I just got to read the SI article and I am saddened, disheartened, and steaming mad all rolled into one. Let me start by saying I am one that was opposed to a playoff system in the first place. However, with that said, I had relegated myself to accept the 4 team playoff system thinking this isn't so bad. It will, by the way, solve some of the problems we've had in previous years where you might have that 3rd, possibly (albeit rare IMO) 4th team that might be deserving a shot by the end of the year. So I'm thinking the system will be some homogenization of BCS that will funnel the teams into spots as they have done and then the playing on the field would solve the rest. But no, we can't use something that is pretty good at determining (although not perfect) the top tier teams by the end of the year and use the top 4 for the playoff. We have to make it mean absolutely for naught and go back to something worse than what we had 20 years ago. Instead of allowing a collective of several hundred helping to fray some of the bias that can creep into a human eye contest, we go to a small group that may have special interests tied to their decisions. Common, this is insane. Why not use the BCS as it is now and play the top 4 teams at the end of the season. If you are good enough to make it into the top 4, that should be good enough. Not a "let's look at every scenario that happened through out the year and let that help to determine maybe who gets to go". "Well team x almost beat team Y in game 7 and that may have affected an outcome of team Z to get into the top 4 so I'm disqualifying them". This is rationalization that will make political correctness seem benign. I tell you, if this is the outcome of this 2 years from now, we will have lost the most special and unique sport out there.