Another Convert

I'm not sure if he'll ever agree with me about the "means" of my anti-playoff argument, but after the occasional protestation, EDSBS' Orson Swindle has come to the same conclusion about the ends: to hell with a playoff for college football.

Glad to have you aboard. 

In its entirety (emphasis mine):

The net result for us in experiencing the NCAA tourney from the vantage point of deep inside the smoky anus of Vegas is this: college football must never, ever have a playoff. Nevah. That’s our gut instinct right now after having watched the weird dénouement of the tourney’s first weekend in Vegas and realizing that the NCAA cannot effectively coordinate the mating of two donkeys, much less a major football tournament.

Because we’re typing this off our phone while waiting in line to be told that we’re not making our connecting flight in Phoenix, we’ll be succinct: the season remains everything in college football, and a playoff would tangibly devalue the regular season’s value. Man on moon, yes; but seeing the dispassion of turning the game into a neatly compressed lump of productmeat suitable for easy heat ‘n bake consumption made us irrationally sad.

As it stands, every team with a decent body of work gets their one moment in the sun, unless they get the Motor City Bowl, in which case they at least get a moment of glory in the rain of fiery ashes and locusts that has been pelting Detroit for 40 years or so. A playoff kills that dead.

Onto the plane. It’s strictly working on the lizard brain level right now, but the image of a season easily ended in tidy fashion on four screens in Vegas makes us want to split the rails of a playoff train’s tracks and watch the wreck ensue.

It’s just this weekend’s Colbert gut instinct, but it’s there.

I wonder if this is playoff proponents' Cronkite moment.  If they've lost Swindle, they've lost middle America ... or something.

Anyway, welcome to The Coalition, Every Day Should Be Saturday.

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For more of my thoughts on this issue, see my "Playoffs = Bad Idea" category here, and read my entry Le Playoffs.  If you're of like mind, send an email my way with your name or the name of your blog/website to be added to The Coalition (you're not alone!) of people against a playoff in college football on the menu at left.