The greatest play-off system in sports played itself last season and is set to get underway once again this coming year. For some teams it’s a double-elimination system, but for most one loss and your out. The length of it is unlike any other sports but it provides us with the most gripping match ups around. There are no brackets but teams no the path they must take.

            It is the college football playoff system, other wise known as the regular season.

            What made those Notre Dame/USC and Ohio State/Texas games so compelling? The way the Bowl Championship Series is set up. The losers of those games found themselves on the outside looking in as the national championship game played out featuring the winners of those classic games.

            Some look at that as a negative because of the lack of redemption opportunities but having so much on the line each Saturday afternoon is what made the games no special. The college football bowl system has endured countless bashings yet everyone points to how incredible the regular season still is. You can not have one without the other.

            West Virginia Mountaineer fans knew that without a loss at home to Virginia Tech, they too would be undefeated and in the debate for a shot at the national title. That was weighing on them each Saturday they took the field to compete, no matter the record of the opposing team.

            This 11 or 12 game season makes even the National Football League’s regular season seem a lot less climatic. And how can you even compare what is on the line in a college football game to a Major League Baseball game, NHL or NBA?

            The oft-criticized BCS is what creates climatic early season games. Look at the Miami Hurricane players after their first game of the season. They realized how important the opening game of its season was. For Florida State it was just the first round in a three-month quest for a spot in the national championship picture. If this was most sports Oklahoma would have been able to just shrug off an early season loss to TCU and same with LSU choking in the fourth quarter at home against Tennessee but in college football the losses remain on your permanent record.

            A playoff system in college football would deem the regular season nearly worthless and deprive us of three months of excellent college football. Is a playoff system really worth that? Hell no.