The main arguments over the past couple of years against a playoff system have been the following:
1) The regular season is a playoff. If you lose one game, you’re destiny is now out of your own hands. Pundits argue, and I agree, there isn’t a more compelling regular season in any other sport.
2) The purists want to continue the time-honored tradition of bowl games.
3) It simply isn’t feasible given the students schedule.
I’ll now present to you my plan for a playoff system. It not only keeps the bowl games in the mix, but it also continues to make the regular season the most important of any other sport. More importantly, it gives the fans what they want, a champion that is crowned ON the field.
Here’s how it would work. The playoff would be a 12-team field consisting of the following:
1) The winners of the six BCS conferences would receive an automatic bid.
2) There would be two “at large” bids that would be selected by the highest remaining teams in the BCS standings (see, there is a use for the BCS after all!)
3) The winners of the 5 remaining non-BCS conferences would also receive an automatic bid. The two lowest rated schools of the five would have a “opening round game” to get into the 12 team field
In terms of seeding the teams and where the games would be played, I propose the following. The teams would be seeded by their final ranking in the BCS standings with the highest four teams receiving an opening round bye. In the first two rounds of the playoffs, the game is held at the higher seeded teams home field. For the semifinals, 2 of the 4 current BCS bowls would host the games. The championship game would be held at 1 of the remaining 2 BCS bowl sites. The semifinals and finals would rotate between the four BCS bowls, which would mean that the other BCS bowl game would only be left out once in three years and would be free to host their own game (just like the current system). For instance, this year the 12-team field would look like the following…
I know what you're thinking. Doesn't this de-value the regular season? What about the other bowl games? Won't that be too many games for our college athletes? When will they play these games and won't it interfere with final exams?
The answers to those questions above are more simple than you might think. First off, I think this setup would make the regular season even more exciting and meaningful. Now ALL those conference championship games will mean something because it is an automatic berth into the playoffs. Suddenly, the Boston College - Virginia Tech battle last weekend isn't just for a BCS bowl, but a shot at a national championship and another home game. The C-USA and MAC championships, what a snooze fest right. Suddenly, football fans from around the country will take notice as these teams might be possible first round opponents for their beloved teams. And after this season, you certainly can't tell me that the champion of one of these conferences wouldn't have a shot at beating a so-called big time college football school. Not only that, it would provide the little guys with a chance to make a run, much like the NCAA basketball tournament. But who I am kidding, that isn't a popular event right?
The other bowl games would simply be as they are currently. Sure, one or two bowl games might have to go away, but did you really care about the Insight.com bowl or the exciting International bowl? The four major bowls would also be happy as they now get to host the national semifinals or the national championship. Even on the year that they don't they could still choose from their traditional matchup. Instead of a USC-Illinois Rose Bowl this year, we'd be left with Arizona State-Illinois. Hardly a drop off.
Now, to answer the question of would it be too many games for our college athletes. Again, there is a simple solution. The first step wold be to scale the regular season back to 11 games. This would hardly be a stretch considering the regular season was 11 games only a few short years ago. Secondly, the maximum number of games anyone could realistically play is 15 games. That is only 2 games more than they play now.
Finally, the question as to when would these games be played. Since we scaled the regular season back by a game, the playoffs could start as early as December 1st (this year) for the play in game. The next two rounds of the playoffs would be flexible, with three weeks to choose from to play two rounds of games. The reason for the flexible schedule is to allow the student athletes to take a week off to focus on their final exams. Therefore, the national semifinals would be set at least a couple days prior to Christmas. The national semifinals could then be held at the bowl sites in the couple days following New Years with the championship game one week later. The after New Years schedule would remain the same and the students would still be home for Christmas and off for final exams.
The one added benefit to this proposed playoff system that we haven't discussed is the amount of parity it would add to college football. Suddenly, top high school students from around the country could choose just about any school and still have the opportunity to compete for a national championship. This would also help alleviate one of the major criticisms that fans who prefer the NFL have over college football. That criticism is that the same teams year in and year out are always good ...that there is never any new blood. Suddenly, seasons like the one we just had might become more frequent, which is a great thing for college football.
