NCAA Basketball Tournament Makes the Case for College Football Playoff

After all the upsets and buzzer beaters, the NCAA Basketball Tournament once again proves to be the best college sporting event on this planet. March Madness is truly a dream come true for many sports fans. In just three weeks, the NCAA bracket dwindles from the field of 64 to the Sweet 16 to the Final Four and then concludes with the crowning of a championship team…and with plenty of emotion and drama along the way.

However, every year I watch the madness unfold and I begin to wonder why the NCAA does not capitalize on the success of their basketball tournament and implement a similar playoff in Division I college football.

This year’s Sweet 16 includes mid-major conference powers like Bradley, Wichita State and George Mason. All three of these programs are being praised for their so-called upset victories over teams from the major conferences like Kansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. But some could argue that their wins were not upsets at all. Bradley, Wichita State and George Mason have excellent basketball teams and to some it is just too hard to realize that they actually have athletic programs that are equal to or even better than those athletic programs from the major conferences. And this is exactly why the major conferences do not want a playoff in Division I football.

If a playoff were to be implemented in college football, major upsets would happen just as frequently as they do in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. College football has already seen a superb Utah football team from the Mountain West Conference destroy Pittsburgh from the Big East Conference back in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. Utah also defeated Georgia Tech from the Atlantic Coast Conference in this year’s Emerald Bowl and Texas Christian, also from the Mountain West, defeated Iowa State of the Big XII.