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

2001: The Nebraska Odyssey


Actual BCS Bowls (w/ Final BCS rankings)
Fiesta Bowl: #4 Oregon 38, #3 Colorado 16
Sugar Bowl: #13 LSU 47, #8 Illinois 34
Orange Bowl: #5 Florida 56, #10 Maryland 23
Rose Bowl (National Championship): #1 Miami 37, #2 Nebraska 14

2001 brought us yet another controversy about who should be the #2 team in the BCS. The #1 was not in doubt, as undefeated Miami was securely slotted in the top spot. However, the BCS computers placed 1 loss Nebraska in the #2 slot, ahead of one loss Oregon and two loss, but Big 12 champion, Colorado. Oregon easily defeated Colorado (the team that had given Nebraska their 1 loss) in the Fiesta Bowl -- further fueling the debate that Oregon should have played Miami.
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