ANALYSIS Playoffs should replace the BCS

Former Miami coach Howard Schnellenberger said he favors a playoff system.
By RAY McNULTY
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
They're lying to us.
We know it. They know it. Everybody knows it.
There are no good reasons to NOT have a playoff to determine the national championship of major college football.
But the empty suits that run the Bowl Championship Series keep telling us there are.
Even now, amid a storm of controversy over the nation's No. 1 team getting shut out of the title bout, they continue to tell us they know better.
They tell us it's important to preserve the bowl tradition, which has been so good to the college game.
They tell us it's risky to ask these young men to play as many as 16 games.
They tell us it's unfair to ask players to prepare for playoff games and final exams at the same time.
And, on the surface, it makes sense.
Then you look deeper -- down a level or two or three -- and you know what you see? Playoffs.
They use them at every other level of college football: Division I-AA, Division II and even Division III, where the terms "athletic" and "scholarship" are never confused.
And they work.
Just ask Howard Schnellenberger.
Time for change
Twenty years ago, as the coach at the University of Miami, he won a national championship in the Orange Bowl. Now, he's the coach at Florida Atlantic University, whose run in the Division I-AA playoffs ended Saturday, 36-24 to Colgate, two wins shy of another national title.
"I'm totally -- and have been since about 1970 -- in favor of a playoff system," Schnellenberger was saying earlier this week, as his Owls prepared for Saturday's semifinal showdown against Colgate at Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
Why? Because a major college playoff, capped by a legitimate national championship game, would be a TV ratings bonanza and would make more money than the BCS.
Because the bowls weren't designed to produce a national champion. Because a playoff is the only fair way to do it.
"The polls were devised to determine the national champion," Schnellenberger said. "But, in their futile attempt to do that with the bowl system, it's become obvious that there's no real way to do it that way.
"The only successful way is by playoff elimination. And that can be done very easily."
He's right on both counts -- although Schnellenberger wouldn't mind seeing up to 64 teams in the tournament and, really, that's at least 48 teams too many.
Sixteen teams could work, though.
Possible plan
Shorten the season to 11 games. Let the conferences that play league championship games play them. Then give automatic bids to the champions of the 11 conferences.
The remaining five spots would go to at-large teams picked by a tournament selection committee -- similar to the one used in college basketball -- which would consider the results of the BCS rating system but not be required to adhere to them.
That same committee would also seed the teams, which would set the first-round pairings: 1-vs.-16, 2-vs.-15, and so on. The higher seeds could play at home. Or the bowls could be used as playoff sites, with the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta getting the Final Four and championship game on a rotating basis.
The details could be worked out, and the two finalists would play no more than 16 games.
Such a playoff structure would be "more compatible with school than any other sport that plays," Schnellenberger said.
"There would be less class missed and less interference with exams than any sport there is."
The best team wouldn't always win -- same as the NCAA Basketball Tournament, where David-vs.-Goliath upsets contribute mightily to the madness of March -- but the national championship would be decided on the field.Not by writers' polls. Or coaches' votes. Or computer programs.
Survival of the fittest
(The New York Times computer placed Texas ahead of Oklahoma in its latest rankings, even though the Sooners beat the Longhorns by 50-plus points on the field and finished the season with one fewer loss.) Somehow, the lower-division players survive, physically and academically. They find a way to get to class, get to practice and get through final exams.
And you can't tell me the big-time schools care more about academics or don't do more to accommodate their players' schedules.
So we know it can be done.
We know it should be done.
Anybody out there NOT in favor of a playoff? College football screams for a championship game, and that's what the BCS is supposed to give us. But if those empty suits want to crown a real champion, they should stop pretending.
They should scrap their fatally flawed system and give us a playoff.
"Then Division I-A football would take its rightful place," Schnellenberger said, "right behind -- and maybe surpass -- professional football as America's No. 1 sport."
And that's no lie.