The father of Heisman hopeful Graham Harrell puts it this way:
"“Now I know people say how much it works for basketball, but I think football is different. Is it really better for the kids to have a playoff or for at least half of them to go to a bowl game and say, ‘We won the Gator Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, whatever bowl.’ You have U.S.C. and Penn State going to the Rose Bowl, whoever wins that game — that’s something those kids can talk about the rest of their lives. They finished by winning something with a name, a tradition. They got to play in the Rose Bowl, not just the quarterfinals."
I have a lot of sympathy with that. Who can't be happy for, say, a Navy football team this year that, once again, executed their option offense so well, went 8-4 against a tough schedule, and will have a chance to cap off a good season with a bowl victory? And there are plenty of other schools who can say the same thing, and will have that chance as well. The problems in college football--the unfairness of a Texas or a Texas Tech being left out of the national championship picture right now despite their records and accomplishments--vex me. But at the same time I don't want to see the college football bowls go away.
That's why I'm in favor of some kind of "plus one." Play all the bowls, play the BCS bowls--and then after all that's played out, have one more game, with #1 playing #2, 1 and 2 being sorted out with bowl results to go on. Still not perfect. But better--and it would keep all the other bowls, too.
