5 comments No, College Football Postseason Is Not Better Than College Basketball's Postseason

Leave it to a Bleacher Report columnist to believe the NCAA college football postseason is better than the NCAA college basketball postseason. I would bet even the most diehard college football fan would agree the NCAA Tournament is more exciting than the BCS bowl. I don't believe this to be true at all. Leave it to a Bleacher Report writer to get together 50 reasons why college football's bowls (there is no real postseason) are better than college basketball's NCAA Tournament. I don't even see how there is a debate on this issue.

The reasons given by the author are incomprehensibly bad and also noted by me in bold italics.

Let's start the slideshow!

I love both college basketball and football to death, but something about the BCS and all of the bowl games gets me more excited.

I love both college basketball and football to death, but NOTHING about the BCS and all of the bowl games gets me more excited.

There. It's fixed.

but here are my 50 reasons as to why March Madness does not hold a candle to college football's postseason.

I warn you, they are terrible. Maybe college football is better than college basketball during the regular season, but the college football bowl system is the biggest letdown and disappointment among all sports in terms of how the postseason is run. We wait almost a month and a half for two teams to battle for the BCS Championship and along the way there are bowl games, only half of which are even somewhat interesting to me. No offense to the 10 bowl games that featured teams who won 6 games or less prior to making a bowl game (meaning these teams were just above .500 or below .500 like UCLA before the bowl game), but I prefer the competition of the NCAA Tournament where one team at or under .500 in the field is the exception.

Cash Money

You can't argue with someone who considers cash money received by the schools and networks to be a reason one postseason is better than the other.

From 2009 through 2011, an average of 28.3 million people watched the BCS Championship. During that same span, an average of only 20.4 million watched the NCAA Tournament's title game.

I never knew people are considered monetary amounts. I'm going to go purchase a hamburger and pay Burger King with 1.5 people and see how that works. What he means to talk about is ad revenue. In reality, the ad revenue of the NCAA Tournament is third behind the Final Four and the World Series at $170 million. Where did I get this information? From the exact same article this idiot just selectively chose his information from.

For one, there's a lot more money at stake in college football than there is in basketball. The Final Four pulled in nearly $170 in ad revenue last year, behind only the Super Bowl ($228 million) and World Series ($269 million).

So while more people watch the BCS championship game and the networks have larger contracts for the BCS games, the Final Four pulls in more money for advertisers.

Officials

Officiating in college basketball does suck. I'll give everyone that.

If you paid any attention to the tournament, many of these games are being decided in the final minute with a questionable call (or so it seems).

I love the way your over-generalized statement proves your point.

We don’t see that in football and we never see a fluke game reversed in football unless it is for the better and correct call (it is called review).

Some of it actually is where the officials do not make the right call, but that is never the issue in college football (especially in bowl games).

Really? The 2002 BCS Championship Game argues differently. Also, in college basketball the officials are required to make more judgment calls without the benefit of instant replay. There are fewer judgment calls to be made in college football (other than where to spot the ball) during a game. I wouldn't say bad calls are NEVER an issue though.

Timeouts

There is nothing more annoying than having longer and extended timeouts in the NCAA Tournament. It allows the underdog to stay in the game longer and gives them more hope to believe.

This has absolutely no meaning in the real world. This author really, really, really likes to generalize. What's wrong with the underdog having more hope to believe? How do timeouts give the underdog more hope again?

There is nothing wrong with that, but college football keeps it at a level playing field.

I fail to see how timeouts cause an uneven playing field.

Maybe there is not an edge given in terms of how long the timeouts are,

"Maybe everything I've just said is all bullshit."

The bottom line is a college basketball game is two hours long and a college football is three hours long. Regardless of timeouts, it takes longer to play a college football game and the halftime of a BCS game is at least 30 minutes long. So there may be more timeouts in college basketball, but BCS games take longer overall.

Final Four in Football is Always Better

The top two bowl games (national title being one of them, obviously) every season are always memorable, period. I wish I could say the same for college basketball.

ANOTHER generalization. There have been memorable college basketball and college football games. We all remember Vince Young's drive that won the game for Texas in the 2005 National Championship Game, but we also remember Gordon Heyward's halfcourt shot that almost won the NCAA Tournament for Butler.

I'm not sure what anyone finds memorable about the BCS Championship Games over the last five years, other than who won of course. Even the "best" game in that time wasn't the most exciting championship game (2011 BCS Championship Game) and is mostly known for Oregon's inability to properly ensure Michael Dyer was down, allowing him to rush for more yardage on a running play. I feel like the BCS Championship Game is usually a letdown after a month and a half long wait. That's just my opinion though and I don't have any over-generalized statements to support my opinion.

College Basketball's Regular Season

I cannot say I have too many friends or family members who even bother watching any of the regular season games.

