COMMENTARY: College Football Enters a New Era

By Matthew Haskins

It took nearly 100 years, but college football finally gave in to the public’s demands by agreeing to have a four team college football playoff system.

The good news about this is that even though a whole new system is in place, the trophies from the past can still be kept in the trophy cases of the college football teams across the land.

The benefit of not having a playoff system is a lot like a youth sports event, making sure everyone gets a participation trophy. For the past decade it was a system in which Alabama could celebrate the Associated Press trophy as much as Auburn coveted the coaches' crown.

The new championship trophy

The Bowl Championship Series worked out great for the Southeastern Conference which took advantage of the system and won nine of its 16 titles.

The BCS system was a mess that was changed almost annually. However, it was responsible for transforming the sport from a regional to a national game. It made people in Tuscaloosa, Ala; have to care about a game in Eugene, Oregon.

Now we will be done with seasons topped with arguments passed down through weeks of controversy.

The playoff committee is entrusted to protect the game. Hopefully it will not turn the playoff into a March Madness-type format from college basketball.

The playoff positives clearly outweigh what’s been given to us so far.

Four teams now get to compete for the championship. The Cotton and Peach bowls have been promoted to give us six major bowls to annually rotate the semifinal games.

The Rose and Sugar bowls will host the first semifinal games this year; the national title game is set for AT&T Stadium in Texas.

Unlike in the scattered BCS system, the major bowl games will be scheduled back toward their traditional dates on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

The new playoff puts the traditional polls out of the equation. The selection committee ignores the preseason Associated Press and USA Today coaches' polls and look at the full body of work over the span of 12 games.

The playoff won’t always be perfect, and it won't end the controversy by far. Every year, the committee will leave behind a No. 5 team that could have won the national title. However, at the end of the day people will have their thoughts and concerns about something, but in the grand scheme of things this system will be better than the last.