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.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

2008 - Undefeated Utah


Actual BCS Bowls (w/ Final BCS rankings):
Rose Bowl: #5 USC 38, #8 Penn State 24
Orange Bowl: #19 Virginia Tech 20, #12 Cincinnati 7
Sugar Bowl: #6 Utah 31, #4 Alabama 17
Fiesta Bowl: #3 Texas 24, #10 Ohio State 21
National Championship: #2 Florida 24, #1 Oklahoma 14

2008 provided some drama with the BCS as three Big 12 teams (Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma) all were tied for the lead of the South Division -- the champion of which would face Missouri in the Big 12 championship game, where a win would get one of those three teams into the National Championship game. Oklahoma edged the other two and beat Missouri to advance as the #1 BCS seed. Florida beat a previously undefeated Alabama team in the SEC championship game to advance to play Oklahoma. Aside from all of that, Utah had finished their season undefeated, and very much thought that they deserved a chance to play for the national title. Alas, they were denied, and ended up easily defeating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.

This bracket allows all of those three Big 12 teams an even shot to advance and earn their way to the championship game, as well as gives Utah their opportunity to continue their undefeated season with an equal chance at winning the championship.
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