Thursday, November 16, 2006

The 3000th idea for a college football playoff system

Ok, here we go. I'll state before I begin that this is both wildly optimistic and will never happen, but lets have fun with it anyway.

12 teams, much like the NFL playoff system in structure, and 11 of the teams are the conference champions, with 1 wild card. For the rest of the teams that don't make the system (i.e. the enraged SEC fans that will eventually hunt this down and scream at me), they can still play in their horrendous and meaningless bowl games and have their AD's covered in millions of dollars (I don't understand why this makes fans happy, but whatever). In fact, I'd play the whole tournament in one spot: the travel seems to money be a key point of the money fake reasons why they won't allow them money to have a playoff. Lets give it to the #1 overall seed, they can host it on campus for the 3 weeks it would take.

Here's how my system would look right now:
1) Ohio State (B10)
BYE

8) BYU (MWest)
9) Houston (CUSA)

5) Rutgers (BEast)
12) Middle Tennessee (Sun)

BYE
4) USC (P-10)

BYE
3) Florida (SEC)

6) Texas (B12)
11) Central Michigan (MAC)

7) Wake Forest (ACC)
9) Boise State (WAC)

BYE
2) Michigan (Wild)

Is it sort of unfair to teams in big conferences? Absolutely. You know why? Because they have a chance to prove it on the field during the season, and they didn't do it. LSU lost twice, Auburn lost twice. Simple: Win your games. The counterpoint is: Finally the small schools get a chance to prove themselves on the field. Any given Sunday and all that. I'd love to see teams like Central Michigan get a chance to play with the big boys.

Besides, a key factor of the NCAA success in college basketball is the fact that there are George Mason scenarios, Valparaiso, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Hampton. With this system, theres a chance for meaningful upsets like that. And really, most of the time, you are going to end up with the 5 or so teams that everyone thought was the best over the year anyway. Theres yet to be a year in the BCS era where the top 3 teams were all thought to be from one conference.

As far as teams that miss out, they can go play in the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl as they traditionally would. In fact, they can finally actually you know, stay in tradition, and invite the schools they typically would. No more Big 12 teams in the Rose Bowl.

Another criticism thats been made of my system by friends I've shown it to is that the NCAA tourney doesn't invite just conference champs. Well, yeah, but the NCAA tourney also allows 65 teams and NEVER claims to have crowned the best team champion. College Football has been so obsessed with crowning the best team champion that it has a formula devoted to it.

Anyway, when this happens, then I'll pay attention to College Football. Until then, I'll stick to sports that actually have a playoff system. You go enjoy your Fort Worth Bowls, 6-5 teams that have no cultural relevance.

1 comment:

Health Blog said...

In fact, they can finally actually you know, stay in
tradition, and invite the schools they typically would.