Why it's a bad idea to further expand college football's playoff field

For so long there's been steady clamor for a fairer way to crown a college football champion. The BCS arrived in 1998 and soon there was a movement for an expanded playoff. Now we are months into a four-team playoff system and it's already a source of aggravation. The weekly polls from the new selection committee have brought nebulous decisions based on "game control" and "eye tests." So of course it would seem the easy remedy is an eight-team playoff.

ACC commissioner John Swofford said recently that moving to eight would be "ideal," and 44 percent of coaches polled by ESPN agree. Another 17 percent want a 16-team playoff, and there were even votes for a 32-team playoff and a 64-team playoff.

This is all trending in an irresponsible direction. The desire to make things fairer has overlooked something quite unfair: adding games to an already burdensome and risky situation for players. Coaches, commissioners, pundits and fans all love the idea of more games, but those people don't have to go out there and get hit. The people with the most at stake have absolutely no voice in the matter. That's a problem.

The last year without any form of a title game was in 1997, when Michigan and Nebraska each went unbeaten and claimed a national championship. The Cornhuskers played 13 games; Michigan played 12. This season, it's likely that the national champion will play 15 games. That's a 25 percent increase, from 12 to 15, and yet another game would make it 16. So the potential is there for an extra season of games over four years for those who play for contending teams. Over the last decade, we've learned much more about the dangers of hits to the head, both in the short- and long-term. There has been much in the way of research, worry and hand wringing. Yet when talk of expanding the playoffs has come up, that concern for player welfare seems to vanish.

The talk of expanding to eight teams has come along at the same time as the news that former South Carolina star running back Marcus Lattimore retired from professional football, unable to fully rehab from knee injuries suffered in college. Georgia's Todd Gurley, similarly talented, tore his ACL this month and may see his draft status suffer because of it. Everyone is upset by these developments, but that worry doesn't seem to carry over to the playoff discussion. No one seems to stand up and ask why unpaid players should be put through as many games – 16, or as long as an NFL regular season – as paid players.

There is value in a college scholarship, but that value doesn’t increase commensurately if a team plays an extra week of football. And even if athletes are given a stipend of several thousand dollars, it surely won’t compare to pro salaries. Nor will it cover the costs of long-term health care. This isn’t just about players who suffer catastrophic injuries, some of whom are insured. Consider the offensive linemen, carrying around 300-plus pounds and holding back pass rushers dozens of times in every extra game. Most of those players are not insured, and so one awkward fall can cause a lot more than a couple nights of discomfort.

And no one seems to mind that these games are added in December and January, when players are theoretically supposed to be taking end-of-semester tests and seeing their families. Now there's still a full slate of games over Thanksgiving weekend, and championship games the following weekend.

Oh, but it's only one or two more games for eight teams, say the proponents. And yes, that's true. But that "just one more" philosophy has nudged us from 12 to 15 already. "What's one more?" is not a healthy question to ask when players don't have a union or long-term health care in place. Yes, injuries are part of the game and can happen to anyone who takes the field on any given day. But isn't that exactly the reason to be resistant to add any games? Isn't one career-threatening injury enough of a risk? If it isn't, how many would we need for the greed to stop?

Maybe the extra playoff games will be contingent on subtracting a regular season game. Perhaps an eight-team playoff will rid us of the conference championship games, which are poorly attended and often anti-climactic. Let's face it: Do we really need an afternoon in Atlanta to tell us Alabama is better than Georgia or Missouri?

Don't count on it. More than a few of the athletic departments behind the biggest football programs are struggling financially. There's not a lot of incentive to give up money-making games with corporate sponsors. And, since there's no players' union, there's no pushback. It's the same with the cupcake games against FCS teams played by most contending teams. There's some displeasure with those contests, but why give away a lucrative home gate just because one or two teams in the conference may have to play one more game in January? Again, "What's one more?" is a lot easier to ask than "What's one less?"

And we might not be moving toward a better system. Florida State is unbeaten and yet the Seminoles have been skewered for the way they've won games. They've moved from first to second to third in the rankings without losing. What does that say about the value of a victory? Oregon has leapt Florida State despite a loss and despite being the only winning team on its side of the Pac 12. Alabama also has a loss, and the Tide is ahead of both of those teams, basically because it plays in what's considered the top conference. Ohio State is currently out because of its one loss, even though quarterback J.T. Barrett has transformed himself from a raw freshman to a Heisman contender since that loss. The four-team playoff is an effort to "settle it on the field," yet this process seems decidedly unsettled.

This is in part because evaluations of teams can't be separated from evaluations of conferences. It's not just about how good Alabama is; it's about how good the SEC is. Since the SEC teams rarely go out of conference, and losses outside the conference are quickly dismissed (e.g. Missouri losing to Indiana), there's really no way to ever resolve these discussions. An eight-team playoff will only cause more focus on conference strength and less focus on the value of winning. Florida State is basically an SEC team, with the same geography, the same recruiting base, and the same beeline to the NFL (18 draft picks in two years), yet the Seminoles are considered a world apart because of the teams they play. The debate and irritation over the three at-large teams in an eight-team playoff will be just as fraught with bias as the current system is.

A four-team playoff allows two more teams into the mix, but an eight-team playoff would spark even more debate over whether one team's one loss is worse than another team's two losses. And we would likely see a two-loss team given the chance to play an unbeaten team in a two-game postseason. This year, that would mean a team like UCLA, with two losses including one to four-loss Utah, getting the same shot as an unbeaten Florida State team. Would that be more exciting? Sure. Any football is exciting. A 128-team playoff would be exciting. (It might even get Marshall into the playoff!) But is it worth the added risk to players, in search of a conclusion that we can probably arrive at anyway? No.

These debates take place in a vacuum, without enough regard for what can happen to a player in a single game. One of the most memorable BCS Championship Games took place between Ohio State and Miami in 2003, with the Buckeyes winning the game in the last minutes. Late in that game, 'Canes running back Willis McGahee went down with a serious knee injury that threatened his pro career. Every additional playoff game brings that danger. And if that injury happens in a quarterfinal game, it changes the semifinal and the final. Jameis Winston has been hobbled lately by injuries; if he gets hurt in this year's semifinal game, will we ever really know how good the Seminoles are?

In the end, maybe no one cares. Football brings fun and money, so more football brings more fun and more money. But adding games is something that can't really be rescinded. Once we're all used to a 15- or 16-game season, we're never going back to 12 or 13. An eight-team playoff seems like a good idea in theory, but the effects of it, like the injuries they might bring about, won't be reversible.

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