COLUMN: Big time football continues to lose credibility

And you know? Alabama probably would have won a national title through a playoff system. This year’s Crimson Tide was that good. Yet, we’ll never know because the powers-that-be who control this level of football refuse to do the obvious and let us have a clear No. 1. I don’t care who emerges as No. 1 under this phoney system we have now, there is no real No. 1 team, not without a playoff system.

Quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing the worn out arguments against a playoff system at this level. If it works at every other level of college football, it can work here. I don’t want to hear about preserving a bowl system which has grown to a status of giving us games between 6-6 teams in half empty (or more) stadiums.

I don’t want to hear about student-athletes being taken away from the classroom for a playoff system. That in itself is a joke as college basketball players miss more classtime than anyone.

In some ways, I imagine those defending the current “BS” system of college football are like those old-timers who tried to say women didn’t have a right to vote. Old, worn-out arguments by a bunch of old men in suits who truly have lost touch.

I keep thinking eventually these powers-that-be will wake up and smell the coffee. However, year after year, we are left without a playoff system, robbing the fans of a true national champion.

Quite frankly, wouldn’t it be better to know for sure who is No. 1? How great would a big-time college football playoff system be? We would have untold advertising revenues, sellout games for each one and something that would immediately give the NCAA men’s basketball tournament a run for its money in terms of excitement.

It’s all for the taking. Yet, we didn’t have one this year and won’t next year. It makes you wonder just how long this travesty can continue.

Heck, in a few months, we will get to see if Alabama can defend it’s “mythical” national crown.

Chris Bridges is sports editor of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him at cbridges@barrowjournal.com.