It’s time to talk again about the need for a playoff system in the determination of the champion for Division i NCAA college football. What we have now rewards the elite few schools and conferences who own and control “BCS” status and still falls short of even giving their own limited group of schools much chance of reaching the lone “title game.” Losing a single game almost guarantees that an elite school has blown its chances of ending the season as one of the top two rated schools that get to play in the “BCS College Football Title Game.”
How fair is that? Is it any wonder that all these conference alignments keep shifting? To win the BCS title, a school has to belong to the exclusive club that controls everything and aims it toward the benefit of the most privileged few. As long as that format remains the controlling scenario, there will be only one post-season game annually that means anything to the biggest viewing public. All the others will continue to play out for the alumni of the of the specific schools playing there and the communities of interest behind each game’s sponsorship. Does anyone out there beyond the vested interests mentioned here really recall that Central Florida defeated Georgia, 10-6, in last season’s AutoZone Liberty Bowl?
Yeah, I know. It’s all about money and the bowls protecting their ancient meaningless system, but we don’t have to watch. And I don’t think many of us any longer do. Last year, the BCS Championship Game is the only bowl game I watched, but I’d be hard-pressed this moment to even tell you where it was played, the score, or even who opposed victorious Auburn for the honors. Truth to tell, I think I’ve become more of a multi-tasking TV grazer than a dedicated viewer as I’ve grown older. The TV receiver I watch sits side-by-side with my Internet. And it’s a rare moment when I’m not also writing or researching something as a small part of my consciousness floats across the surface of whatever’s being shown on one of the gazillion new channels we now have coming into our home these days.
Today’s one-game BCS system assures us that conference stability will remain fragile as a few privileged and politically powerful schools have to continually defend against rising schools who beat on the door, demanding attention – and trying to win a battle in the board room that cannot even be played on the gridiron. A playoff system takes the pressure off a school’s conference membership and gives far more schools a chance to win it all through direct competition on the playing fields that now exist as meaningless buck-driven bowl games.
What follows is a summary of the 34 bowl games played last year. With no additions, there’s room now for a BCS-rankings-driven 16, 8, or 4 team playoff system for determining the Division I champion. I prefer the 16-team format, with no concern that the extra games are going to deprive our student athletes of any scholarship attainments they might otherwise achieve. The more qualified schools that have a chance to win, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Of course, if you prefer leaving the situation to its current elitist mess, just buy into the party line of the big bowls and biggest schools – and leave the bloody dish alone. These folks will tell you: If the small schools can only play well, but do not “travel well.” i.e., If they don’t bring a lot of fans with money to burn into Bowl Game towns, they don’t deserve to be playing for a national championship, no matter how good their kids may be on the field.
We know that money is the big issue here that stands in the way of change, but what do we do about it? If nothing, that’s fine. Just move the game reports to either the “society” or “business” sections of the newspapers and stop reporting college football as a sport. Otherwise, find a way to do the playoffs in a way that rewards the bowls with a greater share of the TV money on those years they draw clubs that don’t “travel well.” There needs to be a way to formulate a solution that overcomes the resistance to change. Otherwise, you have to play these stupid means-nothing games out in the face of millions of people like me. – And I just don’t make time for meaningless TV games – even when I’m multi-tasking.
What do you guys think? As fans, do we speak up for a better playoff formula? Or do we just leave the sleeping dog of college football alone?
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The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 1, 2011 at 3:01 pm |
My plan is simple.
1. Every conference must declare one champion.
2. The eight highest-ranked conference champions (as determined by the BCS ranking system) participate in a single-elimination playoff.
3. Independents like Notre Dame are treated as a conference unto themselves but have to be ranked higher than the eighth highest conference champion in order to participate in the playoffs.
4. First-round games to be played in mid-December at the home field of the higher-ranked team. Applied to last year’s results, this would have netted:
West Virginia at Auburn
Virginia Tech at Oregon
Boise St. at TCU
Oklahoma at Wisconsin
5. The semi-finals would be held during the New Years bowls with the finals held two weeks afterwards, likely the same weekend as the NFL conference championship games.
With six major conferences, that leaves two spots every year for Cinderella schools and/or independents so they have their seat at the table although the mountain to climb to #1 is still steep. The national champion would have to win three games to claim the title, separated by two weeks each to allow for finals and holidays.
There are NO “wild cards” so no conference ever has two representatives even if they are ranked 1-2.
While applying this formula mid-season is dicey, here’s how it might look with today’s BCS rankings:
West Virginia at LSU
Houston at Oklahoma St.
Clemson at Stanford
Nebraska at Boise St.
I’m sure this would make Bill feel better about his team’s prospects.
November 1, 2011 at 3:09 pm |
By the way, one of the things I really like about this system is that it makes winning your conference title of utmost importance, thus the regular season becomes an extention of the playoffs, so every game “counts” but particularly the conference games.
Yes, a few deserving teams might miss out on the playoff but they can still take part in the myriad of other bowl games and if they want to whine about not making the playoffs, it returns to one question: “Did you win your conference?” If the answer was “no” then the next question must be asked: “If you couldn’t even win your own conference, why should you have any claim to playing for the national championship?”
November 1, 2011 at 5:59 pm |
Not only are LSU and Alabama in the same Conference, they are in the same Division. Make it 16 Teams.
GEAUX TIGERS…..
