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Written by Rob Paden
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Monday, 08 January 2007 |
If you're a big time college football fan, and even perhaps if you aren't, at some point during the water cooler conversation, you and your co-worker have debated the merits of a playoff in college football. Hell, one of you may have even hatched a plan. But could it really work?
I think so, and I think it's what a majority of fans are clamoring for. I understand the arguments against it, to an extent. Money is always going to be an issue in the business of college football. But if you devise a plan that puts teams in a playoff, you cannot convince me that television revenues would not be through the roof. And below, I'm going to outline just such a plan.
Most of the talk revolves around a 4- or 8-team playoff. That's a great start, but really leaves the opportunity for a deserving team to get shafted. A better system would include 16 teams, where the last team in has a shot to win a game or two, but would be a long shot to run the table. Isn't that what tournaments are all about?
Another complaint of the anti-tournament crowd is that it reduces the number of teams who get to play in the post-season. The plan we are about to outline will allow 50 teams into post-season play, and require a team do a little more than play .500 football. Particularly now that the NCAA allows for 12 games per season (and a baker's dozen if you have Hawaii on the slate), six wins just doesn't cut it for automatic inclusion into bowl season.
Finally, comes the question of who gets to decide who gets invited to the tournament and who doesn't. Well, frankly, the BCS does. The polls and votes don't change. But instead of the top two teams playing for it all, the top 16 teams will do battle, much in the same way the NCAA does for its basketball championship.
In our system, the 32 bowls currently in business will stay intact. Sixteen teams will partake in the tournament, while 34 other teams participate in the 17 remaining bowl games. The non-tournament games will be sprinkled in and around the BCS tournament to create an atmosphere of everyday football. It will be the beer drinking, remote hoarding, college football fan's dream come true. And it can all be done in the same time frame as the current bowl system.
To start our bowl season, we need 50 teams, 16 of which will play in the BCS tournament. Using the same BCS standings as are currently used, the top 16 teams will be invited, and seeded accordingly into the tournament. The lone exception is that all six BCS conference champions will be included in the tournament. Using our final Estep-Landers Championship Index from December 4th, the top 15 finishers, plus Wake Forest (as a result of being crowned ACC Champion) will be the sixteen teams in the tournament. The seeds shape up like so:
1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4. Louisville
5. Boise
6. Southern Cal
7. LSU
8. West Virginia
9. Rutgers
10. Virginia Tech
11. Texas
12. Auburn
13. Notre Dame
14. Oklahoma
15. Wisconsin
16. Wake Forest (in place of #16 Tennessee, by virtue of being ACC Champion)
The next question is how do we fill out the remaining field of 34 teams who will reach bowl games at years end. In our system, teams qualify for post season by fitting one of the profiles below:
A. BCS conference schools must win 7 games overall, as well as 4 conference games.
B. Non-BCS schools and Independents must win 9 games overall, as well as 6 conference games.
C. Non-BCS conference champions not meeting the criteria in A or B are automatically qualified.
D. If 34 at-large teams are not qualified under A through C, schools can be selected if they have won 7 (BCS conferences) or 9 (non-BCS conferences and Independents) games overall.
E. If 34 at-large teams are not qualified under A through D, schools can be selected if they have won 4 (BCS conferences) or 6 (non-BCS conferences and Independents) conference games, provided the team finished at or above .500 overall.
F. If greater than 50 teams have qualified at any point under the criteria in A through E, a committee of qualified professionals in college football will determine the final schools to be cut.
This season, the following teams would qualify under each of the above criteria:
A. Boston College, Maryland, Clemson, Georgia Tech (ACC), Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M (Big XII), South Florida, Cincinnati (Big East), Purdue, Penn State (Big Ten), Cal, Oregon State, Oregon, UCLA, Arizona State (Pac 10), Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, and Arkansas (SEC)
B. Notre Dame, Navy (Independent), Houston (C-USA), Ohio, Central Michigan (MAC), BYU, TCU (Mountain West), Hawaii (WAC)
C. Troy
D. South Carolina
E. Rice, Western Michigan, Arizona, Washington State, Middle Tennessee State
For purposes of moving forward, the committee has selected Rice, Western Michigan, and Washington State due to having 36 at-large qualifiers.
