The NCAA Football World

College Football has been insane this year! There have been a ton of amazing games and upsets, and the Sports World is going crazy about whether or not there should be a playoff system in College Football, and the Heisman race. Now I'll admit, I am not a huge NCAA Football addict like my buddies out there(My High School or College did not have a football team), but this is interesting to me and many others out there, and because of that, I wanted to get some outside knowledge on some of these topics. For this knowledge, I went to my boys Suman and Sanket, who are huge college football fans to say what they had to say about these topics, and boy did they have a lot to say. Here are some of their thoughts on whether or not there should be a playoff system and about who should win the Heisman this year. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts as well if you get a chance.
(Click below to hear their thoughts)



Suman- College football is America's new favorite class. It's no longer professional baseball, and its not the NBA or the NFL (no matter what the ratings say). It's college football. The game and this country are so similarly bipolar and flawed that its really staggering when
you compare the two.

College football is always going to have its built-in fanbase. People are always going to be attending colleges, and the sense of life-long pride and affiliation that accompanies attendance will always translate into a passionate following of the gridiron. Similarly, at the risk of making a huge generalization, people who live in America will always support this country. Without getting too political, even if there is a war that most Americans don't support, Americans will always support the defenders of this country and the ideals they are trying to uphold. America will always have its "built-in fanbase" too.

I don't want to get into what makes this country so flawed. I love this place and wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but I think each of us sees the arrogance and unabashed Ameri-centric policies of this country and feels that something is wrong. I think we now realize how much this country is despised around the world. We love living here, but there is definitely something wrong. Even if you can't quite put your finger on what it is that is wrong there is a sense that things will get a lot worse before they get better.

I do, however, want to get into what makes college football so flawed. We are on the brink of a complete abomination. We are looking at 2 teams in West Virginia and Missouri, that just have to win to play for the National Championship. Things are getting a lot worse in college football; hopefully this will spark the change necessary to make things better.

Maybe I'm wrong (I'm probably not), but I can say with almost entire certainty that these two teams are not the two best teams in the country. What makes college football so flawed is that we will not get to find out who the best football team in the country is this year. What makes college football so flawed is that I, an alumnus and die hard Ohio State Buckeye, whose school stands the most to gain from the way the system is set up, is saying that this system is bullshit.
An amazing season will be going to waste because there is no playoff system. The 3 hottest teams in the country that have each played a much harder schedule than the 3 teams I already mentioned should have at least a chance to play for the national championship; these 3 teams are Georgia, Florida, and USC.

Suppose I am wrong, and West Virginia and Missouri really are the 2 best teams. As a player or fan of those two teams, you will never have the comfort of absolute truth if your team somehow wins it all. You will never know if your team actually is the best team. Of course there are worse things than being handed a national championship...but still...I would rather have my team earn it on the field against the best that be handed it. The court of public opinion is a bitch.

The actual game of college football is not flawed. Its the system that it runs in that is. The 2 best teams are not going to be playing for the national championship. And the system that decides who wins the game's most prestigious award, the Heisman, doesn't even know how to decide who wins.

Lets get this out of the way; the Heisman is not given to the "best" player in the country in the absolute definition of that word. It is given to the player who: 1. Receives the most hype coming into the season 2. Can maintain that hype 3. Can steal hype during the season 4. Is the best player on the best team 5. Plays a position where production can be measured ...or maybe some combination of those 5 things. Last year, Troy Smith received an adequate amount of preseason hype for the award, and was able to maintain that hype throughout the season with strong play and by captaining an impressive team. When nobody else played well enough to steal publicity he ran away with the award. His replacement this year, Todd Boeckman, put up statistically similar numbers, and there is a good chance that the team will finish with the exact same record...so why is Todd Boeckman not being considered for the Heisman?

If the "best" player was going to win the Heisman than Chase Daniel, Colt Brennan, Pat White, and a slew of other people wouldn't even be in the discussion.

But this year it was Darren McFadden's Heisman to lose. If he would have maintained a steady consistency throughout the year, and if his team would have reached expectations, nobody else would even be in the discussion right now. The thing is that voters don't know whether to vote for him (because he is probably the "best" player) or for somebody else who has better numbers.

Thats why I believe Tim Tebow is the right choice. His numbers are the kind of headline-grabbers that make for good conversation: First player with 20 passing and rushing in the same season; more rushing TD's than any Heisman-winning RB ever; more total TD's than any Heisman-winning QB ever; and a Facebook following that rivals anybody. And to top it off his team might be the hottest in the country now that he is healthy. Plus, they should throw all the SEC fans out there a bone. Without a doubt that is the toughest conference in America and this system screws them because of it. And maybe throwing a Heisman there way will shut all the SEC bloggers/message-boarders up for a while.

D-Mac had an impressive year no doubt. But I think the edge goes to Tebow. D-Mac had the 2 breakout games (the LSU game and the 300+ yard rushing game) but the consistency wasn't there the entire year.

