About the author

czabe

Steve Czaban is a 25 year sports radio veteran, who hosts an afternoon drive show in Washington D.C. "Czabe" also writes and edits his own commentaries for www.czabe.com and other on-line and print publications. He can be reached at czabe@yahoo.com.

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14 Comments

  1. 1

    DA

    Although it is kind of…meh…..it is pure. More pure than the NFL. All these bowl games, as meaningless as they are, somehow remain (at least somewhat) fun to watch. This little slice of greatness we have on college campuses 3-4 months of the year. Not scripted, pure, emotional – something you don’t see in the NFL. NFL is a business, its a different passion. Even when NFL teams lose a big game they are laughing 2 minutes after the game swapping jerseys and high-fiving the other teams. College will for sure get more corporate and watered down, but man i sure just don’t want to lose the raw passion/emotion of the college game. Sometimes less is more. Miss you in the mornings czabe but the other guys are holding it down alright – Happy New Year.

    Reply
  2. 2

    Jeff

    You pretty much summed up everything I was thinking (and some things I should have been thinking) with this post. I love Wild Card weekend in the NFL. This duo of games made me wonder if College Football should even exist.

    Reply
  3. 3

    ara parseghian

    Rivalry…I think is what made College Football exciting.

    And the current track meet nature of the games makes it hard to believe the best teams win.

    Reply
  4. 4

    Hokieg

    Been telling people this for years.

    CFB singular distinguishing trait is the importance of the regular season. This playoff detracts more than it adds.

    Reply
  5. 5

    Christopher Tallmadge

    The old pre-BCS system was better. Winning the conference was the goal, a berth in one of the big four bowls the hoped for reward. For the Big 10 schools a trip to Pasadena was the Holy Grail. Competing for the national “championship” was gravy. More people had more fun. Now the playoff system can have teams’ seasons feeling ruined before the conference even starts. On another note, the clown costumes, like Tennessee’s yesterday aren’t helping.

    Reply
  6. 6

    Justin

    If these games were more exciting tonight, would that of changed your mind at all? It just seems if a football game isnt 35-34 with a game winning drive, nobody is satisfied anymore. Every game can’t be great. And no, you may not care who won tonight…if you arent a fan of the school or have money on the game, nobody really does. But that’s the same thing that happens in any sport when it isn’t your team. There is no right answer for the playoff….4,6,8 teams, I don’t think it really matters. All we really care about is exciting and suspenseful games. Its the world we live in.

    Reply
  7. 7

    JT

    The bowls must go. All of them. Including the “bowl” playoff games. The playoff should become an actual playoff with all but the championship being played at home sites. 4 or 8… I don’t care. Everything else should die. Literally no one actually cares about any of them. They are totally and utterly meaningless. Players know it and more importantly, fans know it. I don’t give a crap about viewership numbers. Most of that is wandering eyes just throwing something on the screen when there is no football alternative. If getting rid of them means going to 8 then go to 8. The level of play at the fcs level is so much lower but the 24 team playoff generates a disproportionate amount of buzz within the crowd that cares about that level of football. Imagine something structured more like that with the amount of fans and the level of play in fbs. It would be absurd. Why anyone in college football who has a say gives two craps about keeping bowls is beyond me. Hell how any of these bowls stay solvent is a damn mystery.

    Reply
  8. 8

    Jim

    Czabe, I was never an advocate of the playoff. It also seemed to be something talking heads on TV and sports radio campaigned for, not fans. And especially by ESPN-got to fill that airtime. I didn’t know a single college fan who wanted this playoff. I didn’t want it, in part because I knew the calls for expansion would start soon. I am in college football country, had season tickets to an SEC team for over 20 years, and live in ACC country. While the chattering classes of sports media mocked the small bowls, I can tell you I cared more about the small bowl my team made it and my friends teams went to, than any of the big two from yesterday. And I cared with a passion. I love the small bowls and their unique oddball names and “traditions”. And the randomness of the scheduling.

    You are due credit for pointing something out I didn’t anticipate and haven’t heard mentioned before. But then, I don’t watch the pregame shows, I don’t need hours of “breaking down” the game, so maybe it has been discussed. [I’ll get started on sports cliches, stop me now…]. You wrote this is now a “more sanitized, neutral site, snack-chip-endorsed, dome-version of the game”. Oh man, you have nailed it, NAILED it. These games bear little resemblance to what happens in an actual college football stadium. At least the smaller bowls and mid-level bowls are more like a regular game.

    Got to end, hope this makes sense. I love that you and Andy are back on the air, it is a great show. Good luck with that and I hope you guys are around a long time.

    Reply
  9. 9

    Chuck

    “……Especially if it’s a more sanitized, neutral site, snack-chip-endorsed, dome-version of the game? ”

    In my opinion you are really on to something here….even in the mighty NFL, only ONE game is played at a neutral site…the Big one…. These semifinal games should be played at the higher seed. Of course, that probably would have made the Clemson OSU game much worse than it was…(and now that I think about it, the other game was basically a home game for Alabama) but at least the games would have a more “college-like” feel…..

    Reply
  10. 10

    Ben Wood

    The genesis of the playoff was USC 2003 and Auburn 2004. Utah with Urban Meyer and Alex Smith maybe should have had a chance but only a small percentage of people clamored for it. A few near misses since and the playoff was born. But really, all we are talking about is 2 years out of 15 where the BCS might have been wrong. Might have been…

    These blowouts in the playoffs just prove what die hard have known forever: Each year there are only one or two dominant teams with the rare exception (USC/Auburn). So it’s not a shock at all when the #3 and #4 get trounced. Tiers of a Clown my friend.

    I went to a Pac 12 school with a bipolar football history (Washington State) and I love the playoff. The best thing about CFB is every week matters. With the playoff that is still true. An 8 team playoff would ruin that. The goal of the playoff should be to crown the best team, not necessarily create the most intriguing match up (that’s what the other bowls try to do). If dominant teams destroy inferior teams, so be it. I missed the Clemson domination but I actually enjoyed watching Bama dismantle Washington. It was impressive.

    The FCS playoffs are just like any other league/sport. Have a Meh + year and you might get in. LSU might have gotten in if CFB used those standards. How bad would that suck? Keep the 4 team playoff or go back to the BCS.

    Reply
  11. 11

    Hosel Rocket

    “The college game is a far, far, cry from the pro game. This is not a debate. Teams are not nearly as equal in talent, and the amount of mistakes and sloppy play is often absurd.”

    Guess you haven’t watched much Cleveland Brown football this year including yesterday’s homage to Red Right 88.

    Reply
  12. 12

    PK in Lincoln

    Alabama has exactly 2 non-conf road wins since 2001. Think about that. Penn St 2001 and Hawaii at some point.
    Get them to Ames, Madison, Lincoln, Boulder in December and see if that is fun.
    Outside, in the cold, the way football used to be.

    Reply
  13. 13

    Mark

    Steve, you are 100% correct about one thing. Unlike college basketball, the JOURNEY of college football is much better than the destination. Not sure what the solution is, but I can tell you what doesn’t help: one super shitty bowl game after another, after another after another….
    (Arkansas St. vs. Central Florida in the Cure Bowl??? Colorado St. vs. Idaho in the Potato Bowl?? Really? A.Y.F.K.M.?)

    Is there a quicker way to get from an exciting regular season and conference championship games to the playoffs? Would it be too outrageous to continue to play exhibition ga…, er, bowl games after the playoffs?

    Reply
  14. 14

    Clint

    “I still watched both of these turd games at home on New Year’s Eve, because I am anti-social and like drinking and blogging alone”.

    THIS…was perfect. 😂

    Reply

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