A Different Kind of Playoff System For College Football
During a particular bowl game last year, a number of players were asked the same question regarding a playoff system for college football and almost all of the participants within the poll voiced a similar conclusion. "Yes, we want a playoff system very badly...No, we do not wish to play any more games than the current 12-13 game schedule. This is the dilemma for college football governors and administrators. It would be unwise to extend the college football season past 13 games. It would also be unwise to eliminate the bowl structure as it truly defines college football and distinguishes itself from other sports. The current BCS method and the Plus One concept would really not solve much of the current BCS controversies.
For example, last year (2004) much of the nation only recognized a three team controversy. USC and Oklahoma played for the title, while Auburn was forced out of the equation. An exceptional Utah team, lead by the NFL's number one draft pick Alex Smith was never mentioned. Much of Gator nation says the system Urban Meyer utilizes will not work in the SEC, therefore Utah shouldn't have garnered much attention or respect from those with Southern sensibilities. The bottom line for me is the skill players at Utah last year were superior to the batch that Meyer inherited at Florida. He needs time to develop this system and recruit players who are best utilized in his system.
The other irony for me is that the system Urban Meyer utilizes has transformed the Big-10, ACC, Mountain West and with Oregon's resurgence, now the PAC-10. The SEC has little to do with this situation. Nothing more than mere whining and complaining by Gator Nation regarding the misfortunes of their season, which has to be perfect to satisfy overzealous fans. So in regards to a plus one system, it really wouldn't satisy the current BCS controversies because the championship invitations would only be extended to the same group of power schools...those who formed the CFA nearly 30 years ago.
Many people do not understand the playoff recommendations within my website (www.1-college-football-controversy-thebcs.com), as they are too focused on a traditional playoff system (NFL style loser out system extending the season upwards of 3-5 weeks depending on how many teams you include). I can best describe the BCS Busters Regular Season Bracketed Playoff, as a series of four pre-season basketball style invitationals. If most of you watched the Michigan State-Gonzaga battle in the semi-finals of the Maui Invitational, you may understand the concepts. While we call these pre-season invitationals in college basketball due to the fact they occur before March Madness, we would make these invitational tournaments part of the regualr season in college football by eliminating the pre-season or non-conference games.
In the BCS Busters world of college football, we would play the conference games first and eliminate the bogus pre-season contests between Oregon State and Portland State, Florida State and The Citadel, or LSU and Appalachian State. These are ridiculous and eliminate the time needed in the regular season for the best schools in the country to square off on the field, before the bowl games. It would also provide a conference championship game for all conferences. Even the current conference championship games played in the Big-12, ACC, SEC and Big-East are bogus in my mind. It doesn't even necessarily match-up the two best teams from the conference. There are many examples that have occurred in the last several seasons to provide as evidence.
Last year in the Big-12, Oklahoma destroyed Colorado (again), in the title game, even though Texas had only one loss and blew out the Buffaloes 41-3 during the regular season. Now if Colorado, with a 7-4 record had beaten Oklahoma they would have earned the automatic BCS bid, much to the chagrin of the BCS and the bowls. Although the intent is to match up the two best teams within a conference, there simply isn't enough time in the regular season within the current system to do this. In my world (BCS Busters), we would include the top two teams from each division of the super conferences beginning in week nine of the regular season. These teams would make up the first of the four invitational tournaments I talked about earlier, and this bracket would be named the BCS Bracket. By eliminating the bogus pre-season games, we would save room in the regular season for the championship to be determined on the field, and provide a true conference championship game for each conference in the process.
Now I lose people when I say this as they automatically think of the NFL style loser out concept where the losers of the week nine match-ups would be finished with their season. This is not the case in the BCS Busters world of college football. In my system the winning teams continue to advance each week to play another winner and the losers of these contests would continue to play other teams who lost the previous week. Therefore, all teams would play a 12 game regular season and they would earn their schedule and the opportunity to play the best teams possible in the process. If the current 2005 season were to end today, here would be the following match-ups:
ACC
Florida St
Miami
Virginia Tech
Boston College
SEC
LSU
S. Carolina
Georgia
Auburn
BIG-East
S. Florida
Louisville
West Virginia
Rutgers
BIG-10
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Penn State
Northwestern
BIG-12
Texas
Oklahoma
Texas Tech
Colorado
PAC-10
Oregon
UCLA
USC
CAL
WAC / Mountain West
Nevada
Boise State
TCU
BYU
C-USA / MAC
C. Florida
Tulsa
N. Illinois
Akron
The fundamental concept of this regular season invitational is you have to earn your bracket. Within the BCS Bracket, each of the power conferences would get four teams, and the purpose is to create a conference championship game. The mid-major conferences, currently stereo-typed as the Non-BCS conferences, would only get two teams from each conference, but these teams are positioned at the end of the 32 team BCS Bracket. The purpose is not only to determine the conference champion, but ultimately to identify and brand the best mid-major (Non-BCS) team in the country, to be included in the Elite eight of the BCS Bracket Invitational (Week #11 of the regular season).
As the conference champions are determined in Week #10, the Week #11 match-ups are regionalized to lower the costs associated with traveling on short notice. One of the center pieces in the argument against a playoff format is how to reduce travel costs which allow fans to travel great distances on short notice. For example, the following format would apply to Weeks 11 & 12 of the regular season.