I think Chase Daniel will get the nod over Pat White for that 3rd seat at the Downtown Athletic Club if he beats Oklahoma. If Colt Brennan played anybody decent he would be considered too. Normally a soft schedule isn't enough to dismiss a candidacy, but when there are 2 candidates so far above and beyond it makes it hard to give the award to an unknown. But lets be honest, barring some heroic performance, neither of these three guys is going to win the Heisman.

We sit here and debate and argue and convince ourselves that debating is good for everything, but in the end nothing changes. Big Money controls everything. And the System destroys what should be a beautiful thing. I don't know whether I'm talking about college football or something bigger, but I guess it doesn't matter.

Sanket - Why College Football does not need a playoff system. (For argument's sake).

First, do we really want to fuck up the college football regular season?

While the NCAA's Men's College Basketball Tournament is great, it also works to the detriment of the regular season, which to put it politely, sucks. When the Ohio State Buckeyes (my Alma Mater) played the number one-ranked Texas Longhorns (led by Vince Young) in 2005, there was a collective buzz, not only throughout the state of Ohio, but also throughout the entire country. For the first time, two storied programs were playing a regular season game that would determine each team's championship fate. In College basketball, a team from a major conference needs about 18-20 wins to make it to the tournament, a not particularly challenging task for the type of quality team that has a shot at making noise in the later rounds. So essentially, all the top teams (your UCLA your Duke, your North Carolina) are playing for is a top seed — a worthy goal, sure, but not a life-or-death one, seeing as how lower seeds have consistently advanced to the final four.
Sometimes teams don't even need to have that many wins to make it in. The ridiculous conference tournaments essentially negate the entire regular season by allowing a mediocre team to string together a few wins, win the tournament, and receive an automatic bid to March Madness.

College football, on the other hand, is all about the regular season, with each game being a playoff itself. The game between Ohio State and Texas had the intense "do or die" feel of a playoff game because, well, it was one. Had Vince Young not recovered from a mediocre first-half performance, the Longhorns would have been out of the National Championship picture before the season even began.

Of course, this system can lead to abuses when powerhouse teams schedule Division 1-AA creampuffs (I am looking at you Michigan). The BCS, flawed as it may be, is designed to punish teams like Hawaii that schedule easy out of conference opponents.
Having an elaborate 8 or 16 team playoff system would destroy the drama of the regular season and only encourage the Michigans, Hawaiis or dare I say the Ohio States of the world to schedule more creampuffs. After all, if 16 teams are guaranteed a spot in the tournament, and your team is even halfway decent, what's the point of scheduling out of conference opponents with a pulse?

Second, Football is a violent sport where injuries play a huge factor.

Football players smash into each other at full speed on every single play (of course, at a much faster speed in the SEC as the SEC hooligans will lead you to believe).

Ahhh man no duh, football is a violent, physical sport — so what? what's up with that man??? Well, in a sport where a serious injury occurs in just about every game, is it really fair to ask college football athletes to play three or four extra games for free just so fans can boast that their team is the "true National Champion?"

It would be especially unfair to NFL-bound players to risk their bodies and potential livelihoods in these extra games, especially for those who play high-risk positions like running back. In a position where the average player only lasts about three years in the pros and, except in very rare cases, is considered washed-up by the time he reaches 30, is it really worth adding those extra miles that a three- or four-game playoff would bring?

With a four-game playoff system, the two teams playing in the title game will have played 17 games (assuming they play a 13-game regular season) — one game longer than the NFL regular season. Ask yourself how many Willis McGahee>-type injuries we would see with these added games. What can be done? Is there a solution that can satisfy both sides? I believe so. After the bowl games, there should be a so-called "Plus 1" game that would pit the winner of the Number 1 BCS team and the Number 4 BCS team against the winner of the Number 2 BCS team and the Number 3 BCSont> team. If this system was in place, this year's matchups would look like this:
(If Missouri wins out)
#1 Missouri v. #4 Georgia
#2 West Virginia v. #3 Ohio State

(If Missouri losses)
#1 West Virginia v. #4 LSU
#2 Ohio State v. #3 Georgia
* Assuming West Virginia does not lose to Pitt (who are coincidentally led by Docksquad's favorite coach, Dave Wanstedt)

Not many would argue with this outcome. Or would they?
Also, when it comes to the Heisman, I started writing about why Darren McFadden deserves the Heisman over Tim Tebow. I wrote about how McFadden is the only player in College Football that can do whatever it takes to win a game, etc., etc., etc.. But about half way through my post, I decided to check out Tebow's stats here. I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. Are these stats accurate? How is that possible? So I went here and here and here and each time, the same stats kept showing up. I thought to myself how can ANYONE not vote for this kid? 29 passing touchdowns AND 22 rushing touchdowns for a total of 51 touchdowns, are you kidding me? These stats are insane. And add that to the fact that the Gators as a team scored a total of 66 offensive touchdowns. That's 77% of Florida's total offensive production!! Even the biggest hater of Tebow (like I am) can't dismiss those stats. Tebow for Heisman. There is no argument here.

~The Think Tank