FINALLY! A Playoff System Has Come to Division I College Football

After many years of speculation and gnashing of teeth from college football fans everywhere, we're finally going to have a postseason tournament to crown a champion for division I college football.

On June 26th, a committee comprised of university presidents voted in favor of a four-team playoff tournament beginning in the 2014 season. The first champion of this new system will be crowned in January of 2015. Yes, it's still three years away; and yes, we still have another two years of the current BCS system, but at least it's on the horizon.

The four teams will be picked in a fashion similar to how the NCAA picks its field for the Men's basketball tournament. It will be determined by strength of schedule and things of that nature.

Is a four-team field ideal? Probably not, but it's a step better than the BCS, and it's certainly many steps ahead of where college football was before the BCS system.

Will a playoff system hurt the bowls? I think it will definitely hurt the BCS Bowls because, essentially, the field of "important" games will shrink from five to two, but at least the semi-final games will rotate among the BCS sites each season.

And I'm sure there will be deals in place to have the traditional BCS games--Rose, Sugar, etc--at their sites during the years when there are no semi-final games.

It will certainly take the shine off of any BCS bowl that isn't hosting a semi-final match-up, no doubt. Playing in, say, the Fiesta Bowl is certainly going to seem less appealing under that scenario.

But if we're really honest with ourselves, other than the prestige of saying your team played in a BCS game, does it really matter, even now? The only game that REALLY matters right now is the National title game.

As far as the lower-level bowls, I don't think they'll be hurt that much. If a team is playing in the BBVA Compass bowl, it wasn't a national title contender anyway. A four-team playoff field will not take the shine off of that at all, because there wasn't much of one to begin with.

I think a four-team tournament to determine the national champion is a great thing for college football.

If they ever do expand the field to eight or 16 teams, it will make the BCS games seem like inter-squad Spring football games by comparison.