College Football Needs A Playoff

The purpose of this blog is to consider what could've been as it pertains to an eight team playoff in Division I-A (also called Bowl Championship) college football.

Since 1998, college football fans have been forced to accept the Bowl Championship Series' selection of #1 & #2 teams and their selection to take part in the National Championship game. The winner is crowned the "BCS National Champion" and is heralded as the champion of college football. However, this process is not without much controversy, and there will continue to be controversy as long as the teams are not allowed to decide who is the best team in college football utilizing the tried and true method that we call a tournament.

My proposal: College football should continue to use the BCS formula for ranking the top 25 teams, and use those rankings to identify the top 8 teams and enter them into a playoff. The three week playoff would start immediately after "Championship Week", and could conclude by the end of December, but would probably include a bye week so that the championship game could be played on or after New Year's Day. Every team not selected to the playoff could go play in the many Bowl Games (also known as "exhibition games") that exist currently.

Monday, December 7, 2009

1999 Season


Actual BCS Bowls (w/ Final BCS rankings)
Rose Bowl: #7 Wisconsin 17, #22 Stanford 9
Orange Bowl: #8 Michigan 35, #4 Alabama 34 (OT)
Fiesta Bowl: #3 Nebraska 31, #5 Tennessee 21
Sugar Bowl (National Championship): #1 Florida State 46, #2 Virginia Tech 29

The second year of the BCS produced an ideal matchup -- two undefeated teams ranked #1 & #2 playing in the National Championship game. However, like the previous season, Kansas State finished their season ranked #6 in the BCS rankings, but was not selected to play in a BCS bowl, and yet #22 Stanford played against #7 Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.
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