A contradiction in terms if I've ever seen one, no?
I don’t think I’m going to break new ground here, but the BCS needs to be fixed. It’s broken. It’s not about football. It’s about money. It’s BS (which makes two thirds of the BCS, no?) and everyone knows it.
I have a simple solution: A 16-team playoff that filters out into the bowls. Here’s how it works:
- You take the winner of each conference (there are 11 conferences)
- Add to that 5 at-large bids.
- The conference winners take the 1-11 seeds, the at-large fill the rest.
- You can’t have more than one representative from a specific conference in the at-large pool.
- You use the rankings as your indicator for all seeding. (Either one poll or a conglomerate of the two or three polls involved)
Based on these rules, here’s how the 16 teams would fill out, based on today’s rankings and standings:
- 1. Florida (SEC)
- 2. Texas (Big 12)
- 3. TCU (Mountain West)
- 4. Cincinnati (Big East)
- 5. Boise State (WAC)
- 6. Georgia Tech (ACC)
- 7. Oregon (PAC-10)
- 8. Ohio State (Big 10)
- 9. Houston (C-USA)
- 10. Central Michigan (MAC)
- 11. Troy (Sun Belt)
- 12. Alabama (SEC)
- 13. Pitt (Big East)
- 14. Iowa (Big 10)
- 15. Oklahoma State (Big 12)
- 16. Virginia Tech (ACC)
After the jump, how the games will be played and filtered out into the bowls…
The first round will work by having 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, and so on, with the top seeds having the game at home (yes, at home, not neutral site). The losers in this bracket will filter out into respective bowl games. Gives the opportunity for upsets and rematches among conference foes potentially.
The next round will work by having the higher seeds playing the lower seeds (not a bracket like March Madness, just simply the top seed plays the lowest remaining seed). These are again home games, not neutral site games. The losers from this bracket go to better bowls.
The third round becomes more interesting. Again, the higher seeds play the lower seeds, but this time, the two games are each a big bowl: namely the Fiesta Bowl and the Orange Bowl. So neutral site. The losers advance to play each other in the Sugar Bowl for a battle for 3rd place in the country. The winners advance to the Rose Bowl.
The Rose Bowl, simply put, has the tradition to be (in my mind) the national championship site, period. You could switch them around if you want, but I’m not sure it’s necessary. How the Sugar and Rose Bowl results turn out is how the 1-4 rankings in the final poll will be determined. No ifs, ands, or buts.
If I were to guess the matchups, here’s how they’d go:
First round:
- 1 Florida over 16 VA Tech
- 2 Texas over 15 Oklahoma State
- 3 TCU over 14 Iowa
- 13 Pitt OVER 4 Cincinnati
- 12 Alabama OVER 5 Boise State
- 6 GA Tech over 11 Troy
- 7 Oregon over 10 Central Michigan
- 9 Houston OVER 8 Ohio State
Second Round:
- 1 Florida over 13 Pitt
- 2 Texas over 12 Alabama
- 3 TCU over 9 Houston
- 7 Oregon OVER 6 GA Tech
Semi-Finals
- Orange Bowl: 7 Oregon OVER Florida
- Fiesta Bowl: 3 TCU OVER 2 Texas
Finals
- Sugar Bowl (Battle for 3rd): 2 Texas OVER 1 Florida
- Rose Bowl (National Championship): 3 TCU over 7 Oregon
Final Poll for Top 4:
- 1. TCU
- 2. Oregon
- 3. Texas
- 4. Florida
You can fill out the rest of the top 25 as you well please. This system makes the most sense and gives each conference at least an outside chance at a title. Imagine how awesome it would be if Boise could run the table, or if Troy caught fire and at least made it to the Rose Bowl? Would certainly make college football more exciting.
Tell me it doesn’t make sense. I dare you.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post first of all.
I like the playoff system like everyone else. The thing I struggle with on your idea is the conference alignment. Each conference gets their winner in, and can only have one other team take an at large birth. In this scenario, I get thrown off with Alabama. A team that has held the #1 spot this year has done nothing wrong but win its games in arguably the toughest conference there is (Pac-10 might disagree). They get dropped to the 12th seed behind a Troy team that deserves respect but at 8-3, i think that its a little bit off. Remember last year when the Big 12 was the dominate league. In this scenario, Texas and Oklahoma would be in, but an 11-2 Texas Tech would be out.
I think the playoff seeding should not factor in which conference the teams are from. If the top 16 teams happen to share the same conference then good for them. The real trouble comes in decided if a 12-1 SEC team is better than an undefeated Boise State team. I think that’s where you lets the polls decide, much like your theory on determining the 12-16 teams. Let the BCS still have its say in determining the top 16 teams, then they play each other according to your plan. All this being said I think it may work, until we realize it doesn’t and should have just added a plus 1 game to the current system.
Daniel,
I appreciate your concern about conference alignment, but my point is that winning your conference should be the ultimate goal. That, and conference winners should be rewarded for winning their conference by being assigned a higher seed. Alabama (in my scenario) would have lost one game and NOT won the SEC, therefore they got dropped to the top Non-Conference-Winner seed.
If a one-loss Alabama team truly thinks they should contend for the National Championship (as they felt last year before getting smoked by Utah), then they can prove it on the field in the playoffs. Every team in the playoffs has to win 4 games in a row to be a national champion, it only seems right to reward the conference winners.
My goal is to give the other conferences a fair shake, something the current BCS formula doesn’t do. And let’s face it, automatically assigning the #16 seed to the Sun Belt winner isn’t fair. Therefore the top 11 seeds are determined by conference winners, the rest by the polls.
Many would argue that the SEC is in a down year this year. Only Alabama and Florida are impressive, and even then, it’s only because they’re winning. They certainly aren’t getting “style points.” The Big 12 is down this year. You can absolutely make the argument that the Pac-10 is the toughest of the BCS conferences this year, but the Mountain West is playing tough and the Big East is a pretty solid conference this year, too.
In any system, there are going to be solid teams left out. Even in the 16-team playoff system. But this system encourages winning your conference so you don’t run into a situation like say Oklahoma getting to the NC game against USC when they DIDN’T win their conference.
The bottom line is WIN YOUR CONFERENCE and prove your dominance on the field.
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