Build a College Football Playoff!

[Chubby]

Conference champs from: PAC 10, SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12
At Large Bids: 2 (based on highest BCS rankings not a conference champ from above conferences)

New Year's Day
Rose Bowl: PAC 10 Champ vs Big 10 Champ
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 Champ vs At Large #1
Orange Bowl: Big East Champ vs ACC Champ
Sugar Bowl: SEC Champ vs At Large #2

7-13 days after New Year's (on weekend)
Saturday 4pm- National Semifinal 1: #1 Ranked BCS vs #4 Ranked BCS
Saturday 7pm - National Semifinal 2: #2 Ranked BCS vs #3 Ranked BCS

One week after semifinals
Saturday 7pm- National Championship: Winners of semifinals vs eash other

After the new year's day polls the BCS rankings at that point would seed the winners of the Rose/Cotton/Orange/Sugar Bowls to determine who plays who in the semis.

[rowech]

I've had this for a long time...rank conferences by strength of conference. Independents barred from post-season play. Top conference receives 4 bids, next two conferences 3 bids, next four conferences receive 2 bids, and the remaining conferences get one. (these numbers might be different now but you get the idea)

Teams are then seeded according to the BCS formula. Top 8 receive a bye, the remaining 16 play at the home field of the higher seed. Winners advance and play the top 8 teams at the home field of the higher seed. Now, down to 8 teams and 7 games, 7 bowls rotate through the cycle of having quarterfinal games (4 years), semifinals (2 years), and final 1 year.

Play out the rest of the tournament.

[gstelmack]

I think you need to back it up a week. Bowls started on 12/20 this year; no reason that can't be the opening weekend of the playoffs. I would also argue for the at-large bids to come from the highest-ranked mid-majors, as the teams that don't win their BCS conference have already been eliminated in my mind and don't deserve a crack at the national championship.

And I agree with rowech: Notre Dame needs to join a conference or deal with being left out. Get in the Big 10 already and make them play a conference championship game (which is basically round 1 for most conferences).

[sooner333]

I think any PLAYOFF system with traditional bowl matchups is inherently flawed. You essentially could be giving the Orange or Rose Bowl winner an almost free pass to the top four while making the SEC or Big 12 champs play a good team by default (having to play the next best teams, such as Utah or Texas this year).

It also could screw over the Big 10 and Pac 10 if they were 1 and 2. One team would either be taken out at the beginning even though they were a top two team making the playoff itself somewhat of a sham. This is probably worse (albiet less likely) than the first scenario.

[Racer]

I don't see why a college playoff can't have 12 teams. Chances are, the two teams playing for the championship will only play three playoff games which is the same number they would play in an eight team playoff.

Here would be my system

1. Eliminate the Big East as a BCS conference.
2. The winners of the Pac-10, ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Big 10 get automatic bids.
3. The top ranked non-BCS team also gets an automatic bid.
4. The top 4 of the 6 automatic bids above get first round byes. The remaining two teams are seeded 5 and 6.
5. The remaining 6 invitations go the next 6 highest ranked teams in the BCS rankings regardless of conference. The top two get home games in the 1st round.
6. The first two rounds will be a home game for the higher seed.
7. First round matchups between teams from the same conference will be avoided if possible.
8. The semifinals and the championship game will be played at one of the four traditional Big bowl games. The four bowls will be rotated out on a four year basis. The bowl site that isn't involved in the playoff gets to choose whatever two teams it wants that don't make the playoffs.
9. Bowls will continue to exist for teams not invited to the playoffs.
10. Roll back the regular season to 11 games. Allow conferences to continue to have championship games since they are a big money maker.

[larrymcg421]

16 team tourney comprised of 11 conference champions and 5 wildcards.

If you didn't win your conference, then STFU. You may have a second chance, but it shouldn't be counted on.

I think this would lead to more interestig OOC games scheduled.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by rowech

Independents barred from post-season play.

Why the hate for Army & Navy?

[Young Drachma]

I like a 12-team playoff, but it'd require lots of conference changes that we don't have right now. I'd cannibalize the Sun Belt and WAC for the worthwhile teams and send the rest to FCS.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Why the hate for Army & Navy?

