re: Does This Change Anyone's Stance On NFL vs College?

Definitely, which is a plus for the NFL, for sure. My personal stance has been that NFL and FBS football are different brands, both worthy of my time and attention, for different reasons. Tonight just illustrated that sometimes the most talented teams in FBS ball don't compete for a championship. I see no problem with that if the reason for that is underperformance by the most talented teams and not due to a perfectly worthy team being left out.

I don't believe that was the case this year. Oregon, Kansas State, the other SEC teams, all of them had a crack at the title and blew their chances. Notre Dame's schedule wasn't significantly worse than the other top teams' schedules - all of them only had to get up for a few games this year, and each of those few games were against reasonably good opponents. We're not talking about something like 2007 Hawai'i.


All of that said, one thing I wish the bowls could have had during the BCS era - and that I'm thankful they'll have a little more flexibility to do in the new playoff system - is the freedom to pick more competitive matches featuring top teams. The 2-team-per-conference rule has relegated several top teams even within the past five years to lower bowls, and the automatic bids have compelled bowls to allow less worthy (or even outright unworthy) teams a shot. I appreciate, for instance, that the Rose Bowl this year was competitive, but an 8-5 Wisconsin team had no business being there. 12-1 Northern Illinois had no business being in the Orange Bowl. Hawai'i didn't belong in the 2008 Sugar Bowl. There are more examples. I think some of the most recent games have been poor because of well-intentioned rules regarding BCS selection that ultimately just diluted the product. Hopefully that changes with the new system.