Hello college football fans. Now I know that before I start there are those of you that will not like my thoughts and ideas on this topic. One reason could be that your team has benefited from polls that are made by coaches and writers that dont watch the games and are bias. Another could be you love all these bowls and regularly go to the Carquest Bowl and love the atmosphere there, right.
First thing to be done is start the season on the second to last saturday in August. Everyone that is, not just a few select teams that warm up on cupcakes (shout out to Lisa H. there). No weeks off for 11 straight weeks of games. Yes 11, not 12. We cut back the number of games to 11 for a season. If that means that some schools in conferences will have to eliminate a cupcake to fulfill their conference quota, so be it.
This has the season ending on or about the first weekend in November. The second saturday will be dedicated to conference championship games. Quick note to Pac-10, Big East and big-10, 'Get a title game quickly'. The third weekend in November starts the 20 team playoff.
12 of the 20 spots are filled with the champions of the 12 major conferences. The other 8 teams are chosen using the current BCS formula. This would give conferences like the SEC and Big-12, for example a chance to have their second best teams still in the hunt for the national title.
The first saturday has four play-in games to get into the 16 team tournament. The teams, again, are seeded using the current BSC formula. The number 1,2,3 and 4 teams would get the winners of the four play-in games. The second week (fourth saturday of November) would have all 16 teams in action.
The 5th saturday in November would have the final 8, 1st in December final four. Given some years its the month of December not November that has the 5 saturdays so adjust your calander accordingly.
So now here we are, no bowls played yet but we have fairly decided who the teams to play in the championship are. The Championship game will be played on New Years day at 7:00pm eastern time. The rest of the big bowls (Rose, Orange, Fiesta and Sugar) are to be played earlier that day.
This gives the bowls 3 weeks to get their teams invited and chances are they would like teams that were in the round of 8 but didnt make it to the championship game plus two tie in teams (see Rose Bowl with its Pac-10/Big-10). All the other bowls would start on the 22nd of December and run until the 31st of Dsecember.
There would be plenty of time for these bowls to pick their teams from bith those that have been in the 20 team playoff and teams that were not in the 20 team playoff. Every bowl game would still be played, conference tie-ins could still be honored, and no team that would of gone to a bowl in the old pre-playoff system would miss a bowl.
In a perfect world, one with all the bowls and a playoff, this is how it should be done. I know that there will be plenty of people that will find fault with this system but why? Are not the 2 best teams from the conferences (SEC, Big-12 just to throw a couple out there) getting a shot? Aren't we still giving the little guy a chance in letting all 12 conferences in? Isn't there still room for Navy and Notre Dame with the at-large bids?
You could always revisit the system in say 3-4 years and then decide if there needs to be an expansion of the play-in teams by 4. This would give the top 8 teams a bye week and give you two straight saturdays of eight games of playoffs.
I know that there will be nay-sayers out there. Those comitted to the BSC as it stands but that is a too-far from perfect system. Lets at least take the time to admit that. Better than before, yes. Good as it needs to be, never.
More money for who? The schools? The bcs? The ncaa? Lets face it, the bcs and ncaa are business partners. They get most of the money. If more money isnt going to them only, it will never happen.
Your missing the 'more money' point here. If you play more games on tv there is more money. The schools will get a bigger payout from the national tv games. The BCS will get more money as they can call it the new BCS system and save face from the awful mess they have now (20+ games will pay out more than 5). And of course the NCAA gets more money. Everyone gets more money and we get a better system!
After the last three BCS title games and with what's happened to the Pac Ten this year, both the Pac Ten and the Big Ten will have a lot less clout next time playoffs get discussed. Not dissin', just the facts.
If USC either doesn't make it to the BCS CG or makes it only to lose, that seals the deal on the BCS to my mind.
If the two conferences that are most for the BCS can't win it, why stick with it? What would the rest of the conferences lose by going to a playoff system WITHOUT the Pac Ten or the Big Ten if necessary?
Answer: nothing at all. Neither conference has won a BCS title game in three years. Four years without should prove the nail in the coffin.
Again: not hating on either conference. The facts are that both the Big Ten and the Pac Ten are going through a down cycle. It happens.
The good news is that it might wind up benefitting everyone if playoffs come about as a result.
Last edited by OrlandoLSUFan on September 21st at 4:52 PM.
What is the 12th conference? Notre Dame and the independents?
You do realize how much stadium revenue is lost with that little change of 12 to 11 games right? You're talking about 60 games x ticket price x attendance + concessions = ? It's actually more than 60, more like 90 because a lot of FBS teams (*cough* SEC) are home to FCS teams.
If it's going to work, there needs to be a way to make up that revenue across the 120 teams. It might seem silly, but you could have a flex schedule where the teams who don't qualify play a season ending OOC game. One way to make this work that wouldn't totally suck is having like they do in basketball - an Big Ten/Big East challenge.
Imagine this, let's pretend Penn State, Ohio State, Wisconsin and South Florida get in. Then you put Big Ten #4-10 up against the #2-7 of the Big East, alternating who plays at home. Big Ten #11 can play a MAC team or whoever. Do the same for Big XII/ACC, SEC/Pac-10 and rotate it. Some of these games would have the same luster as bowl games if you think about it.
Illinois or Michigan State vs. Connecticut or West Virginia sounds like a bowl.
First, you dont lose the revenue because the higher seeded teams play at home. As for the last paragraph, thats what you'd get because you'd still have all the present bowls!!!!!
Wow! It is about time some one spoke up for a college playoff system. The current BCS system is incredibly biased and is out to make money. While a playoff system may not be perfect it will certainly be more fair than the BCS. Check out this Website helping promote a college football playoff: www.playoffans.com.