+1

No need to do this, I say. Those teams really shouldn't be in a conference, Air Force works because it's not feasible to be an independent in the west anyway.

They need this sort of flexibility and Navy already has a tie-in with the Eagle Bank Bowl. And it's be great to see Army get back to using the option and being competitive again.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I like a 12-team playoff, but it'd require lots of conference changes that we don't have right now. I'd cannibalize the Sun Belt and WAC for the worthwhile teams and send the rest to FCS.

This is the only way I'd even consider supporting a playoff. No other plan is an upgrade of what we currently have.

I wouldn't go 12 team, though. 8 at the very most. I don't want college football to even come close to resembling NCAA basketball.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Racer

1. Eliminate the Big East as a BCS conference.

Other than being stuck in 2003, is there a reason for this?

[rowech]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

+1

No need to do this, I say. Those teams really shouldn't be in a conference, Air Force works because it's not feasible to be an independent in the west anyway.

They need this sort of flexibility and Navy already has a tie-in with the Eagle Bank Bowl. And it's be great to see Army get back to using the option and being competitive again.

Well, when I first toyed around with this a while back, I had Army, Navy, Notre Dame, and some others join together and form a conference among themselves.

[Racer]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Other than being stuck in 2003, is there a reason for this?

They aren't the same conference they were back when they had Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. The Big East in football certainly isn't as strong on a year to year basis as the other five conferences. Also, I could be mistaken, but it seems like the Mountain West has been as good as a conference as the Big East (the top 3 teams anyways) lately. Rather then give the Mountain West an automatic bid I think it would just make more sense to revoke the Big East's BCS status.

[Big Fo]

Big 12 Champ                                                                
Wild card #3     ________                                      SEC East Champ

Big East Champ                _________
ACC Champ    _________

Pac Ten Champ                         ____________  ______________
Wild card #2   _________

Big Ten Champ               __________                         SEC West Champ
Wild card #2    __________

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Racer

They aren't the same conference they were back when they had Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. The Big East in football certainly isn't as strong on a year to year basis as the other five conferences. Also, I could be mistaken, but it seems like the Mountain West has been as good as a conference as the Big East (the top 3 teams anyways) lately. Rather then give the Mountain West an automatic bid I think it would just make more sense to revoke the Big East's BCS status.

And in ten years if they got really good as a conference do we go back and change the rules again?

I think the OP's layout works pretty well with mine. I would have taken the four top teams that won their bowl game this year(Florida, Texas, USC, Utah) and toss them into a 4 team playoff. Nobody has a right to complain after that. I have a tough time seeing this version leaving a team on the outside who deserved to be there. If you are good enough to get to a top teir bowl and win it, you deserve to be in the final four.

[Big Fo]

Do what UEFA does to rate the various leagues in soccer for European representation, have each conference win points for out of conference/bowl victories, keep track of the points over a five-year span after which the oldest results get dropped to make room for the new ones.

That way if one of the supposedly better conferences has a few woeful seasons they'll be replaced by the next highest ranked.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Racer

They aren't the same conference they were back when they had Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. The Big East in football certainly isn't as strong on a year to year basis as the other five conferences. Also, I could be mistaken, but it seems like the Mountain West has been as good as a conference as the Big East (the top 3 teams anyways) lately. Rather then give the Mountain West an automatic bid I think it would just make more sense to revoke the Big East's BCS status.

Not to attack you at all, but the thought the Big East still being the weakest of the BCS conferences is right up there with "the NBA sucks", "there's no parity in baseball", "Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop", and so on.

Its been said so many times that its just the popular line of thinking now, but the evidence just doesn't back it up. This season Football Frontier ranked the Big East as the 2nd best conference in football. Jeff Sagarin had them 5th; comfortably ahead the Big 10. In '07 Sagarin had the Big East 4th (ahead of the ACC and Big 10). In '06 he had them 2nd. You have to go back to '05 for the last time he had them ranked last among the BCS conferences.