Perhaps you shouldn't use your friends and family as the sample size from which you chose to derive your conclusion.

Well, they are essentially meaningless due to the fact that you are not rewarded much by dominating in the regular season.

So what exactly was LSU rewarded for dominating the regular season this year in college football? A chance to play Alabama, a team they had already beaten during the regular season? That's some reward, the chance to beat Alabama, a they had already beaten at Alabama. At least college basketball has a tournament which allows the best teams to go head-to-head, which is something college football probably needs.

Outside of earning a one-seed, you might be matched up with a giant killing mid-major or perhaps one hell of a squad in the second (now called third round).

That's the breaks and what makes the college basketball postseason so much fun. You have to constantly prove you are one of the best teams in the country to advance. What makes college football's postseason so tedious is fans have to sit through 20+ irrelevant bowl games just to get to a bowl game that "matters" in that they don't really matter since the winner only gets pride, a trophy and a gift bag for participating.

College football's Regular Season

We are already stretching these reasons to get to 50.

It leads us to a tremendous postseason where we see the best of the best compete against one another.

No we don't. We see teams chosen for a bowl game based on predicted attendance for that game, ability for the bowl to turn the highest amount of profit, and conference affiliation.

And this news might shock you, but they reward teams for what they accomplished in the regular season!

Ask Boise State and Oklahoma State if they feel they were rewarded for what they accomplished during the regular season. The odds aren't they don't feel very rewarded. Houston lost their conference championship game and was rewarded by playing by going to the TicketCity Bowl, without a chance to play against other teams who only have one loss.

College football takes the two "best" teams and pits them against each other and all the other teams are shit out of luck.

Pageantry

In the first few rounds, some teams just get a feel for their competition. In bowl games, this is it.

Wasn't it just a few minutes ago the author said the college basketball postseason stunk because a team isn't rewarded for a strong regular season? Didn't the author say a team could run into "a giant-killing mid-major" or "one hell of a squad?" But now, teams are just feeling their way through games? You can't have it both ways. Either elite college basketball teams are challenged by a "giant-killing mid-major" or they can feel their way through games. You can't argue both ways and be persuasive.

Jump Balls

There is one jump ball per game. So jump balls are bad?

It is like a turnover, if your team does not have the possession arrow, then it just flat out stinks.

So the possession arrow stinks AND jump balls stink?

I do not agree with Dick Vitale on everything, but this rule must change (he has stated it many times). They need to jump it up like the NBA because this kills the tournament.

WHAT? So jump balls are bad, but college basketball should have more jump balls? I hate to ask this question, but if jump balls are so damn bad, then WHY DO YOU WANT MORE OF THEM?

This article reads like it was dictated to the author by a 5 year old.

Tiring

Bowl season allows you time to actually get some sleep and be able to come back ready to go for every game.

Unfortunately for the first two weeks of the bowl games are you rested and ready to watch irrelevant bowl games and by the time good bowl games come around they start at 8:45pm It's hard to watch the whole thing if you live on the East Coast.

Entertainment

The momentum never dies in college football’s postseason, and we are almost never let down in the main events (BCS bowls).

The momentum never dies in college football's postseason because there is never any momentum. Once the bowl games matchups are decided it takes a month for some of the matchups to even take place. There is no momentum for BCS bowls. All momentum is destroyed by the long wait for the BCS bowl games and the fact the games are played at 8:30pm on a weeknight. While the NCAA Tournament is an event, the BCS bowls are a welcome sign that bowl season is finally ending.

Getting Jobbed

Outside of getting jobbed by officials in the final minutes (Butler-Pitt, among hundreds of games),

This is among hundreds of games, not wait, thousands of games, no wait, millions of games where one team has gotten "jobbed" by the officials. In fact, there are so many games where a team has gotten "jobbed" by the officials the author doesn't even bother to list them. In fact, there are so many numerous games the author doesn't even have time to list a game from this very college basketball season where the officials "jobbed" a team. So he lists a Butler-Pitt NCAA Tournament game where the officials didn't screw up, but called two legitimate fouls, one on each team. So neither team got "jobbed" since Butler and Pitt had a ticky-tack foul called on them at the end of the game. What a poor example to prove another over-generalized reason.

Basketball is about a game of runs, but one poor shooting night and it all evaporates in front of you.

It is tough for a running team to get bottled up in a bowl game when they have two All-Americans paving the way.

So because the NCAA Tournament is more unpredictable, it isn't as exciting as the bowl games? Crazy me, I always thought excitement was good during sporting events.

Forget the major upsets in college football because the two juggernauts competing with one another are more than likely close in talent to begin with.

