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The ongoing debate about playoffs in Division I-A the Football Bowl Subdivision is beginning to resemble an unending game of Monopoly, except that it's a little less fun. This classic case of a resistible force meeting a movable object took a sort of strange turn over the weekend when Florida State University president T.K. Wetherell presented a classic line of anti-anti-playoff argument. Wetherell is now officially one of my heroes, even though I'm not sure I really want a playoff.

"[W]e do play 63 baseball games and we play baseball through two final-exam periods, not one. Somehow, they all seem to graduate and do pretty good," said Wetherell. (It should be "and do pretty well," but let's not stop T.K. just yet.) This blows up one of the oldest arguments against a playoff; namely, that it would make football a two-semester sport. It's a weak argument to say the least, given that baseball and basketball are both two-semester sports.

Wetherell says that the playoff will eventually come about because of the "ungodly amount of money it will produce," noting that college athletic departments are addicted to money the way 10-year-olds are addicted to Webkinz.

As usual, it's hard to argue with somebody when they're right. But when has that ever stopped anybody?

A few coaches are against a playoff. You have to wonder why, when even a four-team playoff is a rich source of potential incentive clauses for coaches who already make wallet-smashing sums of money. But among the coaches and athletic directors who appeared with Wetherell at the Football Forum, not a one was in favor of changing anything.

Those coaches were Jim Tressel (okay, I can see why he might be against a playoff), Ty Willingham (ditto), Mark Mangino, and Gary Patterson (he's the coach at TCU). Tressel advanced the academic argument that Wetherell skewered. Willingham actually asked "Who is it [a playoff] for?". Mangino doesn't want to see the "fun" of bowl games go away. Patterson, meanwhile, actually gave an honest answer, noting that right now 32 teams get to end their seasons with a win.

That's why coaches, outside of a few brave souls like Bob Stoops, are against a playoff. 32 bowl winners equals 32 opportunities for a big fat incentive.

The athletic directors were Army's Kevin Anderson, who has every reason to be against any form of football post-season, and Notre Dame's Kevin White, who probably knows his team would have to earn a spot in a playoff instead of just stealing one from the Big East.

Coaches and ADs can crab all they want to about how rotten a playoff would be. University presidents are the only people who can actually make a playoff happen, and one has now rejected the old party line. If others follow, a playoff may be closer than we all think.