What will you do for money? Certainly not a real college football playoff

If you’re looking for people that are really excited about the inaugural College Football Playoffs (CFP), don’t look my way.

I love college football, all shapes, sizes, colors and divisions of college football. It’s one of the most perfect ways to spend a fall, Saturday afternoon, no matter if you’re sitting in the stands or doing stuff around the house — with all three TVs blaring three different games.

For most of college football divisions, each game can bring the excitement not only of a win, sometimes against a hated rival, but also if your team is doing well, of the exciting possibility of the post season and the chance to pursue the ultimate prize — a national championship.

In all other college football divisions, that pursuit plays out on the gridiron — every week until there remains one team standing, a true champion. Heck, this scenario is replicated in every sport, at every level from middle school football to high school bowling to professional baseball.

Not so with the animal known as the Football Bowl Subdivision, also known in the past as Division 1A. This division has always elected its champions.

From the days of the team emerging at the top of the season-ending sportswriters’ or coaches’ polls to the recently-ended computer-oriented experiment called the Bowl Championship Series to the new four-team playoff format, the FBS can’t seem to realize that contenders for a championship aren’t selected based upon records, strength of schedule, opponents’ strength of schedule, a discussion group and a special formula.

It’s done on the field, through conference championships and those missing a championship, but with good records playing well throughout the season.

The CFP (not to be confused with the Cheney Free Press) was supposed to be a better proposition than the often-maligned BCS, pitting the four best teams in the land against each other in a playoff. And how are these four teams, these four elite denizens of the FBS world, to be chosen?

By a committee, this time not of sportswriters or coaches, but of a panel of “experts,” as sports columnist Norm Chad points out in his most recent column, consisting of athletic directors from the five “power” conferences; ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 12. Not included are representatives from the other five conferences: American Athletic, Conference USA, Mountain West, Mid-American and Sun Belt.

These experts will sit down in smokeless, well-ventilated, climate-controlled suite somewhere, mull over the most recent FBS data, talk amongst themselves — unless they’re talking about one of the AD’s teams in which case that AD must leave the room — and come up with a weekly top-four through the end of the season.

In reality, it’s not a new system but a combination of what’s gone before. It’s just the BCS, hold the computers, but with extra sauce.

There’s little chance a non-power-five conference team will make it into that top-four, and probably for good reason. As Chad points out, you can go undefeated and win every game 49-3, and not get selected.

But the question would then arise, well, should you be selected? Who did you play, anybody in the top-10 or were all those games against the Holy Sisters of the Poor?

But that’s the point. That should be revealed on the field. Let the best team win, right?

Unfortunately, that will never come to pass in the FBS. The reason is simple. Two words.

Cha-ching. OK, a hyphenated onomatopoeia.

The FBS, and by extension the NCAA, is really all about money, and lots of it. This year’s 38 bowl games will shell out over $135 million to the respective teams and conferences, and that figure includes only 33 games as five have yet to release prize figures.

Then there’s the TV contract revenue. USA Today Sports estimates ESPN alone will pay $470 million over the 12-year life of the CFP contract. That doesn’t include other networks payout, nor does it include the estimated $40 million – $50 million in annual revenue from ticket and merchandising sales and sponsorship deals.

Cha-ching!

Yep, in the world of FBS college football, money talks. Crowning a national champion the way it should be done, meaning all teams worthy of vying for the prize, is just walking B.S.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].