Huh? When you take away a regular season game for all 120 teams how does it compensate that you've added a playoff for which the majority of the teams won't qualify?
Are the hot dogs sold for Penn State @ USC going to be paid out by % to every NCAA football program?
I don't like an eliminated playoff team also playing in a bowl game, it's just weird. There are elements to this which are okay, but if you look at my system it flat out works.
You realign to put every conference in the 6x2 with a title game. Seed the teams from there and have a go at it. You don't win your conference, you don't play for a CHAMPIONSHIP. It's that simple. Then regular season games mean something in conference. You open up the OOC for games to prepare a team for the playoffs and build up BCS status for a better seeding.
1-5 bye, 6v11, 7v10, 8v9 and so on. In most cases you will only add a game or two onto the schedule because already teams play a bowl game. Very few teams will play 3 and likely none 4 playoff games by % of the 120 so it's not taxing on student athletes. Bowls are still exciting because teams who lost in SEC, Big XII, etc title games are involved.
I like your ideas for how to schedule out the season, although 11 games seems too short. 12 seems like a minimum requirement these days, and you could never see the NCAA, BCS, or conferences giving up the revenue potential in their 12th and even 13th games.
Your way of choosing the 20 teams wouldn't work. Often, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best teams in the SEC, Big 12, Big 10 are far better and more worthy of a title shot than the conference winners of the 7-8 weak sister conferences. Unless those non-BCS conferences pay their way into the tourney like the BCS conferences do to earn being a BCS Conference, then they don't deserve auto-bids. Let the BCS tourney be open to BCS conferences, with contingencies for non-BCS schools who rank so high to get an at-large bid. Seeding of all schools should be done like the basketball tourney. Let the best teams get the #1 seeds regardless if they are from the same conf. Does winning a basketball conf tourney automatically earn you a #1 seed, NOPE. Use the basketball tourney model for success in seeding.
I would love to see a playoff system in place. i don't neccessarily agree with your model but any playoff would be better than we have now.
Personally I would like to see all 120 teams put into 8 super-conferences which would be 15 teams per conference 2 divisions in each the winner of the conference goes to the great 8 and wittles down from there. Hmm, maybe even 16 small conferences because then you could play everyone in your conference and a couple OOC games. Then the winner of the 16 conf. could head into the playoff.
You know, maybe I will come up with my own playoff system and post it.
Well glad to hear the constructive responses. First let me address the 11 game issue. Look back to 10-15 years ago and youll see most everybody only playes 11 games. Go back to the 80's and some teams only played 10. As far as super-conferences go, this plan was adopted to keep conference integrity. We do not want to break up conferences and move schools from one to another as it would not be good for traditional rivalries. Also, yeah, I put BSC instead of BCS once in there. Thanks for catching that. Lastly to address the 'other conferences that are not in the BCS now. Ask the Pac-10 about them. Or see how Oklahoma feels after that hook-n-ladder bowl game. Any team can beat any team on any given sunday (hey thats a good line, any given sunday, lol). Ask N.C. State or UNC about East Carolina (or Va. Tech or W. Va. for that matter). And dont bother asking a Michigan fan about App. State. For that matter the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes looked like #### for most of their games against a bunch of ' who's that team?'. There will be no paying into the BCS as it will be dissolved. The only thing were keeping is the formula to get our bottom seeds. Thanks again for the input.
Irish - My ribbing of you is all in good fun, but you make it so easy... college games are played mostly on SATURDAY, rarely if ever on Sunday.
I don't care about history where 12 games are concerned. The NCAA isn't going to give up that money any more than oil companies will say "hey we used to charge $1.50 for a gallon of gas let's go back to that!".
Realignment is part of the business end. Do you remember the SWC? I do. What happened to it? Time marches on. You can't drastically shift a bunch of teams around, but I see no harm in adding for example Fresno State and San Diego State to the Pac-10 then splitting it into a North/South.
The teams who are added will struggle at first in the "Big Six" conferences, but recruiting will catch up because it gives the players on those bottom feeding teams a chance to shine on TV.
I like the guy who suggested the super conferences, but that's not going to happen. I'm more of a purist than that although making the conferences into 12 teams each isn't much of a stretch. The biggest issue is killing a conference because there are 11 right now and you'd get 10x12 unless you went 11x12 by adding FCS teams into the mix.
Interesting argument, and I'm all for some change, but the Pac-10 plays a conference championship every game...they play every team in their conference.
I believe conference championships exist for one reason...money. I don't believe a tean with the best overall record should have to play an extra game when they have the best conference record, and by playing a CC, you are putting more emphasis on the division, not conference.
Do you think a team with a .600 conf. record earned the right to play an undefeated conf. record team? I don't. And sometimes, the two best teams in the conf are in the same division! That's not fair either.
Finally, you can't have a CC unless a conference has 12 teams- per the NCAA. The ACC #### the Big East to get their 12 teams and make more money. Some conferences are perfectly content with the way things are, ie- the Pac-10. Since those teams play everyone, every one of those conference games is like a championship, and they don't treat one game as an "Oh well, we are first in our division so even though we lost to that other divsion team, we still can keep playing."
I would like to see a plus 1 playoff as a start, to see if it could work out. It would be a nice start, and agree, the current system is bad.
What about the independents? Since they dont have a CC, where do they fit in? You can't ask some conferences to have a CC, but include indies in the playoffs if they don't have one?
Love to watch sports either in person or on t.v.. Was once a sports editor for Sanders Publications in upstate New York where I had a weekly readership of over 60,000. Currently in North Carolina with my wife, cats and dog. Absolutely hate the BCS and have a plan that would have a 20 team playoff and all the bowls too. Ask me about it.
