It was as if time itself had warped. Minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like days.
My birthday party was at the end of the week, and I was excited about the prospect of becoming a newly minted five-year-old. At times it seemed as though my four-foot frame was filled with more anticipation and excitement than it could handle, but my patience was eventually rewarded.
The party lived up to the hype. I received the train set that I had been eyeing in the local Toys “R” Us, and my kindergarten companions and I consumed cake and ice cream to our hearts’ content. If a better day exists, I haven’t found it yet.
As we grow older, the childlike wonder surrounding birthday parties fades, but our love of parties remains the same. Parties are a great way to unwind at any age, especially when you’re surrounded by good friends. While the philosophy of “the more the merrier” holds true for some gatherings, sometimes the best parties are the ones where close friends are the only ones invited.
Since 2014, college football has ended its seasons with an intimate gathering called the College Football Playoff, and only four teams are lucky enough to receive invitations.
Predictably, deciding to limit the attendance of a party that everyone talks about to four teams is going to upset a lot of programs, especially the ones that come close to receiving an invitation.
Many have often fantasized about what a six-team or eight-team playoff would look like, and some extremists have argued in favor of a 16-team playoff. Washington State coach Mike Leach is one such proponent.
“I think the minimum should be 16 teams, but they could easily go more than that,” Leach said in a recent interview. “Everybody from rec league softball on down can figure out how to put together a tournament and yet Division I can’t.”
While Leach’s plea might sound humorously reasonable, there’s a reason rec league softball games aren’t notorious for having packed bleachers and capacity crowds.
In FBS Division I college football, every game matters. Teams that suffer one loss are on the brink of being eliminated from championship contention, and programs that suffer two losses are usually out of the playoff conversation entirely. Expanding the playoffs would change the calculus of what makes college football so fun to watch.
The more playoff spots there are, the less significant regular season losses become. As an LSU student, I admit that more playoff spots would benefit a Tigers team that will probably finish the 2018 season with at least two losses against top-25 opponents. However, more playoff spots might also mean that losses like Ohio State’s 29-point defeat at the hands of a 3-3 Purdue team would not matter in the grand scheme of the season.
I’m not sure that is a world college football fans want to create. The beauty of the current playoff system is that each regular season game is essentially a playoff game, and I believe that’s what gives college football its secret recipe for success.
Playoff atmospheres in the regular season result in thrilling games, exciting upsets and passionate fan bases that make college football unique from any other athletic association.
Sure, good teams will miss out on a chance to play for a championship, but that’s an expected consequence regardless of how many playoff teams are allowed.
At the end of the year, I truly believe that most of the teams ranked in the top-10 would be good enough to enter a playoff and win a national championship. However, diluting the significance of losing by expanding the playoffs would make college football as common as rec league softball.
If striving to be common is appealing to you, you’re probably not championship material anyway.