Everything But Poker

There really is nothing better than college football playoffs. This time of year, as most of us recover from a week of gravy and prepare for the extra gluttonous holiday season, college footballers get ready for their second season: a month-long, nationwide loser-go-home tournament for the 16 best teams from the regular season that, on Dec. 18, will decide the national champion. There will be upsets and there will be blowouts, but in the end, there will also be no doubt that the team hoisting the trophy is the best in the land. There is nothing better than the college football playoffs.

No, this isn’t a drug-induced fantasy – I tend not to have sports-related hallucinations – I’m talking about the FCS (previously known as Div. I-AA), where only a slightly smaller percentage of players will get drafted but the competition puts its big brother to shame. This is where potential NFL defensive player of the year Jared Allen won that very award in 2003; it’s where Tony Romo and Brian Westbrook played their college ball; and this is where the Hilltoppers of Appalachian State came from when they pulled off the greatest upset in college football history two years ago — a 34-32 victory over Michigan the first week of the season. It’s also the best college football division because it allows the best team in the nation to prove itself on the field in a playoff.

For full disclosure, I went to a college that plays in the CAA, an FCS conference. That college also happened to win the national championship last year and, on Saturday, won their first-round game against Elon to advance to the tournament’s quarterfinals. Say what you will about the quality of play compared to its BCS counterparts, but after analyzing the path the University of Richmond took to its first title in school history last season, I would be shocked if anyone considered the Bowl Championship System anything more than a farce.

Last year the Spiders entered the postseason with a 9-3 record, accepting an at-large bid to the tourney. Their first loss of the season came during their second week at UVA 16-0. It was a game that any Cavalier fan will tell you should have gone in Richmond’s favor, but that’s neither here nor there (The Wahoos made up for it by losing to William & Mary this season, another FCS school). The Spiders’ two other losses came to then No. 19-ranked Villanova, 26-20, and then-top-ranked James Madison, 38-31. By the end of the season they had victories over the Nos. 10- and 16-ranked teams, had pretty much blown everyone else out and were ranked No. 7, so their inclusion in the tournament was less than controversial.

The team’s first-round playoff game was against No. 21 Eastern Kentucky and was played in Richmond, Va. It was a fortuitous pairing, as the Spiders blew the Colonels’ away in the second half en route to a 31-10 victory. The next weekend Richmond went to Boone, N.C., to play defending champion and second-ranked Appalachian State on their home field. Again, Richmond blew them out, 33-13.

In their semifinal match, the Spiders had another away game, this time in Cedar Falls, Iowa, against the No. 4-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers. Trailing 20-7 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Richmond scored 14 unanswered points, taking the lead with 14 seconds remaining. Onto the championship game they went, where No. 3-ranked Montana proved no match for this team, losing 24-7. In three weeks, Richmond beat the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4-seeded teams for the national championship, shocking plenty of people but leaving none in doubt that they were the nation’s best.

I retell this not to gloat for my underappreciated alma mater, but to provide a preemptive lament for TCU, Cincinnati, Boise State and even Alabama or Florida, Oregon or Stanford. By the end of the regular season, each of those teams will have done everything in its power to show that it can play with the best teams in the country. But only Florida or Alabama will get the chance to play for the title, and they will have over a month to prepare for that game, while the Miamies, West Virginias and UCLAs of the college football world duke it out in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (Yes, that really exists, on Dec. 23).

There is an easy solution to all this madness: Assign each of these bowl games a different round in the tournament and throw out the archaic conference reservations. Let all 16 or 32 worthy teams play this thing out, even keep the dumbass corporate-sponsored bowl names and give us a national champion that we can actually believe. One that might have had to beat the fourth-, third- and second-best teams in the country to get there.

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