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The BCS And A College Football Playoff

By Big Tent Democrat

It's too bad the country's problems would not be as easy for Barack Obama to solve as it would be to fix college football's ridiculous system for crowning a national champion. Of course Barack Obama was joking when he said "he would make a college football playoff 'one of my legislative priorities' as President." But I am sure he wishes the country's problems would be as easy to solve as the college football mess. Because there is nothing so simple.

College football already has the mechanisms for choosing the teams that would be in an 8 team playoff. The champions of the 5 major conferences (SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, Big Ten and ACC) receive automatic bids to BCS bowls. The BCS even has a mechanism for an automatic bid for lesser conferences - whose champions get an automatic bid if they are among the Top 12 BCS ranked teams at the end of the season. The remaining bids are at large and can be chosen by the BCS rankings. Will there be griping? Perhaps. But if you did not win your conference how serious a gripe can you have?

More . . .

This year it is possible that the champions of the 2 perceived strongest conferences, the SEC and the Big 12, may produce undefeated champions who would play in the championship game. Wouldn't that be a fair result? In a word, no. Because while we may think that the SEC and the Big 12 are the top conference, that is not something that means the best team in the country plays in those conferences.

More importantly, there is no guarantee, indeed, there almost never is a conclusion that produces to clear cut choices to play in the championship game. For example, if Oklahoma defeats Texas Tech (Oklahoma is likely to be at least a 7 point favorite in that game) and if Florida defeats Alabama in the SEC championship game (Florida is likely to be at least a 7 point favorite in that game), the conference champions of the SEC, the Big 12, the Pac 10 and the Big Ten will all likely be 1 loss teams. While I think Florida is the best team, and others will think Oklahoma or USC are the best teams (no one will think Penn State is the best team), those are just opinions. who is the best team should be decided on the field.

And nothing could be easier - use the BCS system as the first round of the playoffs. The Rose Bowl can have the Big Ten v. Pac 10 champions, the Sugar Bowl can have SEC champion v. an At Large. The Orange Bowl can have the ACC Champion v. an At Large. The Fiesta Bowl can have the Big 12 Champion v. an At Large.

Then 4 teams advance to the Semifinals, played the next week at designated sites. And the week after - the TRUE Championship game. By January 15, playing just 3 more games involving just 4 teams and using the existing BCS system, we will have crowned a national college football champion - ON THE FIELD.

This is truly the easiest problem to solve that one could imagine.

Post Script - I decided to add an example of how this would work this year -

First Round of the BCS PLAYOFFS

Rose Bowl - USC v. Penn State

Orange Bowl - ACC Champion (NC? FSU? Miami? Who knows?) v. Texas (as an At Large)

Sugar - Alabama (or Florida) v. At Large (Texas Tech?)

Fiesta - Texas Tech (Big 12 champion) v. Utah (automatic bid as lesser conference champion)

Some will not doubt see some major hitches in this - What if Missouri wins the Big 12 championship? What do you do with Oklahoma. Texas and Texas Tech? And what about Florida and Alabama? good questions. Here is my answer - the BCS already has a rule that no more than 2 teams from a conference can be in the BCS. Apply it here. No conference can have more than two teams. The BCS ranking will choose the non-champion that gets in. If Texas leads Oklahoma or vice versa, then that is who gets in. As I said before, if you did not win your conference, then your gripe rings hollow to me.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 09, 2008 (boomark / email).