Well we can’t go through a college football off-season without someone talking about a playoff to determine the national champion.

This time, it’s Florida president Bernie Machen. The Worldwide Leader.com’s Joe Schad is reporting that Machen believes the idea for a playoff is gaining strength among presidents of SEC universities and will be on the agenda when the SEC holds its spring meetings in Destin next month. (An event this reporter will be covering).

The idea of a college football playoff is something I’ve kicked around for the past 2 or 3 years and I must admit, as crazy as it sounds to some, I’m on the fence about it. On one hand, it would determine, with little uncertainty the true national champion but on the other hand it would slightly diminish  the importance of the regular season. I disagree with those who say that a playoff would render the regular season meaningless (i.e., college basketball). That argument is silly just by virtue of the fact that there’s 3 times as many games during a college basketball regular season than that of a college football regular season. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.

On the other hand, I love college football bowl season. It’s fun to sit around and watch games between teams, while they’re not playing for anything too awfully important for the most part, that you might not ordinarily see during the regular season. There’s a tradition there that I would hate to see go away and there’s a revenue stream that universities and conferences would hate to see go away as well, not to mention the economic impact that bowls can have on the cities hosting them.

If there was a way to maintain the bowl system as it is and have a 4 or 8 team playoff, I think that would be best scenario that everyone can hope for. The argument I hear from those opposed to the playoff is that you’re going to have controversy surrounding the number 5 or 9 team, just like you have currently over the number 2. Yeah, but isn’t that a better argument to have? If you’re sitting at 5 or at 9, you probably blew a game or two that cost you your shot at the title. Deal with it.

I’m interested in hearing if people are for or against the playoff and why.