ACC v. SEC
Big 10 v. Big-East
Big 12 v. PAC-10
WAC / Mountain West v. C-USA / MAC
The Sun-Belt Conference teams would not be eligible for the BCS Bracket, but would be eligible for the newly created NIT Bracket to be discussed later. I will attempt to fill out this bracket, but keep in mind, the results of the bracket are not important. I've filled out many Bowl Brackets and NCAA March Madness Brackets and have yet to pick any better than 70%. The results are not as important as the concept of aligning the best teams in the country to square off on the field within the 12 week regular season guideline, which preserves and better yet, determines the all important bowl game experiences, minus the continual BCS controversies, which has its own set of agenda's and biases.
WEEK #9 Results: hypothetical BCS Buster Results.
Miami defeats Florida State
Virginia Tech defeats Boston College
LSU defeats S. Carolina
Auburn defeats Georgia
Ohio State defeats Notre Dame
Penn State defeats Northwestern
West Virginia defeats Rutgers
Louisville defeats S. Florida
Texas defeats Oklahoma
Texas Tech defeats Colorado
Oregon defeats UCLA
USC defeats CAL
Boise State defeats Nevada
TCU defeats BYU
Tulsa defeats C. Florida
Akron defeats N. Illinois
WEEK #10 Results:
Winners Bracket:
Miami defeats Virginia Tech
Auburn defeats LSU
Penn State defeats Ohio State
Louisville defeats West Virginia
Texas defeats Texas Tech
USC defeats Oregon
TCU defeats Boise State
Tulsa defeats Akron
Losers Bracket:
Florida State defeats Boston College
Georgia defeats S. Carolina
Notre Dame defeats Northwestern
Rutgers defeats S. Florida
Oklahoma defeats Colorado
UCLA defeats CAL
BYU defeats Nevada
N. Illinois defeats C. Florida
WEEK #11 - Elite 8 Championship Showdown
Winners Championship Bracket A
SEC Champion: Auburn defeats ACC Champion: Miami
BIG-10 Champion: Penn State defeats BIG-EAST Champion: Louisville
PAC-10 Champion: USC narrowly defeats BIG-12 Champion: Texas
Mountain West Champion: TCU defeats C-USA Champion: Tulsa
Winners Championship Bracket B
LSU defeats Virginia Tech
Ohio State defeats West Virginia
Oregon defeats Texas Tech
Boise State defeats Akron
Losers Championship Bracket A
Georgia defeats Florida State
Notre Dame defeats Rutgers
UCLA defeats Oklahoma
BYU defeats N. Illinios
Losers Championship Bracket B
S. Carolina defeats Boston College
Northwestern defeats S. Florida
California defeats Colorado
C. Florida defeats Nevada
WEEK #12 - Determining The Bowl Game Match-UPS
Winners Championship Bracket A - The Final Four (Winners to National Championship Rose Bowl - Losers to Orange Bowl
Auburn defeats Penn State
USC defeats TCU
USC v. Penn State: Rose Bowl
Auburn v. TCU: Orange Bowl
Winners Championship Bracket A (Consolation) - (Winners to Sugar Bowl - Losers to Houston Bowl)
Miami defeats Louisville
Texas defeats Tulsa
Miami v. Texas: Sugar Bowl
Louisville v. Tulsa: Houston Bowl
Winners Championship Bracket B (Winners to Rose Bowl #1 - Losers to Peach Bowl)
Ohio State defeats LSU
Oregon defeats Boise State
Ohio State v. Oregon: Rose Bowl #1
LSU v. Boise State: Peach Bowl
Winners Championship Bracket B (Consolation) - (Winners to Cotton Bowl - Losers to Motor City Bowl)
Virginia Tech defeats West Virginia
Texas Tech defeats Akron
Virginia Tech v. Texas Tech: Cotton Bowl
West Virginia v. Akron: Motor City Bowl
Losers Bracket A (Winners to Fiesta Bowl - Loser to Holiday Bowl)
Georgia defeats Notre Dame
UCLA defeats BYU
Georgia v. UCLA: Fiesta Bowl
Notre Dame v. BYU: Holiday Bowl
Losers Bracket A - Consolation (Winner to Gator Bowl - Loser to Liberty Bowl)
Florida State defeats Rutgers
Oklahoma defeats N. Illinois
Florida State v. Oklahoma: Gator Bowl
N. Illinois v. Rutgers: Liberty Bowl
Losers Bracket B (Winners to Insight Bowl - Losers to Car Care Bowl )
Northwestern defeats S. Carolina
California defeats C. Florida
Northwestern v. California: Insight Bowl
S. Carolina v. C. Florida: Car Care Bowl
Losers Bracket B - Consolation (Winners to Independence Bowl - Losers eliminated from Bowl Participation)
Boston College defeats S. Florida
Colorado defetas Nevada
Boston College v. Colorado: Independence Bowl
S. Florida and Nevada Eliminated from Bowl Participation ( 0-4 BCS Bracket Record)
Of course, your bracket may have completely different match-ups, but the important thing is you can begin to see how we can solve all of the variables that prevent a true crowning of a national champion in college football while upholding the importance of the regular season, preserving the bowl games and keeping the season length at 13 games in the process.
In my next blog I will break down the advantages of this system over the current BCS methods and introduce the parameters and participants of the other three brackets (Holiday Bracket, NIT Bracket and sportsmanship Bracket).
posted by bcsbusters @ 4:41 PM
5 comments
