With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the United Kingdom to play American Football to a British crowd, one of the major differences between our sporting cultures is our affinity for closure.
Americans don’t like ties.
Oh sure we like the crazy ones we wear around our neck, the Elvis, Beatles, Star Trek variety, but when it comes to sporting events, we loathe the idea of a team leaving without having suffered a crushing defeat; Or tasted stupendous victory. But it’s not so around the world. The tie game is accepted in regular season play of most sport of popularity. The European football, or Soccer as we call it, has virtually no tie-breaking procedure until you get into a playoff scenario for it to become ‘must win’.
American sports have their tie associations; hockey used to end in ties a lot, still does though its harder to accomplish. Even good old American Football CAN end in a tie; its just not that often that a game can go 15 extra minutes without some type of a score. And thats Pro Football, because up till a decade ago you could find a tie in football- at the university level. College Football had absolutely no system for breaking up a tie after regulation which is the same 60 minutes give or take a few rule changes, as the Pro Game.
One Person’s description of BCS- Bowl Championship Series- Sans Championship!For Division 1 of course- You see College football has a tier system similar to American Baseball that separates the Big schools from the smaller ones. Its no longer called Division one though, its the FBS- Football Bowl Subdivision, which separates it from the next one down which is the FCS; Football Championship Subdivision. Basically separating the two levels of football is one major rule- The top of the line College football teams which only recently finally decided to end ties with the best overtime system in sports today, does not solve its championship with a playoff.
Their champion is voted in.
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No other American sport handles its matters in such a way. Not Pro Football, not Baseball (which has NEVER had a tie), hockey, not even High School football, resorts to having a champion named because of a Vote. The opposition is the Bowl System, which is represented by the mistaken notion of heritage, tradition, and money. Neither truly apply any longer, as the age old conferences are being pulled apart, a spark that may be the life giving elixir of a modern college playoff format.
The SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac 10, WAC, and all mighty Big Ten are being redrawn like a city district with “Martin Luther King Ave” running through the middle of it. So this tosses aside any allegiances of tradition and heritage, leaving only money in its wake to bounce around. HINT: Bowl games with meaningless games with not very popular teams don’t create a lot of revenue. But a small bowl game to determine which team would play the NO.1 seed, all of sudden has people wanting to watch it. There would be NO small bowl games. And with a rotating Bowl, everyone would have their fun in the Sun. Of course the Rose and Orange Bowl would always be one of the Big games. You bring in 6 teams, which takes three weeks.
Imagine college football teams not having to sit around for one month without having to prepare for anyone. Given the standings today, Oklahoma State would play Oklahoma. Put that in the appropriate location, you can be flexible. Boise State wouldn’t have to worry about an invitation, they would play Wisconsin- Let someone try to keep up with that scoreboard. That winner would face Alabama in an even bigger Bowl game, while the team from Oklahoma would play LSU, with the winner of those two games facing off for College Footballs UNDISPUTED champion.
Football at the Pro level is one of the only sports that lacks a farm system; the NFL experimented with NFL Europe but that wasn’t the same. The
NCAA is the NFL’s farm system. The game is played with the same rules, unlike baseball where college kids play with aluminum bats and require a different set of rules, football is universal across the board. And with a better overtime system, the College brand is even more exciting. Don’t limit our level of enthusiasm, nothing scream real world craziness like a championship playoff system. The Super Bowl has turned into a modern American Holiday. How many times in the last 5 years can you recall what you did for Super Bowl party but not where you went for New Years Eve? At the University level, you keep on playing and playing until there is a winner; even Roger Goodell’s league doesn’t have that one right.
The things we can learn from our youth….and elders.
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