A College Football Playoff-type system was proposed more than 50 years ago, before it debuted in the 2014 season.
Although the CFP has only been in place for 11 years, debuting as a four-team playoff in 2014 before increasing to 12 teams this past season, discussions of a playoff system were first discussed in 1975.
Fifty years ago, some called for a college football playoff system to decide the national champion, but Woody Hayes, among others, was against the idea.
From the Jan. 2, 1975 issue of The Lantern:
While many Ohio State students interviewed had mixed reviews about the voting system compared to a BCS system, compared to a playoff system to decide a national champion, Hayes thought a playoff system would hurt other bowl games.
"A playoff for the national championship would hurt the bowl games. And that's not good, because many teams wouldn't normally get anywhere or go in the bowl games.
"The national championship is won right there on the football field during the bowl games. It was won in the last two minutes in the Rose Bowl by John McKay and his team. That's the way it should be."
According to Marvin Homan, the publicity director of the athletics department, it would have led to the college football season being too long.
"The NFL is not really comparable to the structure of college football. There are only 28 NFL teams while there are 126 college teams. For colleges to copy that idea isn't very wise.
"Besides, those men play football for a living. They aren't going to school. Many athletic administrations wouldn't be in favor of prolonging the season. This would be too much overemphasis on football."
How a national champion has been decided in college football has transitioned through a bunch of different phases over the last century. It was once decided by voters in multiple polls, leading to co-champions at times. Then, it was decided by the winner of the Rose Bowl. Then, the top two teams in the BCS system played for a national championship before converting to a College Football Playoff system in 2014.
While Ohio State’s former head coach and members of the athletic administration once thought that the college football season should never be as long as an NFL season, given that one includes student-athletes while the other includes professionals, with a 12-team playoff, a team could potentially play 16 games in a single season. For example, Ohio State played 15 games on its way to a national championship this past season, missing out on the Big Ten title game along the way.
With the NIL era paired with the new-look CFP that continues to expand, it's obvious that money always wins and, in some cases, college football players do make a living from playing the game they love, even if they are technically student-athletes and not professionals yet.
The people who wanted a playoff system in college football 50-plus years ago seemed to be right, even if it took decades to prove it.
