Before I get started, let it be known that I'm not picking on Bob Stoops. The guy typically puts together a pretty stellar team and has made some gutsy calls that earned my respect. That being said, I have to disagree with Coach Stoops on something he said in this article about the "campaigning" that goes on toward the end of the season when there's no clear cut Top 2:
“It’s unfortunate. No one likes to do it,” the Oklahoma coach said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “I think that’s why more and more of us say, `Hey, let’s find a way to get a playoff in place so that we don’t have to do that.”’
If only it were that easy. Go to a four team playoff and there'll be serious politicking going on for the fourth spot. With the current rankings, a four team playoff would leave out one loss USC and Texas Tech, not to mention undefeated Utah, who would be punished for being in a weak conference despite beating three ranked teams (and two BCS teams...Oregon State is in both of those categories.) If it is an eight team playoff, then you'll have undefeated Boise State making their case that they should have the last spot instead of a Penn State team that lost to Iowa. No matter how many teams you add, there'll always be someone on the bubble campaigning to make it in.
Everyone, including me, has a theory on how to make the "Mythical National Championship" valid (or at least more valid) and I will be posting that in the near future. I doubt anyone has seen anything quite like what I'm proposing. In the meantime though, Coach Stoops and others will have to be on the campaign trail. It wasn't for the title game, but hey, it worked for Mack Brown in 2004.
ed. by todd - i'll throw this in here since nico brought it up.
From Dr. Saturday, reason #58264851 to love Mike Leach:
Leach has espoused a plan for a 10-game regular season and a 64-team national tournament. Teams not making the field would be allowed to play two additional games for 12 total.
[...]
He likes to point out that Texas high school state champions wind up playing 16 games."The guys younger than us can play 16 and guys older than us (in the NFL) can play more than 16," he said, "so I don’t know why we magically only play what we do."
