SubscribeNote: This series previously ran at RoadTripSports.com, but given the current climate of conference realignment, stoked by the Big 12, I feel this series of articles is as relevant now as it was a year ago. It will run every few days here at PigskinU.com. Check the PigskinU.com archives for Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.
So in Part One I laid out an overview of building a better college game. In Part 2, we put our commissioner in charge with a mandate – change college football for the better. In Part 3 we re-drew conference lines, though not as radically as I originally intended. In Part 4 we talked about reducing the schedule to 11 games to allow all of our re-drawn conferences to participate in conference championship games.
But do you want a true national champion? Start a playoff. Here’s how.
Now, you may remember the comments by Ohio State University president E. Gordon Gee (as in Gee whiz he’s a backward-thinking codger) last year saying that Boise State and TCU didn’t deserve to play for a national title because their schedules weren’t tough enough. Well, it’s easy to make that argument when there are so few BCS teams out there with the stones to play those two teams in non-conference. I mean, think about it – the best TCU could do last year was Oregon State, the best Boise State could do was Virginia Tech. And no offense to those two schools, but beating either TCU or Boise would have been a shot in the arm for either Va. Tech or OSU, in retrospect. It’s not a shot in the arm to a school like Ohio State. In the current system there’s too much risk in Ohio State playing Boise State or TCU.
What I’m saying is, “Let’s eliminate the risk and create a better system where one loss doesn’t destroy your national title hopes.” That’s the way it works now. You lose a game, and unless Les Miles does something strange, you’re screwed.
Yes, Boise State played an SEC team this year in Georgia and beat the Bulldogs. But they’re not SEC East contenders. It’s easy to sit high on the mountaintop and talk when you’re not willing to walk the walk, Gordon. Especially when the Buckeyes scheduled Akron and Toledo this season (and nearly lost to Toledo). When I covered basketball I always had this one high school coach who would call in his early-season games when his team was on the road. He used to call those games “Happy Meals,” because everyone on his team went home satisfied with an easy victory.
And that’s the whole root of this argument. It’s not that I think that Boise State is better than Alabama, or TCU is better than Oregon. It’s that I DON’T KNOW if they’re better, and I want to find out. And so do the majority of college football fans. We want a playoff system that will fairly determine the champion. If it’s Ohio State, so be it. If it’s Boise State, so be it.
So our playoff system is simple – a 16-team, four-week extravaganza in which the best teams in the country are invited. The playoff would start the weekend after exams and end in mid-January. This way, for academic purists, it won’t conflict with academic schedules. The playoffs should be over right as the spring semester begins.
So how would the field be determined? Well, the first part of the process is very simple. The winners of each of the 10 conference championship games get an automatic invite, just like everyone’s favorite college tournament, the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. Yes, there will be some weaker teams. But they will be weeded out early, as they should be.
After that, it gets a bit tricky. How do you determine the six at-large bids? I’ve been thinking about this and I have two suggestions. I’m not married to either:
First scenario? Use a computer. Yeah, I know, I know. Not my favorite either. But, given the correct parameters, I think a computer could spit out the right six teams. Here are the things that I believe a computer should most strongly consider:
Record (sounds elementary, doesn’t it)
Strength of victory (in other words, are the teams College A beat tougher than College B)
Games against FBS teams only. Games against FCS teams should not be considered in any computer system.
I would not use the AP or coaches’ poll as a consideration in any computer ranking. There’s entirely too much bias to involve polls. The formula should also not put an emphasis on the time of year a loss occurs. No team should be punished for losing in November rather than October. That always seems to be the case when a highly-ranked team loses in November.
The computer rankings that come closest to my ideal are the rankings by Jeff Anderson and Chris Hester, which are used in the BCS rankings. I’m open to other factors, but record and strength of victory have to be the strongest.
Second scenario? A selection committee. Hey, it works for the NCAA come basketball season. Create a selection committee with our college football commissioner, a representative from each of the 10 conferences and four at-large selectors for a total of 15. One at-large selector should be a former player who is now in the College Football Hall of Fame and currently works in college football as a coach or administrator, and one should be a journalist or broadcaster who regularly covers college football. No representative should be on the committee more than two years.
I know we grouse every year about who the NCAA selection committee leaves out of the basketball tournament, and there’s no perfect formula for a selection committee to go by. But, by and large, the committee does good work with the spots it has available. And, when you think about it, we’re talking about perhaps a dozen teams that are going to be considered good enough to claim those six at-large bids. So why not let a committee debate?
Once you have your 16 teams selected, you’ll need to seed them from No. 1 to No. 16. If you scroll down, you’ll see my playoff pairings based on the 2010 season. You’ll see two versions – one that involves current conferences and one that involves my new conferences. For the sake of at-large bids and seeding, I used the AP poll after the conference title games.
Seeding is simple – No. 1 vs. No. 16, No. 2 vs. No. 15, etc… The first-round games are at campus sites, with the quarterfinal, semifinal and championship games at bowl game sites. See, I’m not going to abandon the bowl game format completely. But we are definitely going to tweak it. But more on that in a bit.
Next up: The (Better) Bowl System.
To read previous installments of this series, click below:
Part 2: The College Football Commissioner
Potential 2010 Playoff Pairings
Note: The first set of pairings were based on 2010 conference alignments. Conference champions received an automatic bid. At-large teams, for the sake of expediency, were the top five teams in the AP poll that did not win a conference title. AP rankings were used to seed teams in the first round. If teams were not ranked, they were seeded by record.
No. 1 Auburn (SEC) vs. No. 16 Troy (Sun Belt)
No. 8 Arkansas (at-large) vs. No. 9 Oklahoma (Big 12)
No. 5 Stanford (at-large) vs. No. 12 Nevada (WAC)
No. 4 Wisconsin (Big Ten) vs. No. 13 Connecticut (Big East)
No. 3 TCU (MWC) vs. No. 14 Central Florida (C-USA)
No. 6 Ohio State (at-large) vs. No. 11 Virginia Tech (ACC)
No. 7 Michigan State (at-large) vs. No. 10 Boise State (at-large)
No. 2 Oregon (Pac-10) vs. No. 15 Miami (Ohio) (MAC)
The second set of pairings were based on the conference alignments proposed by Matthew Postins in an earlier article, based on 10, 12-team conferences with titles determined by conference championship games. In these hypothetical conferences, if there is a clear conference champion based on 2010 play, it is used here. If there is not, the conference champion was determined by the best record in the new league. Six at-large teams were selected out of the AP poll, the top six teams that did not win conference titles. Teams were seeded by their AP ranking, with unranked teams seeded last and by record.
No. 1 Auburn (SEC) vs. No. 16 Florida International (Sun Belt)
No. 8 Arkansas (at-large) vs. No. 9 Oklahoma (Big 12)
No. 5 Stanford (at-large) vs. No. 12 Nevada (WAC)
No. 4 Wisconsin (Big Ten) vs. No. 13 Connecticut (Big East)
No. 3 TCU (MWC) vs. No. 14 Tulsa (C-USA)
No. 6 Ohio State (at-large) vs. No. 11 Virginia Tech (ACC)
No. 7 Michigan State (at-large) vs. No. 10 Boise State (at-large)
No. 2 Oregon (Pac-10) vs. No. 15 Miami (Ohio) (MAC)
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