College Football: The Elusive NCAA Football Team

College Football’s Elusive Elite Eight

Millions of fans around America cheer for their college football team in the fall. Their team works hard all season, and every single game they give effort. When the post-season comes around some fans stop cheering. The fans do not stop cheering because they do not love their team, it is because their team did not make the closed off final four spots. The NCAA football started a playoff system last year. The system was successful for the four teams that got in the playoffs. Ohio State clearly showed why they needed to be in the playoffs last year. Without the playoffs the 4th ranked seed Ohio State would not have had a chance. TCU and Baylor showed why their team had a case to be in the hunt to win a title

“A study shows the average Division I football player already spends 44.8 hours a week on gridiron duties.”(“College”). With the extended season, athletes will lose time away from their academics and it will increase the possibility of injuries. With the added games the players will be away from class. The traveling and extra practices will put players in a tough position to focus on both their academics and athletics. The games and practices will give opportunity for players to get hurt. Academics are important especially to athletes that have minimum study time. Giving the players extra classes can give players the academics that they will need. The players can take extra classes in the summer during the offseason. If the players take extra classes in the summer there will not be any games to worry about. This will give them an advantage to get ahead before the possibility of extra games at the end. The extra games would allow the players more opportunities to get hurt. Football is one of those sports where people just are going to get hurt. It is almost inevitable. There is not much anyone can do during a game. Changing the practices will help. During the playoffs the NCAA can set up rules in place for lighter practices. With lighter practices the risk of injuries will go down. The practices can have less contact in them. One day players should wear shorts and shoulder pads. This gives the players more time to

Teams will get a shot with two losses a chance to beat an undefeated team that worked to get to the playoffs with that record. Teams with 1 bad loss will have get a chance as well to be in the title race. The strength of schedule put the right deserving teams in the playoffs. The strength of schedule is based off of who a team has played and how good the team they played was. These games are analyzed close by a committee. If a championship caliber team has quality one or two losses they should be able to play for the title. A quality loss is a team that loses to another team with a good record. These games come into play when the committee looks at them. For years the SEC is looked at as one of the toughest conferences to play in. If the conference champion has two losses to ranked teams in the SEC they still deserve a chance in the playoffs. (Gorant and Keith) “No. 7 Mississippi State would be in line for an eventual matchupwith No. 1 Alabama, the team they lost to on Nov. 15.” With the degree of difficulty the teams shouldn’t be left out. These teams are not picked randomly they are picked by a council of experts. Each expert is placed in a conference to evaluate each team in the conference. The human subjectivity will not allow a team without quality wins in the playoffs. The council watches the teams closely throughout the year. The council people are placed to watch teams in