If that's what it takes

The Clarion Content has long been a proponent of a college football playoff. The format we support would be an eight team playoff using the biggest of the bowls in a rotation system for the semifinals and finals. The teams included would be the champions of the six major conferences and two wild cards selected by a combination of the computers and the polls.

For years folks have been telling us that it would never ever happen. There are too many interested parties with too much cash at stake in the status quo. The Clarion heartily disagrees. The system it would appear to our eyes has been edging closer to a playoff for some time, the BCS as awful as it is, is significantly better than what college football had forty years ago. (Chaos and backroom chicanery.) However, to say the BCS is better is like saying, 'at least its only a small dent in your new car, as opposed to a large one.' It still sucks. The biggest obstacles to bagging the BCS for a real playoff system are the Big Ten and the PAC Ten. The mess that the end of this regular season foreshadows might just be enough to change minds, though we hope that every year.

The Clarion projects that Alabama, Florida, Texas and USC will all finish with one loss. Penn State will finish undefeated. What if somehow the computers and the pollsters still refused to put Penn State in the national championship game, not inconceivable given the putrid state of the Big Ten, and the long time that Penn State will spend out of the national spotlight while other teams are finishing strong in their conference championship games? If Penn State were left out under that scenario would the hue and cry be loud enough to get a playoff system? Even a four team playoff? The Clarion hopes so, if that's what it takes. Penn State has been there before under Joe Paterno, undefeated and screwed out of the national championship game. Surely the Big Ten would have to come around to supporting a playoff then?

Even if Penn State gets in, how to select the challenger out of the one loss teams? Thorny and arbitrary as that is, it still might not be enough to bring around the playoff holdouts. Though if Penn State loses in that scenario, say to a 1 loss USC and a 1 loss Florida whips Texas in the Fiesta Bowl? What then?