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BCS solution: Say hello to a playoff, goodbye to polls

Published: Saturday, January 9, 2010

Updated: Sunday, January 10, 2010 18:01

Ryan

As we usher in a new decade of college football in 2010 and wave goodbye to the likes of Tim Tebow, Bobby Bowden and USC's chances of reaching dynasty status once again, it's time to make a change.

Let's say goodbye to the computers.

Time to break out the brackets and call it oh, I don't know, Winter Madness (I get copyright on that one if it becomes official).

It's time for a playoff system in college football, and I've got a solution for all this Bowl       Championship Series bull.

The current BCS contract goes through the 2010 bowl season, which means change is imminent. It's time to move away from the politics with having the big-name schools in the title game by giving those little-schools-that-could a chance for glory.

Now, I know there are cynics out there who say that the current BCS system makes every college football game a "must win", but just hold off and hear me out for a second.

The way national champions are crowned in this era of BCS college football is unfair, flawed and even comical. I know I may be dating myself here, but for there to be a tie for the national championship (i.e. LSU and USC back in 2003) under this system is absurd.

Although I agree that the talent level in the SEC and ACC as compared to the Mountain West and the MAC in much higher, teams shouldn't be penalized for playing in a  weaker conference.

A 14-0 Boise State should have a shot at Alabama.

Here's my BCS solution:

I propose a 16-team seeding system. The top team from each of the 11 conferences gets a bid into the tournament and then there would be five at-large bids, which would be the top five ranked teams that didn't win the conference championship (i.e. this year's Florida, Penn State, etc.). Get rid of the independent conference and force Notre Dame, Army and Navy to join a conference.

The seedings are based off the AP rankings using overall record and conference record, which would decide who is ranked No. 1 through No. 16.

Next, you shorten the regular season. Play 10 games, with two of those being out-of-conference games, just to save certain in-state rivalries like Florida vs. Florida State and Georgia vs. Georgia Tech. Next, you pit the top two teams from each conference against each other in a championship game to be guaranteed a seat in the tournament. Your overall top seed gets home-field advantage until the National Championship, which will be rotated yearly among the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl to honor the bowls and make the advertisers happy.

The regular season becomes exciting, with every game counting towards your tournament chances. Finals scheduling doesn't really become an issue with players because football doesn't cause you missing as much school as basketball or baseball would. Bowl season would still exist, with the teams not making the tournament playing in bowls like the Chick-fil-A bowl and GMAC, which doesn't have much appeal anyway in this modern-day system.

With this playoff, Boise State and TCU would get their shot, cinderalla teams would actually exist in college football and computers wouldn't decide who is crowned the national  champion.

Maybe UCF would one day have a chance.

At least in this system they would have a shot.

I've got my brackets ready.

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5 comments

woops
Mon Jan 11 2010 19:13
How many fans do you should would care to show up for 6 more games that don't matter?

****How many fans do you * think would * care to shup for 6 more games that don't matter?

Your name
Mon Jan 11 2010 19:10
If you think about it, the change that he is proposing would make teams in strong conferences want to change to "lesser" conferences so that they can get gauranteed playoff bids. Imagine the University of Florida going to the SunBelt conference. They would have zero competition against perenial losers like Western Kentucky.

His quote: "The regular season becomes exciting, with every game counting towards your tournament chances." ~ This hardly the case. This is only true for those teams that are going to go into the playoff. Right now more games count for more teams because it takes 6 games to go to a bowl (out of 12). Once you reach that 6 you're hoping for a better bowl. What will happen for most teams is that their hopes of a post season will fade as soon as they get 2 in conference losses. You can't argue that this is going to be very exciting for more fans although it will be more exciting for fewer fans who have better teams. If you look at our performances (including this year), UCF's season would have been over by week 4 (losses to southern miss and ECU). How many fans do you should would care to show up for 6 more games that don't matter?

Clever system, but there is no good way to appease everybody.

Your name
Mon Jan 11 2010 01:53
The current BCS contract goes through 2014, not 2010 as you state. Other than that, I enjoyed your article. I've given this a lotta thought and I've read a lotta articles like this, but you made a couple points I hadn't encountered before.
John
Mon Jan 11 2010 00:59
I was a student at the University of Utah when the BCS was originally busted. Now Utah has won 9 bowls in a row, including two dominating performances in BCS games where they were only selected because the rules required it. Nobody wants to play them, nor does anybody want to play Boise State. And because they don't want to play them, they don't have to play them. And that's the major problem with college football. And that's what a playoff system looks like it solves, but doesn't. A 16 team playoff adds 4 weeks to the schedule, taking it into late January or early February at the earliest... which is a new semester. The NCAA won't do it. And Boise would not have been selected this year if there were an 8 team playoff. I know this because they were denied a spot in last year's BCS bowls despite an undefeated record. They were barely picked this year, when the BCS expanded to 10 teams.

The real solution is to reform the non-conference schedule. At the end of every year, the NCAA should assign a home-and-home between the number 1 and 2, number 3 and 4, number 5 and 6, etc., all the way down to 119 and 120 (or however many D1 schools there are now). In year one, team 1 plays at team 1. Then they reverse fields for year two. Every year, one pairing is made, and it lasts for two years. Thus, every team loses control of two non-conference games, one home and one away. What you would end up with is a whole lot of USC vs Ohio State and a whole lot less of Florida vs Charleston Southern, which means you would see a lot more money for college football. You would also see which conferences are best top to bottom, not just which one has the top team. And perhaps best, you would never see 5 teams go undefeated into the bowl season.

Your name
Sun Jan 10 2010 22:59
Well thought through. I like where your heads at. I like the rotation of Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, etc. and the other bowls still being involved but in a similar way as they are today, no one really pays as much attention to them as the Fiesta Bowl, Rose Bowl, etc receive. This needs to be sent to someone who can review this and make necessary changes (if any are needed) and put this idea into action.






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