After the ACC raid were they the worst of the BCS conferences? Yes. I don't think anyone would dispute that. Take away 3 of the top teams from any conference and they'd be hurting. However, they've pretty much caught up to the rest of the leagues now and what holds them back in people's minds is the fact that teams like Rutgers, Cincinnatti and South Florida aren't seen as traditional powerhouses. Pittsburgh hasn't been relevant in a long time and now WVU is seen as either a creation of Rich Rodriguez, all Pat White, or a mixture of the 2.

The ironic part of the whole thing is a lot of people that push for a playoff want to take away the BCS' automatic bid (at least a lot of the one's I see), yet a big part of why they want a playoff is to take some of the power away from the traditional powers. You'd think the Big East would be something they hold onto as proof that you don't have to be a traditional power to compete, but instead they'd rather empower the other 5 BCS conferences even more by removing the Big East's auto bid.

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Do what UEFA does to rate the various leagues in soccer for European representation, have each conference win points for out of conference/bowl victories, keep track of the points over a five-year span after which the oldest results get dropped to make room for the new ones.

That way if one of the supposedly better conferences has a few woeful seasons they'll be replaced by the next highest ranked.

And this would screw over any conference who was willing to play a credible OOC schedule.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I think you need to back it up a week. Bowls started on 12/20 this year; no reason that can't be the opening weekend of the playoffs. I would also argue for the at-large bids to come from the highest-ranked mid-majors, as the teams that don't win their BCS conference have already been eliminated in my mind and don't deserve a crack at the national championship.

And I agree with rowech: Notre Dame needs to join a conference or deal with being left out. Get in the Big 10 already and make them play a conference championship game (which is basically round 1 for most conferences).

True, I just like the idea of using the traditional big bowls as part of a playoff (with traditional matuchups)

[stevew]

Go top 8 teams with no auto bids. Round 1 is weekend of Thanksgiving. Round 2 is the following week. BCS title game the Thursday after new years. All bowls go back to their previous alignments. Teams elminated from the title tourney can go to bowls.

[Vegas Vic]

I don't think that playoffs are going to happen for at least 15-20 years (if ever), but if they do, they'll be done in a similar manner to the lower NCAA divisions and the NFL. The preliminary rounds will be held at the home field of the higher seeded team, and the championship will be held at a neutral site. It's not practical from a logistical or revenue standpoint to have three rounds of playoffs at neutral sites.

They could start the season a week earlier and begin the playoffs the last week in November (with the losers having the opportunity to accept a bowl bid).

[RainMaker]

12 team playoff.

All conference champions who are ranked within the top 20 of the BCS rankings get an automatic bid (called earned access and is done in D2). The rest of the teams are at-large and chosen by the BCS rankings. The 4 byes go to the 4 highest ranked conference champions. This would set up a tournament with the following:

Byes
Oklahoma
Florida
USC
Utah

8 Penn State vs 9 Boise State - Winner plays 1 Oklahoma
5 Texas vs 12 Virginia Tech - Winner plays 4 Utah
6 Alabama vs 11 Cincinnati - Winner plays 3 USC
7 Texas Tech vs 10 Ohio State - Winer plays 2 Florida

* High seed gets homefield up until the Semi-finals. There is then a stadium used for the semis and a stadium used for the championship. Imagine the turnout for a Final 4 weekend of college football.

I don't see how any teams could legitimately complain about not getting in.
The byes assure that no team can really "rest their starters". The "earned access" for the conference champions gives the conferences meaning, but also doesn't allow bad conference champs into the tournament. You could make the earned access bid the top 15 if you want, which would have knocked out Virginia Tech and put in TCU.

The tournament would start 1-2 weeks after conference championships. The championship can be played at the same time and date. In fact, you can maintain the bowls for the other schools not in the playoffs. You can even allow schools eliminated from the tournament to appear in a post New Years Day bowl (like we have now). I don't think it's necessary, but still an option.

I don't know how that tournament wouldn't have been tons of fun to watch. Getting a chance to see Florida and USC. Whether Utah or Boise could hang with the big boys. A lot more fun than watching the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

[Young Drachma]

The cool thing about a playoff, is it would allow schools who don't make the playoffs to still go to bowls. It would breathe new life into the bowls by getting rid of the tie-ins and allow them to cannibalize and be like mini-NITs of their own.