November 2, 2011 at 12:33 am |
I came up with a plan several years ago where they could have a playoff and still keep their bowls.
There’s a 16 team playoff that consists of all conference winners (11) and 5 at-large teams. Those that do not qualify for the playoffs can go to a bowl game. The top bowls though would be reserved for the quarterfinals, semis and title game.
There would still be some sort of ranking system to seed the 16 teams, #1 playing #16 and so on. The top 5 ranked teams that don’t win their conference and get an automatic bid, would grab the 5 at-large spots. The regular season remains important to not only try to win your conference, but also be ranked as high as you can so that you get a “sorta” bye that first week when say an LSU would be playing the Sun Belt or MAC champion.
As it stands today, here’s how the 1st round would shape up. These games would be played about the 2nd week of December, right around when the bowl season would start any way.
First Round:
1-LSU v. 16-Arkansas St.
2-Alabama v. 15-Nevada
3-Oklahoma St. v. 14-Toledo
4-Stanford v. 13-Cincinnati
5-Boise St. v. 12-Penn St.
6-Oklahoma v. 11-Houston
7-Arkansas v. 10-Clemson
8-Oregon v. 9-South Carolina
Those would be home games for the lower seeds of course.
The 2nd round would incorporate bowls. Just going with bowls with the highest payouts.
Potential 2nd round matchups:
Cotton Bowl
LSU v. Oregon
Capital One Bowl
Alabama v. Clemson
Alabama v. Arkansas
Outback Bowl
Oklahoma St v. Houston
Oklahoma St v. Oklahoma
Rose Bowl
Stanford v. Boise St.
Stanford v. Penn St.
Potential national semifinals:
Orange Bowl
LSU v. Stanford
Fiesta Bowl
Alabama v. Oklahoma/Ok St.
National Championship
Fiesta Bowl
The big 4 bowls would rotate every year.
This keeps teams from going a whole month or longer without playing a game. Travel and extra games aren’t that big a deal. There’s only 2 teams of 120, or however many D1-AA schools there are that would be playing 4 extra games. Only 2 more teams would be playing a 3rd extra game. And these schools will likely be the big boys unless there’s a cinderella season from a MAC school or something.
This thing would be bigger than March Madness.
Teams who miss the 16 team playoff, but would otherwise be “bowl eligible”, like Va. Tech, Michigan, K State, etc. can still play in their bowl games, Liberty Bowl, Gator Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Motor City Bowl, Fight Hunger Bowl, Maxi Pad Bowl or whatever. What? Nobody would watch those bowls when there’s playoffs going on? Yeah, well, who really watches those bowl games anyway?
November 2, 2011 at 12:49 am |
Rich (“Speedy”):
Love your plan and would love to see it implemented at the earliest opportunity. It rewards excellence and doesn’t confine opportunity to conference affiliation. It has only one thing going against it. It makes too much common sense.
November 2, 2011 at 12:43 am |
Actually, there’s only 2 teams that would be playing 3 extra games because all of those teams would have played a bowl game anyway. So the first round wouldn’t really count as an extra game. That means only 4 teams of 120 would be playing 1 extra game. The 4 teams losing in the 2nd round. @ teams would only play 2 extra games, the losers in the semis. And of course, the 2 teams in the title game are playing a 3rd extra game.
November 3, 2011 at 4:49 pm |
To help make the initial ranking I suggest that the NCAA step in and realign the schools into equally sized conferences. (Yeah, I know, but we’re working on ideology here, not realities.) I can see some interesting combinations like the Deity conference: Notre Dame, Baylor, Boston College, TCU, SMU, Tulane, Oral Roberts? or maybe the Egghead conference: Stanford, Rice, Cal Poly, Vanderbilt, and …? I dunno, maybe Chicago brings football back. We could have a Metro conference: Houston, Syracuse, Louisville, Cincinnati, Boise State … oh, wait, that’s the new Big East.
And maybe there are enough “Tech” schools to have a league of their own: Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, etc.; or maybe even an all-Xavier conference. The beauty is that all teams and conferences are more or less on the same footing and can compete with the limitations given below.
The early part of the season would be devoted to conference play then the next couple of weeks are devoted to cross-conference play. Each conference is pitted against previously selected (rotated yearly) conferences, maybe 2 or 3, First place of one plays 2nd place of the other but all other places in the standings play the other conference’s similar rank. (every AD’s nightmare) This gives some meaning (and variety) to the life of the also-rans and helps to determine conference strengths whch are used to help rank the survivors.
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Actually, I kind of liked the old system: 4 bowls on New Year’s Day. Eat and watch football to the point of nausea, and maybe 10 other teams that could say, “hey, we’re the real champs.” Not every team (other than 1) had to end their season with a loss, Teams like Lehigh or William and Mary at least had their scores mentioned on the college football roundups and old traditions mattered.
November 3, 2011 at 5:03 pm |
Tom:
Tulane belongs in the Egghead Conference. They have no deistic foundation, but their academic standards are right n there with Rice, Stanford, Duke, and Vandy,
Anyway, I enjoy the way you think – even if we are launching snowballs in hell here.
I favor eliminating all conference titles that include numbers or GPS references to points on the compass.
November 4, 2011 at 12:34 pm |
Bill, Thanks for the correction. For reasons unknown I had thought Tulane was affiliated with the Catholic church. However, I was aware of their high academic standards.
Gee, I might have to do my own realignment now. 🙂