I’m glad to see CFR jump back in to the playoff fray with this comment yesterday:

Maybe — just maybe — it’s possible there’s a link between a postseason tournament in a sport and its regular season being treated as nothing more than seeding? Maybe that’s why college football’s the only sport with a truly compelling regular season, hmmmm ???

Nothing more than seeding? Maybe I’ve misunderstood what’s so compelling about the college football regular season. When people talk about how great the regular season is, I take it they’re not celebrating South Carolina’s quest to become bowl-eligible. The compelling part is how games across the nation each week affect the polls and the teams in the national title chase.

You know – like seeding. If the positioning and jockeying for a spot in the BCS and national title game isn’t what drives the regular season, what does? How would that be diminished by a playoff?

The playoff vs. bowl debates are just getting going again, and we’ll endure another off-season of passionate status-quo defenses and pie-in-the-sky what-if playoff schemes. In the end, I think what makes the college football regular season so compelling is that the drama and meaning of 162 baseball games, 82 NBA games, or even 30+ college basketball games is reduced down to 12 football games over just three months. One loss to a baseball team isn’t even noise. One loss – especially a conference loss – to a college football team is a serious blow. I really don’t believe that the format of the postseason would change that.