Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

Thursday, December 2, 1999

Football playoffs
need some fixing

LIFE is difficult enough as it is. Why do we insist on making something so simple, so complicated?

As it turned out this football season, all the machinations of the Bowl Championship Series to determine the national champion and the State Football Tournament to crown Hawaii's prep kingpin had been really much ado about nothing.

The BCS officials are awaiting the outcome of the Big 12 playoff game between Nebraska and Texas before selecting the opponent to face Florida State in the Sugar Bowl - this year's postseason game of choice to determine the national champion.

Why bother or wait? The only team worthy of playing the unbeaten Seminoles is Virginia Tech, which is also undefeated.

Even if the Cornhuskers beat the Longhorns decisively, they can never claim to be unbeaten as the Hokies can.

Matching the two undefeated teams is a no-brainer. So you have to wonder why so much time and energy have to be expended to delay that inevitable and most compelling pairing?

Giving the BCS Pooh-Bahs something to do, I guess.

WE also have a why-wait situation locally because of the new prep state football playoff system put in place for the first time this season.

And, guess what? After the three OIA also-rans and the three neighbor island champions were eliminated, left standing were the two teams who were the most ideally suited to meet in the first place - ILH champion St. Louis and OIA champion Kahuku.

Tell me you were surprised.

They collide Saturday night at Aloha Stadium for the right to be called the first official state football champion.

Of course, they could have played last week or the week before if we didn't have to go through the machinery of an eight-team playoff.

This year's inaugural tournament was far from ideal. But Keith Amemiya, Hawaii High School Athletic Association executive director, asks for patience because all first-time endeavors have kinks that need to be ironed out.

"Every aspect of the tournament will be looked at. Everything is subject to change," Amemiya said. "We have to start somewhere."

The biggest flaw of the tournament was its imbalance with four OIA teams making up half the field.

Every league champion should participate if it's to be called a state tournament. That means a minimum of five teams.

ADDING just one at-large berth for a six-team field would still take three weeks to run the event, so the HHSAA decided to make it eight.

That also gives the neighbor island teams a chance to host first-round games at sites less expensive than Aloha Stadium.

And with an eight-team field, no team would get a bye, giving it an undue advantage, according to Amemiya.

So if it is to remain an eight-team tournament, the first thing the HHSAA needs to do is to keep an at-large spot open for the most deserving team whether it's from the OIA or the ILH.

Kamehameha, for example, should have been in this year's playoffs instead of a mediocre Farrington team.

While far from perfect, the state football tournament at least has halted St. Louis' 13-game Prep Bowl winning streak in one sense.

With no more Prep Bowl as we knew it, the Crusaders will have to start a new streak as state champions.