Who can forget the juggernaut West Virginia team playing the juggernaut Clemson team in a bowl game this year? The same game where West Virginia ran up 70 points on the juggernaut Clemson team. How about that National Championship game this year where the juggernaut LSU team couldn't get past mid-field?

No Jamar Samuels

Never in my lifetime have I ever heard of or even pondered such an awful thought. Jamar Samuel was Kansas State's second-leading scorer and leading rebounder who suspended approximately 20 minutes before tip-off this past weekend against Syracuse.

The timing was the abysmal part of this whole thing, and for that reason I must put the NCAA Tournament and college basketball in the timeout circle.

We all know college football would never have problems like this. Players would never get suspended for selling a game-worn jersey or selling memorabilia for tattoos. That stuff never happens in college football.

Sloppy Play

We hardly see sloppy play in the bowl games—and that is with a month off.

I thought Clemson did a great job of not tackling after being given a month off. They only gave up 70 points in a BCS bowl game. Who can forget LSU's precision offense that couldn't get a first down in the BCS Championship Game? It was memorable to watch Jordan Jefferson and the LSU offense make your local high school team look like the 2007 New England Patriots offense.

The preparation put in is remarkable to witness,

You are an idiot and you clearly don't watch the bowl games. Sometimes teams play like they don't even want to be there, which in many cases the teams don't. This is especially true if that team believes they deserved a better bowl bid which they didn't receive because a bowl choose a lesser-talented team which would bring the bowl more attendance and therefore more income. One more reason bowls suck. Bowls are about money and attendance, not putting the best matchups on the field.

The teams get a minimum of three days off (most teams get full week), but it is amazing to watch teams throw bricks up at the rim.

I want to be a sportswriter! I write for Bleacher Report! I write over-generalized statements! All teams throw up bricks in the NCAA Tournament! Fuck facts, I have my opinion! Every white player tries hard, most fat people are lazy and if you see a group of minorities together they are probably committing a crime! I write for Bleacher Report and refuse to write like a mentally competent human being would!

Outside of a few bowl games every season, every game is hard fought heading into the fourth quarter.

"Most" bowl games are fought hard? There is no proof of this given by the author, instead he just makes blanket and over-generalized statements in an effort to prove his point. This is embarrassing even for Bleacher Report and please remember Bleacher Report will sometimes print nearly anything that is written in English and the author is able to throw more than two sentences together to form a paragraph.

No Frustration

How many of your friends—and yourself included—just hate shredding that bracket up on the first day?

Bowlmania does not do that to you, so that has to be a bit more enjoyable.

It isn't more enjoyable. Unpredictability is fun in sports.

No Need To Skip Work

However, the postseason in college football allows you to still be productive with your non-college football life.

This is simply an outright lie. Here are the bowl games that were played this year when people were at work (this doesn't include people who work on the weekend and remember the United States does have a West Coast, so games starting at 5pm take place when they are at work):

Gildan New Mexico
AdvoCare V100 Independence
Little Caesars Bowl
Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman
Bridgepoint Education Holiday
Champs Sports
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces
New Era Pinstripe
Franklin American Mortgage Music City
TicketCity
Outback
Capital One
Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl
Rose

The NCAA Tournament can set you back if you get addicted by watching every single game (all 67 of them).

The Thursday and Friday of the first weekend of the tournament is the only time a person who gets off work at 5pm on either coast can't watch an entire game. Every other game is during the evening after 7pm or on a weekend. What a terrible point.

I'm going with one sentence pithy replies from here on out...

College Gameday

It feels like your team wins a dramatic game and then the next day the season is done with. That is the way it goes in college basketball, but that doesn’t mean it is cool or fair.

No, no, no, this is EXACTLY why bowl games suck, because after a bowl game the season is over the team that wins the bowl game never plays another team.

NIT is for the Weak

The NIT isn't considered the NCAA Tournament, but nice try.

Rivalries are Made

You could argue the NCAA Tournament gives us matchups we would never see in any other sport.

The real point is seeing Goliath’s battle it out on the gridiron, which gets me more excited than seeing a Cinderella eventually break their slipper.

I've never heard the argument that because the NCAA Tournament is more competitive and features never-before-seen matchups, this makes it inferior to college football...a simply amazing line of thought.

Five Fouls

In a game that matters the most, we often see All-American players perform like scrubs.

"Often" see All-American players perform like scrubs, yet All-American Kemba Walker led UConn to the NCAA Championship last year, just like All-American Jon Scheyer did the year before, just like All-American Tyler Hansbrough did the year before that.

In a fluky one-game playoff, anything can occur.

Like anything could happen in the one-game playoff that is a bowl game?

Excitement

He's just looking in the dictionary and naming words he sees at this point. I would use the Will Ferrell "George W. Bush" voice to read what's written in bold if I were you. It makes it more exciting to read.