Now that's great, we have 50 teams but no games to put them in. For sixteen teams, we obviously need eight first round bowls. On a rotating basis, those first round games will be played in the following 13 bowl sites (all based on currently having two BCS conference tie-ins):
Sun Bowl
Champs Sports Bowl
Insight Bowl
Meineke Car Care Bowl
Alamo Bowl
Chick-Fil-A Bowl
Outback Bowl
Cotton Bowl
Emerald Bowl
Independence Bowl
Holiday Bowl
Texas Bowl
Music City Bowl
Capitol One
Gator Bowl
In addition, the quarterfinals of the tournament will be slotted in the four current BCS Bowls, along with two of the bowls mentioned above. The semifinals will be slotted in the two BCS Bowls not hosting quarterfinals games in a given year. All this will be done on a rotating basis, much the way the BCS Title game is now.
Finally, the remaining 17 bowls will host the 34 qualifiers. The goal in these games will be two-fold. In the earlier games, top notch non-BCS teams will take on BCS conference qualifiers with lesser records. The slate will be filled out in the final games with BCS competition against evenly matched teams.
The entire slate will begin approximately two weeks following championship week. Using this method, we have developed a well-rounded, 16-team tournament to determine the BCS champion. We also get the fortune of seeing 17 matchups between relatively evenly matched teams. It all culminates in a BCS Championship game following nearly three consecutive weeks of football.
Using our final Championship Index rankings, this seasons bowl matchups would appear like this:
12/14 Poinsettia Bowl: Washington State vs. Western Michigan
12/15 Sun Bowl: Ohio State vs. Wake Forest - BCS 1st Round
12/15 Insight Bowl: Florida vs. Wisconsin - BCS 1st Round*
12/15 Chick-Fil-A Bowl: USC vs. Texas - BCS 1st Round
12/15 Cotton Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. West Virginia - BCS 1st Round*
12/16 Champs Sports Bowl: Michigan vs. Oklahoma - BCS 1st Round*
12/16 Meineke Car Care Bowl: Louisville vs. Notre Dame - BCS 1st Round
12/16 Alamo Bowl: Boise State vs. Auburn - BCS 1st Round
12/16 Outback Bowl: LSU vs. Rutgers - BCS 1st Round
12/17 Las Vegas Bowl: Troy vs. South Carolina
12/18 New Orleans Bowl: Rice vs. Kentucky
12/19 PapaJohns.com Bowl: Ohio vs. Cincinnati
12/20 New Mexico Bowl: Navy vs. Kansas State
12/21 Armed Forces Bowl: Houston vs. UCLA
12/22 Capitol One Bowl: Sun Bowl winner vs. Cotton Bowl winner - BCS Quarterfinals
12/22 Fiesta Bowl: Meineke Bowl winner vs. Alamo Bowl winner - BCS Quarterfinals
12/23 Gator Bowl: Champs Sports Bowl winner vs. Outback Bowl winner - BCS Quarterfinals
12/23 Rose Bowl: Insight Bowl winner vs. Chick-Fil-A Bowl winner - BCS Quarterfinals
12/24 Hawaii Bowl: Hawaii vs. Boston College
12/25 Motor City Bowl: BYU vs. Purdue
12/26 Emerald Bowl: Missouri vs. Maryland
12/27 Independence Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Penn State
12/28 Holiday Bowl: Georgia vs. Texas Tech
12/29 Texas Bowl: Oregon vs. Nebraska
12/30 Orange Bowl: Capitol One Bowl winner vs. Fiesta Bowl winner - BCS Semifinals
12/30 Sugar Bowl: Gator Bowl winner vs. Rose Bowl winner BCS Semifinals
12/31 Music City Bowl: Oregon State vs. Texas A&M
1/1 Liberty Bowl: TCU vs. South Florida
1/2 MPC Computers Bowl: Central Michigan vs. Arizona State
1/3 International Bowl: Tennessee vs. Clemson
1/4 GMAC Bowl: Arkansas vs. California
1/6 BCS Championship: Orange Bowl winner vs. Sugar Bowl winner
*Avoids rematches of teams in first round of playoffs (Wisconsin/Michigan and West Virginia/Rutgers)
May the games begin!
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