Tuesday, December 05, 2006

College Playoff System

All of the whining about the BCS has led me to create a fair and equitable playoff system that meets the concerns about extending the season and removing all complaints about the current system.

Here is how my system would play out for this season, with my picks (or actual winners) in bold:

Week 1: Championship Week
- require all major BCS bowls to have a championship game
- this is the first round of the playoffs

ACC Championship game: Wake Forest vs. Georgia Tech

Big East Championship game: Louisville vs. West Virginia

Big Ten Championship game: Ohio State vs. Michigan/Wisconsin

Big 12 Championship game: Oklahoma vs. Nebraska

Pac-10 Championship game: Southern Cal vs. California

SEC Championship Game: Florida vs. Arkansas

Independence Bowl: Independent/BCS at-large Notre Dame vs. Non-BCS #1 Boise State

Capital One Bowl: BCS at-large LSU vs. Non-BCS #2 Texas Christian

Second Round
- played over Christmas

Cotton Bowl: SEC Champion vs. Big 12 Champion
Florida vs. Oklahoma

Gator Bowl: Independence Bowl Champion vs. Big Ten Champion
Notre Dame vs. Ohio State [OK, I'm a little biased...]

Fiesta Bowl: ACC Champion vs. Capital One Bowl Champion
Wake Forest vs. LSU

Orange Bowl: Big East Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
Louisville vs. Southern Cal

Third Round
- played over New Year's

Rose Bowl: Gator Bowl Champion vs. Orange Bowl Champion
Notre Dame vs. Southern Cal [again, a little bias, but I would love another shot...]

Sugar Bowl: Cotton Bowl Champion vs. Fiesta Bowl Champion
LSU vs. Florida

Championship game (played the week after New Year's):

Rose Bowl Champion vs. Sugar Bowl Champion
Notre Dame vs. Florida

This system allows the remaining bowl games to remain in place, comprising the teams that are bowl eligible that did not get into the playoffs. Under this system, the only people who currently play in bowls but will not are the losers of the Conference championship games.

The games are all played during traditional bowl times, except some New Year's bowls are being moved to Christmas. The other bowls could be used to fill up the season between Championship week and the second round.

There are no complaints from non-BCS schools, as they get two slots (from five conferences). There may be some complaints about who gets the at-large BCS slots, but this system had the same number of at-large spots this year as the BCS bowls did, so I subbed in the same teams. This allows the team that didn't win their conference but were really good (ala LSU) to get a shot at the championship.

It maintains traditional bowl matchups in most seasons (SEC-Big 12 Cotton; Big 10-Pac-10 Rose, etc.).

And, most importantly, it gets decided on the field.

Now we just need to make it happen.

2 comments:

One Hundred Yards said...

Another alternative is described at [1] using the Swiss system tournament. It's specifically designed for short tournaments with large number of participants and provides excellent games in each round and a robust system to determine the beat team.

[1] http://onehundredyards.blogspot.com/2006/12/alternative-to-current-bcs-system.html

Wacko said...

I'm sorry, but that is the dumbest idea I've ever heard for a playoff.

It completely ignores the pageantry and tradition of the bowl system.

Without a championship game, it is anticlimactic.

And most importantly, it is an elitist academic exercise that has no place in football.

As a fan, I have no way of planning months in advance to be in town for the big ND-USC game, or OSU-Michigan, or any of the other rivalries. Hell, under your system the Army-Navy game probably wouldn't have been played this year.

I think that it is even worse than the BCS.

Does your system have even a decent chance of producing a Big Ten - PAc-10 Rose Bowl on Jan. 1?

No. And that is why it sucks.

[Other than that, I think your blog is pretty good...]