BCS Playoff System

The state of the current system in major college football is a mess. Currently there is 1 undefeated team, 2 one loss teams and 10 two loss teams ranked in the top 25 of the final BCS Standings. Out of that we have a 1 loss team and a 2 loss team playing for the mythical National Championship.

So what makes that one loss team better then the other one loss team. You say it is strength of schedule. Well both played weak non-conference schedules but one team played a conference D-1 conference champion in preseason.

So what makes that two loss team better then the other 9 two loss teams in the top 25. Of those other 9 two loss teams, 7 are from BCS conferences that are, by diffinition better then the non-bcs conferences so there should be no excuses if a conference has a down year. If the powers who put those conferences on a pedestal now say there not worthy because the teams are no good then why is that conference a BCS conference? You cannot have it both ways.

The other 2 two loss teams come from conferences that are considered less worthy then the other 6 BCS conferences. However both those teams beat BCS conference teams last year in bowl games. So how does that work?

Do you see what I am getting at. With more and more players moving from the BCS conference teams to other schools because they can play and not just sit the bench, the so called lesser schools now have better talent and better coaches then ever before. BCS conference schools look to hire the coaches away from the non-bcs schools because of their success. How many NFL players on Sundays now come from the non-bcs conferences. The New England Patroits have 15 players of their 53 man roster from non-bcs conferences including Randy Moss.

So with so many questions about who is better, why can't we just put together a playoff system that will work. We already have the first 5 games of the playoff being played in what could be a 20 team, 17 game playoff system that would add a total of 7 games to what we have already. But not really since teams already would be playing in one bowl game so in reality it only adds a couple games to the current system and would extend the season by one week to Jan. 15th. It would require that 3 BCS conferences add a conference playoff to their conference schedules and it would also require the 4 independent teams to join a conference. That should not be to difficult as two of them already play in football conferences during basketball season.

So lets take a look at how easy a 20 team playoff system would work.

Five conferences currently have a conference playoff system. ACC, SEC, BIG 12, CONFERENCE USA and the MID-AMERICAN. Those would be part of the first round of the playoffs. They already exist so it would change nothing. The winner from the Conference USA and Mid-American conferences (non-bcs conferences) would seed into the first round of the 16 team playoff bracket. The conference champions from the WAC and the Sun Belt conferences would fill two more spots. No additional games yet. The conference championship games for the ACC, SEC and BIG 12 would be part of the round of 16.

The PAC-10, BIG 10 and BIG EAST would have to install a conference championship game. If you divide the PAC-10 into a north and south division you would have USC vs Oregon State this year in a conference championship game. If you split the BIG 10 into east and west you would have Ohio State vs Illinois in their conference championship game. The BIG EAST game would be West Virginia vs UConn.

That fills in your round of 16 teams. So after the conference championships you have; Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, West Virginia, USC, Ohio State, LSU, Hawaii and Central Florida say as winners coming out of those games. That brings you to the round of eight. Those 4 games could be played in the existing 4 BCS Bowl Games.

Now what I would suggest is that before the Championship game each year the NCAA announces how the brackets would lay out for the coming year. The Six BCS conferences would be drawn to see who plays who after conference championship games along with a draw to determine who of the 4 non-bcs conferences would play who first and where they would fall after their first round games. So each year the round of 16 teams would match different conferences against each other by draw. The bracket I have below is only one possible lineup.

Its really quiet simple so far and you could still have all the lesser non-bcs bowls for teams that did not qualify for the playoff system.

After the round of 8 you are left with 4 teams who play in the final 4 to determine the BCS Championship game. That is two of the 4 additional games needed to make this work. The other 2 games would come from the non-bcs teams adding to the numbers to get to 8 teams. So we add two additional bowl games after the 4 existing BCS games and move the BCS Championship game back one week to the 15th of January. That would tie into the Super Bowl hype and create a January Football madness of epic proportion. They could even play the BCS Game at the Same site as the Super Bowl each year to tie the games together. Imagine the money for the hosting city of both the Super Bowl and BCS Championship Game each year.

I think if the BCS and conferences put their collective egos aside for a few minutes and looked at the possibilites of this, it would make complete sense and we would finally have a true national champion for college football that would give a chance to the smaller schools as well as the bigger schools to hold up that coveted trophy.