The college football season begins in late August and, for some teams, can last until January. In the past few years, however, college football has seen a change from its regular format of having the number one and two teams duke it out for the title of national champion. Instead, now a college football team is reliant on a playoff system in which the top four teams in the nation face off in two rounds of intense action, from which the national champion is determined. But there are some flaws in the new system, which should be addressed. So let’s take a look at why the four-team playoff should be replaced with an eight team playoff.
First things first Alabama exists. Yes, this may seem like a broad statement to someone who does not follow college football, but Alabama is an insanely good team in the NCAA. With Coach Nick Saban, known for his ruthlessness and somewhat borderline recruiting techniques, Alabama is known as a team to be feared. It’s a safe bet to place them as your pick for national champion every year. To make it fair for other teams and to provide a little more interest to the game, making an eight-team playoff would give Alabama more of a challenge of making it straight to the championship game.
For pure interest in the game of football, it would make sense to make the playoff a bit larger than it is already. At four teams, there is no real challenge or interest in making it to the final. The winners have essentially been decided from day one, with no chance for an upset, and for the teams, there is no room for error. If a team loses more than one game and/or they don’t have a strong schedule, then they are automatically out of contention for the spot of national champion.
The system of the NCAA playoff is flawed and needs to be fixed. Rather than deal with a four-team playoff, it is necessary to move to an eight-team playoff, for the sake of interest and excitement in the game.