We Don't Need A College Football Championship

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Beginning with the Big Ten Championship game tonight, and rolling through the various other conference championships to be played this weekend which then culminate in a select group picking which four teams will play for the National Championship means a big weekend of college football. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Yet we have just one little question about all the whistles and bows.

Why must we have a national college football champion at all?

It isn't as though championship games and playoffs aren't inherently flawed. At the highest levels of play any team could beat any other team in any given game. If Missouri beat Alabama in the SEC or Wisconsin upends Ohio State in the Big Ten, that doesn't mean that Missouri or the Badgers are better teams. It just means they won at the right time. And the same can be said about the winner of a four team runoff for what would actually be an engineered national championship, because not all teams which have a decent chance of winning it will be involved. Why? Because non players will choose who plays for the mythical ring.

That's not even an honest tournament, quite frankly. But do tournaments even give us an idea of the best team in a given year? Not as a matter of course. The best team might win, but quite often do not. And it's really kind of of a cheat, isn't it, to make teams plays long schedules only to say: what you did in the long haul matters not. To be vaunted you must win this one special game, special only because the powers that be say so.

What does a single game mean anyway? If the team which should win does, then accolades are shallow because that team should have won. If the underdog wins, they arguably were no more than lucky to have played well at the right time. That's hardly championship quality, and not at all really sportsmanlike.

The best team in a given season with most any sport is the team with the best record at the end of the regular season. With sports as far flung as college football, three playoff games mean little except to the monied types, schools and television networks who like the hoopla because of the cash flow. Because, let's face it: the new national championship won't necessarily crown a real champ. But it will certainly drive beer and pizza sales, and that's all that really matters, isn't it?