The College Football Playoff Fallacy

If you practice Bracketology – the science of predicting which teams will advance in the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament – your life has probably been turned upside-down. Few envisioned Butler marching past Syracuse and Kansas State, and fewer imagined Northern Iowa upending Kansas. Many people’s favorite Kentucky got bounced out – by West Virginia, without its starting point guard. Georgetown lost to Ohio (not Ohio State)!

Commentators crow about how wonderful it is seeing have-nots prevail against the haves. The adage, “on any given day, one team can beat another,” is affirmed. Hooray for the little guy!

But this year’s topsiest-turviest tournament of all points out the fallacy of arguments advocating a college football playoff. The goal, we’re told, would be to resolve once and for all who the preeminent team is each year. But would it?

What true fan honestly contends Northern Iowa is truly a better team than Kansas. If they were to play 10 times, how many times would the directional school win – maybe twice? And who would be so bold to declare the Bobcats as talented as the Hoyas? Yes, winners advance fair and square, but does that ultimately convince us which team is superior day in and day out?

The same would hold true in a Division I (or whatever the academics insist on labeling it) college football playoff. On that given day, the lesser team could prevail. A fortuitous bounce here, a costly penalty there, a key injury somewhere else and a game’s outcome could hang in the balance.

I would favor a “plus one” matchup, in which following the bowl games the two best teams (chosen by consensus) would battle for national bragging rights.

But even then, so what? We would still have wars wrecking nations; economic woes putting people in financial ruin; diseases ravaging bodies. Sports championships are fun to argue about, but little more than diversions. Fifty years from now, who will really care?

Thousands of years ago, Israel’s King Solomon penned some words that apply here. He wasn’t writing about athletic tournaments, but might well have been when he said, “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14).