That'd be the concession made for allowing a playoff.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Not to attack you at all, but the thought the Big East still being the weakest of the BCS conferences is right up there with "the NBA sucks", "there's no parity in baseball", "Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop", and so on.

Its been said so many times that its just the popular line of thinking now, but the evidence just doesn't back it up. This season Football Frontier ranked the Big East as the 2nd best conference in football. Jeff Sagarin had them 5th; comfortably ahead the Big 10. In '07 Sagarin had the Big East 4th (ahead of the ACC and Big 10). In '06 he had them 2nd. You have to go back to '05 for the last time he had them ranked last among the BCS conferences.

After the ACC raid were they the worst of the BCS conferences? Yes. I don't think anyone would dispute that. Take away 3 of the top teams from any conference and they'd be hurting. However, they've pretty much caught up to the rest of the leagues now and what holds them back in people's minds is the fact that teams like Rutgers, Cincinnatti and South Florida aren't seen as traditional powerhouses. Pittsburgh hasn't been relevant in a long time and now WVU is seen as either a creation of Rich Rodriguez, all Pat White, or a mixture of the 2.

The ironic part of the whole thing is a lot of people that push for a playoff want to take away the BCS' automatic bid (at least a lot of the one's I see), yet a big part of why they want a playoff is to take some of the power away from the traditional powers. You'd think the Big East would be something they hold onto as proof that you don't have to be a traditional power to compete, but instead they'd rather empower the other 5 BCS conferences even more by removing the Big East's auto bid.

I think from top to bottom, the Big East isn't bad. They have a lot of parity and no real doormats. I think what people see is their lack of powerhouses. They don't have a top 10 team.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Chubby

Conference champs from: PAC 10, SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12
At Large Bids: 2 (based on highest BCS rankings not a conference champ from above conferences)

New Year's Day
Rose Bowl: PAC 10 Champ vs Big 10 Champ
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 Champ vs At Large #1
Orange Bowl: Big East Champ vs ACC Champ
Sugar Bowl: SEC Champ vs At Large #2

7-13 days after New Year's (on weekend)
Saturday 4pm- National Semifinal 1: #1 Ranked BCS vs #4 Ranked BCS
Saturday 7pm - National Semifinal 2: #2 Ranked BCS vs #3 Ranked BCS

One week after semifinals
Saturday 7pm- National Championship: Winners of semifinals vs eash other

After the new year's day polls the BCS rankings at that point would seed the winners of the Rose/Cotton/Orange/Sugar Bowls to determine who plays who in the semis.

That's almost exactly what I thought when I saw the thread title, and it's also probably the most realistic scenario. We're not going to see a playoff with the Sun Belt Champion before we see something like this first. I especially love keeping the BCS Bowl tie-ins. Some years you'd have #1 v. #2 at the Rose Bowl, which makes those bowl games still incredibly relevant.

There's probably have to be some kind of provision for Notre Dame (maybe they get one of those at-large bids if they're top 10 in the BCS), and possibly for the highest ranked non-BCS Conference champion (if top 10 in BCS).

[Vegas Vic]

Originally Posted by molson

That's almost exactly what I thought when I saw the thread title, and it's also probably the most realistic scenario.

No it's not. Any scenerio that involves fan bases from two schools traveling to neutral sites for three consecutive games is not realistic. The format that the lower NCAA divisions and the NFL use is a realistic scenerio.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I think from top to bottom, the Big East isn't bad. They have a lot of parity and no real doormats. I think what people see is their lack of powerhouses. They don't have a top 10 team.

True. I think, though, all this anti-Big East stuff would have sounded downright ridiculous a mere 2 years ago when you had West Virginia, Louisville, and Rutgers all as legitimate Top 10 type of teams.

[albionmoonlight]

I'm not for a playoff. But, if I were:

1.) Divide 1A football in half, leaving 60 teams in the top half.
2.) Make 6 conferences of 10 teams each.
3.) Each team plays 9 conference games a year, and two pre-scheduled OOC games.
4.) The last regular season game for all teams is an OOC game that is "dynamically scheduled," intended for the top teams to play top OOC opponents that they missed.
5.) The six conference champs and two wild cards (determined by a collection of computer rankings) go to an eight team playoff.

