Conference title games should give way to playoff

	Drew Weatherford and the Seminoles have lost three straight -- and still have a shot at a BCS bid. Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

One of the main arguments espoused by those who oppose a college football playoff is that it would diminish the importance of the sport's regular season, where every game truly matters. Apparently the 2005 regular season failed to receive that memo.

If every game matters, how is it that Colorado, having lost its past two games by a combined score of 60-19, will be playing for the Big 12 championship Saturday? All the Buffs have to do is avenge their 42-17 loss to Texas on Oct. 15 and that game, as well as their past two, will be treated as mulligans. Colorado, 5-3 in the Big 12, will enter into history as the conference's champion; the 'Horns, 8-0, will not.

If every game matters, how is it that Florida State, a loser in each of its past three games -- the last two by scores of 35-14 and 34-7 -- will be playing for the ACC championship Saturday? Beat Virginia Tech, and the 'Noles, which went 5-3 in the ACC during the regular season, will be playing in a BCS bowl, while a team like Auburn -- which went 7-1 in the SEC -- most likely will not.

I'm going to make this short and sweet: I don't like conference title games. There was a time, maybe five years ago, when the newness of "Championship Saturday" still carried a certain intrigue, but now it's a lot like The Apprentice -- the novelty has worn off. Which is why I can't help but get a sadistic kick out of the fact that the ACC, which went through considerable trouble three summers ago just to be able to stage one of these things, has wound up with such a dud for its first edition. The conference got exactly what it wanted -- Florida State playing for the title in Jacksonville -- yet you've got to imagine most 'Noles fans right now are gearing up for the game with a sarcastic "whoopee!"

Such is life when you try to artificially manufacture excitement. Colorado vs. Texas in Houston. Northern Illinois vs. Akron in Detroit. It's like someone spun a wheel -- or better yet, completed a Mad Lib -- to come up with the pairing and location. Only in the SEC, where Atlanta is a natural epicenter and where nearly every possible matchup comes with built-in history, does such a game seem natural. Not coincidentally, the grandfather of conference title games has the most compelling showdown next weekend (10-1 LSU vs. 9-2 Georgia). The biggest game in the country, however, will feature two rivals, USC (11-0) and UCLA (9-1), that have been playing each other since 1929 -- the same year former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, the man who invented conference title games, was born.

In the eternal playoff debate, I've always leaned toward to the traditionalist side (preserve the bowls, add a plus-one, if anything), but that's largely because I, like so many others, treasure the regular season. Seeing as we're already devaluing the regular season with what are essentially made-for-TV mini-playoffs, however, perhaps we should go ahead and turn the first Saturday of December into something that's actually meaningful -- like the opening round of an eight-team playoff.

You would think if anyone would be pro-BCS these days, it would be Texas coach Mack Brown. Last year, the system allowed his team to snag a coveted Rose Bowl berth away from Cal, and this year, he's one win away from a clean, controversy-free national-title date with the Trojans. In a playoff, he'd have to win three, maybe four more games to take home the trophy.

Yet when asked point-blank Saturday morning by ESPN's Chris Fowler whether he was a BCS or playoff guy, Brown replied, "Chris -- [one of Mack's trademarks is he always begins his answers by repeating the reporter's name] -- I'm a playoff guy."

If that wasn't surprising enough, Brown went on to suggest that Penn State, with its one, last-second, loss, and LSU, with its sole defeat coming in overtime two months ago, were just as deserving of a shot at the big prize as his team. His preference: Eliminate both the conference title games and the automatic berths afforded to league champions, inviting instead the eight "most deserving" teams.

Brown's sentiments may have something to do with his 2001 experience, in which the 'Horns missed a chance at the national title game by losing to a hot Colorado team -- which, like this year, they had trounced during the regular season -- in the Big 12 championship. He's hardly alone, though. In the BCS era, Kansas State (to Texas A&M in '98), Texas (to Colorado in '01), Tennessee (to LSU in '01) and Oklahoma (to Kansas State in '03) have all suffered disastrous title-game upsets.

In every case but LSU, the team that pulled the upset proceeded to get trounced in its BCS bowl game, perhaps because the conference wasn't being represented by its best team, but rather its best team on a particular day. And yet, many of the same administrators who say we can't have a playoff because it would diminish the importance of the regular season come from conferences that are already doing that very thing.

To read the rest of Stewart Mandel's Weekend Rewind, including his weekly awards, jump to the next page.