Many of the first-round games are extremely boring because we see these teams come out flat.

Completely untrue and we see the author's continuous use of "many," "most," "often," or "all" to compensate for a lack of research and a convincing argument.

Relaxation

I love the NCAA Tournament like nobody’s business, but the postseason for college football is more relaxing.

Exactly, the NCAA Tournament is more exciting and more unpredictable. It is better.

Lehigh

However, some argue that Lehigh never deserved that shot against Duke in the first place, right?

Wrong, I haven't heard anyone argue this point of view until I just read it in this slideshow.

The underdog hangs around and finds a way to pull off the shocking upset in a first-round game when a top notch shooting team cannot hit the backside of a barn. Many argue that is bad for the game, not good.

There is absolutely no way this is bad for college basketball.

Prove Yourself

A top-five team has to continue to win game after game despite doing so for the previous four months.

This is clearly less preferable to basing who plays in the BCS Championship game based on a poll.

I understand that is how the game works, but that is weak sauce

This is relevant modern terminology "the kids" use!

No Complaining

While you could throw the same at me for the BCS since there are haters (though I won’t complain), the NCAA Tournament often has way too much boring negativity.

(Bengoodfella is speechless) You realize the majority of people hate the entire bowl system, right? Like the entire format and everything about it?

Consistency

Strategery.

In the BCS we would never get a chance to see two mediocre teams plays for it all because college football is just better in terms of rewarding their best.

It's just tough for college football to figure out which teams are the "best."

Entertainment

He's now used "entertainment" twice as a reason.

The Best of the Best

Every season college football rewards you with the best two teams on the planet. In my eyes, no other sport in America can come close to giving you the same.

Then you need to go to an eye doctor if that's what your eyes tell you.

The Super Bowl has legit teams normally, but in a one-game playoff, anything can happen. That is not the case in college football.

The argument that unpredictability is bad, and this is why the NCAA Tournament is bad, just absolutely astounds me.

The Best

Not to be confused with "The Best of the Best" of course.

I want to watch the best at all times possible. I am the biggest underdog guy out there,

You are also confused and lack the ability to understand your own self since you just wrote this:

The Final Four isn't always must watch if VCU is playing Butler. George Mason and those Cinderella stories are amazing to follow, but it is really getting old right now.

Yeah, you are a big underdog guy, as long as the underdog isn't the underdog and instead is an elite team from a major conference.

One-Game Playoff
I do not honestly know what I would do if a random non-AQ team such as Nevada had an opportunity to play Ohio State with a chance to compete for the BCS title.

If they earned it by defeating other teams in a tournament, then what the hell is the problem?

That is what we see in college basketball, and when it happens, it really does stink to witness.

He's a big underdog guy you know.

Holidays

Maybe you get a spring vacation or break, but on New Year’s day college football is king.

There were zero games on New Year's Day this year...damn facts getting in the way of trying to prove a point!

No Wait

Really, "no wait" a reason for why the BCS is better than the NCAA Tournament coming from a guy who likes the system that waits over an entire month for two teams to play for the BCS title?

The weekends are great to watch the NCAA Tournament, but Monday-Wednesday is atrocious without anything going on.

You know, other than the four First Four games that take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Happy New Year!
Still, celebrating the New Year’s with the ones you love will always be better for me.

Waking up on New Year's Day is probably more exciting than Christmas was as a child nowadays.

Wait, does this have to do with the NCAA Tournament???????????

The Best of the Bunch

Again, not to be confused with "The Best" or "The Best of the Best."

BCS Matchups

In college football we always see dream matchups every January.

As long as you aren't a fan of Boise State or any other team that doesn't get a chance to play in the BCS games because they weren't chosen high enough in the polls.

Every Single Game Matters Leading Into Postseason

Except for the Alabama-LSU game played in November of this year, which apparently didn't count since the game was played again for the BCS Championship.

Every weekend during the regular season of college football, there are thrilling games filled with more pageantry than any other sport.

Then it ends with a huge thud when the bowl pairings are announced because the momentum slows down and the college football postseason competes directly against the end of the NFL season.

If you truly are the best team on the planet, then losing a game should never happen.

Which explains why since 1998 we have only had eight teams win the BCS Championship Game as an undefeated team. So nearly half the time, the BCS Champion has lost a game...but this should never happen of course. So explain how an undefeated team can still not get a chance to play in the BCS Championship Game? The system works! Maybe if we keep saying it then it will eventually come true for every single season!

The best two teams have played each other nearly every single season. In college basketball, that rarely happens.

This is true unless you think Oklahoma State (or Stanford) deserved a shot at the BCS Championship Game.

There is no way the BCS bowls are better than the NCAA Tournament. No over-generalized and poorly executed slideshow can convince me differently.