be a fluke, crappy season where no one team separated itself. Perhaps I’m most disappointed in USC. Did anything throw off the system more than them losing to Stanford? I think not. And if conferences want their schools to have a better shot at reaching a title game, they should eliminate their conference championship games. Just what we need — one more difficult obstacle in the road of perfection. This was the worst college football season ever not because it shows we need a playoff. It was the worst ever because every single team disappointed in one way or another.
