I have watched college football almost all my life but it was in the mid-1980s as a young kid in high school that I really started to pay attention. Every once in a while I would hear some talk about a college football playoff and my initial thought was with the majority of fans. Why didn’t we have a playoff? Why were national championships decided by a bunch of voters? Why, at the end of the season, was the best team in the country playing against the eighth best team in the country when the team ranked number two was pitted against the number four team? As I immersed myself in college football, I found that I started to appreciate the system for what it was. I still found it silly that various bowl agreements kept the two top teams from competing but I believed that a playoff would destroy so much of what made college football unique.
That opinion has never changed. I accept that the playoff is here and that it is never going away. I accept that the war has finally been won and I am on the losing side. I also realize that, at least in the short term, the playoff might very well boost my alma mater of Alabama. Years ago, Dennis Miller once made a joke on Saturday Night Live. The gist was that he appreciated the Republican Party because it allowed him to vote Democrat while still getting all the tax cuts afforded the wealthy.
All sports dynasties come to an end; college football dynasties more so. Because of the nature of college football, a dynasty always seems to end before anyone has a clue that the salad days are over. Think of USC in the 2000s. When USC lost to Texas by a razor’s edge margin could anyone have realized that USC’s dynasty was over? When Florida lost to Alabama in the 2009 SEC Championship Game, their dynasty came to an end. It didn’t matter that both schools were covered in great recruits and both had two of the best coaches in the game, they were done. When Alabama lost to Auburn last year in the most improbable way, Alabama’s dynasty came to an end . . . or at least it would have if the BCS was still around. Make every argument you want why Alabama could have still been a factor if the BCS was still the way champions were chosen and I will show you example after example of past teams that had all those same advantages but never made it back up the mountain.
The advantage of the new college football playoff system is that, in theory, we are going to have a clearly defined champion. The disadvantage is that from time to time, teams are going to get mulligans. Alabama would have been one of the final four teams last year. Pete Carroll may have been able to claim another championship or two. Bob Stoops might not be stuck at one. It would have certainly fixed Auburn getting shut out of the national championship picture in 2004 but it would have also negated USC’s loss to UCLA in 2006, Alabama’s loss to Auburn in 2013, Oregon’s loss to USC in 2011, and so on, ad nauseam. At some point, a team slotted in three or four is going to win the championship. Even this doesn’t bother me so much. When I think about what we have lost it’s not some late season loss that takes one team out of the national championship picture that I think about. It was actually an early September game.
On September 3rd, 1988 I gathered around the television set with my friends in the Orlando suburb of Winter Park, Florida. We were there to watch the season opening game for Florida State and Miami. Miami was the defending national champion but Florida State entered the season ranked #1. Not many gave the ‘Canes much of a chance of winning. We were all recent high school grads that didn’t immediately go off to college, by definition, we were punk kids. We were at our friend Kevin's house. His parents were out of town and we were fortunate enough to have the house to ourselves. On this particular Saturday night, this meant college football and having beers with good friends. Though I was an Alabama fan and later an alumnus of Alabama, my second favorite college to follow was Florida State. I was a Floridian and Florida State held a special place in the family. My grandmother had attended in the 1930s when it was an all-girl school. My great grandfather paid for her tuition in oranges as money was hard to find during The Great Depression and since the family business was growing oranges, it was the currency of choice. I wasn’t alone in rooting for the Seminoles. Matter of fact, out of the five of us that were there, four of us were rooting for FSU. Even with all Miami’s success, their popularity in their home state typically waned before reaching north to Tampa. The lone Miami fan, Kelly, took it all in stride. Prior to kickoff, we all trash talked. Kelly adamantly held that regardless of what the popular opinion was, Miami would win the game. Now folks, what I am about to write is going to sound outlandish but I promise you it is true. I’m not sure I would have believed it if I wasn’t there myself.
Bill, started challenging Kelly to a bet. He was working Kelly’s situation against him to make some cash and Kelly, normally unflappable and lover of Black Flag and The Dead Kennedys either got caught up in Bill’s game or knew something that we all didn’t. I have always tended to think it was the former. Kelly stated that not only would Miami win but that they would kill the Seminoles. Let's face it. We've all been there. Bill, thinking that he had his prey cornered, asked Kelly to spot him a touchdown. FSU WAS FAVORED! Kelly said he would spot him two touchdowns. They kept this up for another few seconds. By the time the bet was set, Kelly gave Bill thirty points. I don’t recall the amount. I think it was $20. $20 for a punk kid in 1988 was a pretty decent chunk. It was a couple of tanks of gas, it was about two cartons of smokes, or it was one really decent case of beer, imported beer.
If for some reason you don’t know the final result of that game or can’t glean the outcome from my story, I will let you in on the result. Miami beat Florida State 31-0 that night. If you’re wondering, Bill didn’t have the cash on him that night but he didn’t welsh on bets. The next day he got the cash and Kevin and I drove him over to Kelly’s house so that he could pay up.
Now why in the world is that particular game the one that I think of when I lament the loss of the antiquated college football system? In that game, a game that opened the season, perfection was demanded and perfection was not achieved. Florida State went from the #1 team in the nation to having no chance to win the national championship in a matter of a few hours of stepping onto the field for the first time that season. Florida State wouldn’t lose another game in the 1988 season. Only two teams would even come within a touchdown of the Seminoles. Save those two, most of the other games were blowouts. They beat #15 South Carolina 59-0. They beat arch-rival Florida 52-17. On all but one night, they were unstoppable. In terms of the national championship picture, none of it mattered. Had there been a playoff, FSU would surely have been in it and that September game would have been hardly different than a NFL team losing in the preseason. That game more than any other I have ever seen before or since defined college football to me. As I stated above, the playoff is here and I promise not to begrudge it but I know now when I think back to that September night in 1988, it will have a bit more of a melancholy feel.
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