Can I be honest for a moment? NCAA football should be embarrassed. Every season, the BCS manages to screw at least one team from a high profile bowl game. This year, in no particular order, these are the teams that have, at least, a small gripe: Auburn, Utah, Boise State, California, Louisville. Those are all teams that were either undefeated or had one loss and none of them will be in a bowl game that they deserve.
It is very possible, that this football season could end with four undefeated teams and three teams with one only one loss. The bowl system is so screwy… there will only be two match-ups between undefeated or one loss teams: USC and Oklahoma / Boise St and Louisville. Why not pair up Auburn and Utah? Why the heck is Pittsburgh in the BSC? (I know it’s because they won the Big East). It just seems like Boise State, California, or even Louisville deserved to be there over Pittsburgh.
I am annoyed that the Coach’s or AP poll help decide who goes to the BCS. I’ve never liked the polls. I’ve never understood why there are preseason polls. The teams that start high have an unfair advantage over the teams that do not start high. It is inevitable that at some point during the year, a top 10 team plays another top 10 team. (Try to follow me here, this might get complicated) If the team that is ranked higher wins, the lower team drops out of the top 10. Why? Didn’t the previous poll already predict that what happened would happen? Why would the team that lost to the team they were supposed to lose to drop in the polls? Why? WHY!?! Because it is an objective, non-intelligent method of ranking teams.
Here is a novel concept: What about a National Championship playoff system? I have heard many ‘officials’ in college football say that it would be terrible for their sport to have a playoff. Just like it has been terrible to have March Madness in college basketball. Just like it has been terrible to have the college world series in college baseball. Those have just been downright damaging to college sports, haven’t they? I mean, March Madness might be the least watched tournament in the history of sports. (Of course, I’m being sarcastic) March Madness is the only reason I even pay attention to college basketball.
You know what? I’ve got a better idea. If the bowl system is so revolutionary… why doesn’t the NFL adopt it? Forget the playoffs and Superbowl. (Nobody watches the Superbowl anyway.) Every team that finishes over .500 will be bowl eligible. We could have the Madden bowl. We could have the Marino bowl. We could have the Monday Night Football bowl. We could have the Fantasy Football bowl. We could have the Rose Pedal bowl. (This bowl would feature the winner of the NFC West with the AFC Central every year, no matter what.) Actually, let’s disband all the leagues and conferences. Let’s just do a writer’s poll to decide which two teams are the best and most deserving of the best bowl bid: Which of course should be called the Super-Orange Sugar-Cane bowl.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why the NFL has not done this yet. Ummm, well, maybe it’s because the playoff system actually works. Maybe it's because the playoff system generates excitement for the sport. Maybe it's because the playoff system produces huge amounts of revenue. Maybe it's because people actually like to seeing ONE team indisputably crowned the champion. (It’s called closure... most people like closure.) Maybe it's because the Superbowl brings in more TV viewers than any other television event of the year. Maybe it's because a playoff in the post-season makes sense!
Okay, I’ve complained enough. Here’s my proposal. Let’s have a 16 team playoff system. Let’s take some of the existing bowls and incorporate them in the system. There are eleven Class 1-A conferences. Give each conference champion an automatic berth and then give 5 'at large' bids. I counted… there are 28 existing bowls. Take 15 of them to do the playoffs and use the other 13 bowls for the 26 best teams that didn’t get into national tournament.
There is almost NO college football played during the month of December. Have the first round games be played during the second weekend of December. Have the quarterfinals played during the third weekend of December. Have the ‘final four’ play their games on New Year’s Day. Then have the championship game be played on a Friday or Saturday night, with at least a week’s time between the semi’s and the finals. With this schedule, you could still have the lesser bowls sprinkled throughout the last week of December, just like you do now.
I know that there are a lot of small details that would need to get worked out that I don’t really want to get into here. How to rotate the bowls so that they all get a turn at the bigger games; how to choose the 'at large' teams; how to ‘seed’ the teams; how to make sure that all the conferences choose their champions in the same way; travel details, scheduling details; TV and network details; and so the list goes on and on.
Let me give you an example of how this might work based on this year’s finish:
#1 USC vs. #16 North Texas
#8 Louisville vs. #9 Virginia Tech
#4 Utah vs. #13 LSU*
#5 Boise State vs. #12 Iowa*
#3 Auburn vs. #14 Pittsburgh
#6 Texas* vs. #11 Georgia*
#2 Oklahoma vs. #15 Toledo
#7 California* vs. #10 Michigan
*Means that they were one of my five at large choices.
With this model, there will be a few 9-2 and 9-3 teams upset… but, who cares? You lose two or three games in college football… and you run that risk. Two or three losses usually means you are out of the race for the championship. That’s the way it’s always been in college football. Here's the cool thing about this system: Conference championships become hugely important. Conference games take on a whole new life… especially in the smaller conferences. I seeded the above teams based on win/loss record… but there are several ways you could do this. I think this would generate huge amounts of money and interest. The smaller conferences would have to put up or shut up. Boise State would have to prove it in the first round against a tough Iowa team. Can you imagine how good the semi-finals would be if the top four seeds made it? All those teams are undefeated: #1 USC vs. #4 Utah and #2 Oklahoma vs. #3 Auburn. I would watch both of those games!
Here’s the possible schedule based on this year’s calendar:
First round: Saturday, December 11th
Quarterfinals: Saturday, December 18th
Semifinals: Saturday, January 1st
Championship: Saturday, January 8th
Anyhoo… I know college football will still be screwed up with their progressive, revolutionary bowl system (oh crap, there's my sarcasm again!) long after I’m gone from God’s green earth… but a guy can dream, can’t he?
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