From time to time, I run into people that ask me questions about college football games or teams, since they know I'm a sports blogger. And I have to (patiently for a while, and then it goes) explain to them that, no, I don't watch it, and haven't really since I was at school myself (the mighty Syracuse of my youth, where Don McPherson had them in the national title hunt, amazingly).
You see, I grew up in Philadelphia, where we have, more than occasionally, had a football team in the real league. If people watch college football in that area, they root for Penn State, which is kind of like people in Washington, DC rooting for a team in Philadelphia. (Yes, yes, I know that Temple has a team. They exist only to give Bill Cosby material, and that material hasn't changed since Bill Cosby was funny. Trust me, he once was.) If you don't grow up with a sport, it's almost impossible to care too much about it.
There is, of course, one other reason to watch college football: if you are betting on it. I'm told that it's been easier to predict in the past than the pros, since there are any number of teams that are like Temple that you can just roll big dollars on the moneyline... but given that Appalachian State beat Michigan this year, and that being highly ranked this year is like being highly ranked in the BBC sci-fi show "The Prisoner" (take that, Chris Berman, with your annoying mass-market classic rock references -- I'm going ten years younger and more obscure!)... i.e., purely temporary.
This year, when all of the top teams have a big mess of losses and the blogosphere is awash in sturm und drang over the need for a playoff and how the BCS is for losers and... my head just snaps back, the way it used to, in say, calculus or foreign language classes, and I find myself drifting off to concerns about the gutters or the laundry or whether the puppy needs to go out.
There is a simple and potent reason why there is no need for a playoff in college football. It was pointed out to me today by FTT commenter Dirty Davey, who, as a Tar Heel basketball fan, does not wish this logic to be applied to his winter sports love, but if you'd like to there, I certainly won't stop you.
Minor leagues do not need playoffs. No one cares who was the best AAA baseball team was. And the only places where people well and truly care about college football are, simply, where there is no major league football team. Oklahoma, Missouri, Penn State, West Virginia, Nebraska, Georgia, Kansas, LSU, Notre Dame -- all of these are places that I know care way too much about college ball, and all of these places have no pro team. (Sorry, Boston College fans. I assume you exist and all.)
If the NFL were run like a true marketplace, the American appetite for truly pro football would consist of a full spring and fall leagues, with the top 10 markets having teams in both leagues, and the rest of the new spring league covering the larger secondary markets. The spring league could, but probably should not, incorporate a foreign division to cover the stronger NFL Europe teams. But this won't happen, because some NFL teams and markets would be negatively affected, and the league is convinced that expansion equals dilution of the product, and too much will create empty stadiums. But when you look at the attendance figures, it's clear that, in my lifetime, the market will correct itself, and there will be more football than what we have now.
Plus, it'll have a playoff. You know, like a real major league.
Hey, you're reading the site on Black Friday? You communist. You need to be out there, fighting in the malls, keeping our economy from utter collapse. It's all on you, part-time Mets owner, and I will not cotton to your disinterest in pulling your fair share.
