Players dripping with sweat with the winter air coming up beneath their breath. Fans are bundled up. The stakes are high; the team knows it’s one-and-done time.

Playoffs have been a crucial ingredient of what makes football so significant to the fans.

It gives the players something to play for.

Without playoffs, there would be no true champion, and this is exactly what college football has done with their Division I BCS Bowl games and computer-determined formulas mayhem.

The debate that college football needs to have a playoff bracket to determine a winner as high school football and the NFL does has been a continuing issue.

The problem is the NCAA has been greedy with their advertised bowl games revenue. It’s disappointing that a different team could have been crowned as NCAA champion if BCS executive director Bill Hancock and television stations who have the rights to hosting specific bowl games were not so concerned about their income.

There’s always the argument over whether or not teams like TCU from a non-powerhouse conference deserve a national title shot. Yes, it is possible that one of them will make it this year. However if we had playoffs, there would be a lot less controversy.

Every team with a high-quality record would be put into a bracket, which would lead to one team with an undefeated record becoming the absolute champion.

Take the Eastern Kansas League, for example. Many people consider it to be the cream of the crop when it comes to high school athletic leagues across the state, but there still are some teams in the western region that can take on the powerhouse conference teams.

Look back to last year when Hutchinson annihilated St. Thomas Aquinas in the State Playoffs.

It goes both ways though. People could easily argue Hawaii had no business being in the Allstate Sugar Bowl three years ago. Despite their undefeated regular season record, they were routed and humiliated by a Georgia team from the dynamic SEC.

Let’s not forget that Division II and III do have playoffs — but Division I football is comprised of the largest fan-based and professional-potential level players. Just like in high school, we have State Playoffs in basketball. In college there is an ecstatic time in early spring known as March Madness, which includes a playoff bracket of 64 schools.

Obviously, having 64 teams in the BCS would be unnecessary. In a revised playoff bracket, 12-16 teams can make their case as contenders.

Realistically, if your team loses one game along the way, especially if its late in the season, your title hopes are all but buried in the grave. Unless, of course, your team is in a top-notch conference like the SEC.

Even if your team goes undefeated, they might get beat out by a school who has only lost one game — talk about heartbreak.

Here’s a solution: the television stations that host the games can still have all their BCS advertising nonsense and the NCAA can make their money if they sponsor and treat each playoff game like a bowl game.