It has been a year, almost to the day, since Dr. Dre attempted to straighten out the world of sports. This past week at the Owyhee Plaza Hotel in Boise Dr. Dreamonus Nochance came out of hiding following death threats from Longhorn Nation to meet with Boise State's head football coach Dan Hawkins. "This BCS nonsense has to end" Hawkins told him, and the argument was compelling even if the tears seemed a little forced. Dr. Dre set the clock back to February 10, 2006 and went about kidnapping, well, a lot of important people in charge of NCAA football.

Once he had them his mission was very clear. Donning the mask from the Saw trilogy and speaking to a captive audience Dr. Dre urged them to devise a system capable of determining a true champion. No changes would be deemed unreasonable and so the group began their work. A little incentive went a long way, and while the dirty stench of their notepads was quite nasty the resulting system proved quite effective.

The season that was 2006 is now a distant memory, replaced by the season that should have been. Their first order of business was to level the playing field for all teams. No longer would some teams face a conference with 8, 9, 10 or 11 teams without a conference title game. Now all conferences would feature two six team divisions with a winner crowned in a championship game.

There would be a lot of kicking and screaming involved in making every conference play like the ACC, Big XII, Conference USA, MAC and SEC. The biggest tantrum was thrown by Notre Dame until Regis Philbin gave his blessing to the new system. "Hey, we can still beat up on the military academies!" he screamed. The new alignments were certain to be criticized by many, but here is the outline of the changes. (teams added indicated with a *)

ACC, Conference USA, MAC and SEC: No changes.

Big XII - Colorado State replaces Iowa State

Big East North - *Notre Dame, Rutgers, Connecticut, *Army, *Navy, Syracuse

Big East South - Louisville, West Virginia, South Florida, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, *Temple

Big Ten North - MIchigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Penn State

Big Ten South - Ohio State, *Iowa State, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue

Pacific 12 North - Oregon, Oregon State, California, Stanford, Washinton, Washington State

Pacific 12 South - USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, *Fresno State, *Utah

Sun Belt Southeast - Troy, LA-Monroe, LA-Lafayette, FL-Atlantic, FL-International, *Lousiana Tech

Sun Belt South - North Texas, Arkansas State, Middle TN, *TCU, *New Mexico, *New Mexico State

WAC Pacific - San Jose State, Hawaii, Nevada, *UNLV, *San Diego State, *San Diego

WAC Mountain - Idaho, Boise State, Utah State, *BYU, *Wyoming, *Air Force

The Mountain West conference received a lifetime membership to Napster, the complete first season of 90210 on DVD and an killer Darth Vader action figure as compensation for being dissolved. San Diego won a game of cut throat pool at Rack 'Em Billards with UC-Davis and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to win the right to jump up to Division I-A.

Shuffling up these teams had very little impact on most of the conferences when the season was "replayed". In fact, many results from conference championship games were identical. Two slight differences were that Ohio State, USC and Boise State won their games over Michigan, California and Hawaii respectively on a neutral field as opposed to the regular season wins at home. Title game results:

ACC: Wake Forest beats Georgia Tech

Big Ten: Ohio State beats Michigan

Big XII: Oklahoma beats Nebraska

Conf USA: Houston beats Southern Mississippi

MAC: Central Michigan beats Ohio

Pac-12: USC beats California

SEC: Florida beats Arkansas

WAC: Boise State beats Hawaii

Then there were the two afftected conferences. Suddenly the Irish had to fight for their supper, but they still made it into the championship game.

Big East: Louisville beats Notre Dame

Sun Belt: TCU beats Troy

Realizing that this left 10 teams and that lesser conferneces should not be afforded an equal shot at the title, there was a need to have the winners from the 4 previously non-BCS conferences play each other for the right to join a final field of 8. It was determined that these games would take place as a double header on December 12 with the following results.

MAC vs. Conf USA: Central Michigan beats Houston

Sun Belt vs. WAC: Boise State beats TCU

After much deliberation it was determined that due to the long season for these playoffs teams, games would need to be staggered by 10 days during the three game tournament to follow. There would be some swearing about what to do with the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowl titles as well so opening round games were played in those venues. Double headers were hosted on December 26 and 27 to start the festivities.

#1 Ohio State beats #8 Central Michigan (Fiesta Bowl)

#2 Florida beats #7 Wake Forest (Sugar Bowl)

#3 USC beats #6 Oklahoma (Rose Bowl)

#5 Boise State beats #4 Louisville (Orange Bowl)

January 4 and 5 would feature the semifinals played in New Orleans at the Superdome, March Madness style.

#1 Ohio State beats #5 Boise State

#2 Florida beats #3 USC

Two teams are forced to stick out the season a week longer than in the current system, but this was deemed a small price to pay for keeping them healthy by allowing a few extra days of rest. January 16 would be the championship game held in St. Louis at the Edward Jones Dome.

#2 Florida beats #1 Ohio State

Some would say the end result is the same national champion so why bother. I say many people would like to see two undefeated teams face off in the semifinals and for USC to have their shot at Florida. Even after all of these games take place, there would still be a bevy of great bowl games to watch. Eleven to be exact and here are the potential pairings:

LSU vs. Michigan

Wisconsin vs. Auburn

Notre Dame vs. Virginia Tech

Arkansas vs. West Virginia

Texas vs. Tennessee

California vs. Nebraska

Oregon State vs. BYU

Texas A&M vs. Rutgers

Boston College vs. Hawaii

Georgia Tech vs. Penn State

Georgia vs. TCU

Others have suggested a 16 team tournament, leaving the current conference affiliations alone. Here is how I would see that playoff turning out, allowing every conference champion a bid and taking the BCS rankings to determine the at-large bids.

FIRST ROUND

#1 Ohio State d. #16 Troy

#2 Florida d. #15 Houston

#3 Michigan d. #14 Central Michigan

#4 LSU d. #13 BYU

#5 USC d. #12 Wake Forest

#6 Louisville d. #11 Notre Dame

#7 Wisconsin d. #10 Oklahoma

#8 Boise State d. #9 Auburn

QUARTERFINALS

#1 Ohio State d. #8 Boise State

#2 Florida d. #7 Wisconsin

#6 Louisville d. #3 Michigan

#5 USC d. #4 LSU

SEMIFINALS

#5 USC d. #1 Ohio State

#2 Florida d. #6 Louisville

CHAMPIONSHIP

#2 Florida d. #5 USC

The benefit of this would be for Michigan and Wisconsin to have their chance, but the result would be quite a few first round blowouts of very little interest. Maybe three of those eight games I see as worth watching.

For now I will cut off this rather lengthy blog and leave it up for discussion as we close the book on the college football season.