Edit . . .

Or, thinking about it. Maybe make 10 conferences of 6 teams each. And have the playoff be the conference champs and two wild cards. And the top four teams would get a first round bye. That setup means more OOC games, and probably a better determination of the WC teams.

[JonInMiddleGA]

albion - if you're going to take over scheduling then you're probably looking at having to get into the business of guarantees from the NCAA/league, because the travel costs for unattractive games plus lost revenue from scheduling more profitable scenarios could become downright prohibitive for some schools. The trickle down isn't necessarily in the cutting of football but rather in the sports that depend on football for their revenue ... which starts to fly in the face of Title IX.

For every USC vs Penn State matchup you generate, you're also going to create a Washington vs Wake Forest deal.

[Young Drachma]

Maybe we should stop the ruse of college athletes, let colleges license their brands to a separate league that just makes college football the NFL minor league and be done with it.

[albionmoonlight]

JiMGA--

I realize that my proposal is pretty unrealistic. But, if what we really care about is getting the top teams in the country into a mid-sized single elimination tournament, that seems like a good way to do it.

Personally, I think that you lose too much good stuff about college football with the above layout. It really depends on how badly people want a playoff.

Personally, I'm old school. Win your conference. Go to your tie-in bowl. Let the sportwriters fight it out.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I think from top to bottom, the Big East isn't bad. They have a lot of parity and no real doormats. I think what people see is their lack of powerhouses. They don't have a top 10 team.

This year.

If WVU didn't blow that game against Pitt on the last week of the season last year, they roll into the National Championship game with the 3rd ranked team far behind them.

[Swaggs]

They should go the pro wrestling route, with a few charasmatic executives drafting teams into conferences every five seasons.

[Scarecrow]

Screw any tie ins - just the top 16 teams ranked via the BCS.
Also, screw all the corporate sponsored named bowls - they can still have them, they just aren't part of this.

The NCAA College Football playoff system :

12/13/2008

International Bowl: Oklahoma (1) vs. BYU (16)

Sun Bowl: Penn State (8) vs. Boise State (9)

Holiday Bowl: USC (5) vs. Cincinnati (12)

Humanitarian Bowl: Alabama (4) vs. Oklahoma State (13)

Alamo Bowl: Texas (3) vs. Georgia Tech (14)

Independence Bowl: Utah (6) vs. TCU (11)

Peach Bowl: Texas Tech (7) vs. Ohio State (10)

Copper Bowl: Florida (2) vs. Georgia (15)

12/20/2008

Sugar Bowl: Oklahoma (1) vs. Penn State (8)

Liberty Bowl: Alabama (4) vs. USC (5)

Gator Bowl: Texas (3) vs. Utah (6)

Cotton Bowl: Florida (2) vs. Texas Tech (7)

12/27/2008

Orange Bowl: Oklahoma (1) vs. Alabama (4)

Fiesta Bowl: Florida (2) vs. Texas (3)

1/3/2009

Rose Bowl: Oklahoma (1) vs. Florida (2)

[Crim]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Big 12 Champ                                                                
Wild card #3     ________                                      SEC East Champ

Big East Champ                _________
ACC Champ    _________

Pac Ten Champ                         ____________  ______________
Wild card #2   _________

Big Ten Champ               __________                         SEC West Champ
Wild card #2    __________

LOL awesome!

[albionmoonlight]

Being a bit more serious--what about

1.) Get rid of the BCS
2.) Have conference champs go to their designed bowls--like in the old days
3.) After the bowls, have the AP #1 and the AP #2 meet in the "championship" game.
4.) If the "championship" game would be a re-match of a bowl that was just played, then the "championship" will instead be AP #1 v AP #3.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Crim

LOL awesome!

No kidding. Thumbs up for Big Fo.

[Dr. Sak]

Any theory that has conference realignment is not going to happen. These schools don't only just play football in those conferences, but they play every other sport.

[Logan]

Except ND. Fuckers.