Another playoff perspective


Given Auburn's experience with the quirks of the Bowl Championship Series computers in 2004, it would be perfectly understandable if university director of athletics Jay Jacobs favored a playoff system for college football.

Find an Auburn man (or woman) who wouldn't have been in favor of one when the Tigers won the Southeastern Conference, ran the table at 13-0 and failed to get a seat at the head table reserved for the BCS title pairing. The Tigers may not have won the national championship, but they would have done something Oklahoma failed to in its 55-19 face plant against USC. And that would be to show a pulse.

But this blog is not intended as a referendum on what went wrong in 2004. USC was clearly a deserving national champ and Auburn finished No. 2, which isn't too shabby at all.

Since Jacobs visited the Ledger-Enquirer office Wednesday afternoon to discuss various developments and ongoing plans on the Auburn athletic program, I managed to squeeze in a few questions about issues affecting NCAA members and the Southeastern Conference.

SEC athletic directors are generally reluctant to criticize the BCS monstrosity since league commissioner Mike Slive happens to occupy a seat of power in that system. Plus, the league has won the last two BCS championship games (LSU over Ohio State this season and Florida over Ohio State the year before). Plus, university presidents tend to do most of the shouting for change. Witness the of outcry Georgia president Michael Adams and state legislators, who were peeved that the Bulldogs had to ''settle'' for a Sugar Bowl berth in January after failing to win their league.

Anyway, I asked Jacobs if he liked the idea Adams presented -- a playoff system confined to eight teams. Jacobs would instead prefer uniformity in determining conference championships.

"I am not for the playoff as everybody talks about it,’’ Jacobs said. ''What I'd like to see first is that every conference has a championship game first. Let's pair those people up. It's not the same. When you have the last two national champions come out of the SEC because they won their conference championship, that's pretty strong. That's pretty sporty. The first step is that everybody needs to have a conference championship.''

It's unlikely that, say, the Sun Belt or Western Athletic Conference would ever become viable members of such a mix. However, it's laughable that the Big 10 and Pac-10 don't play a league title game when the SEC, ACC and Big 12 do.

"If we're going to have any type of playoff, let's have a playoff in the league first. Then, the next step for me would be a plus-one,'' Jacobs said.

Jacobs' concept makes sense because it would allow for the preservation of the bowl system and prevent the season from being lengthened to 15 or so games by a lengthy playoff.

"Having played in this league and gone to a bunch of bowl games, there's nothing like the experience for a student-athlete,'' said Jacobs, a former walk-on offensive lineman at Auburn who eventually started for a No. 3-ranked team as a senior. "The other thing is there's no way that my parents could have afforded to follow me around to two or three cities in December and January.''