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

2009 - The "Fab Five" Undefeated


Actual BCS Bowls (w/ Final BCS rankings):
Rose Bowl: #7 Oregon vs. #8 Ohio State
Sugar Bowl: #5 Florida vs. #3 Cincinnati
Fiesta Bowl: #6 Boise State vs. #4 TCU
Orange Bowl: #10 Iowa vs. #9 Georgia Tech
National Championship: #2 Texas vs. #1 Alabama

This season the BCS has actually done a good job of getting the top 8 teams into BCS bowls. In previous years, there had been at least 1 top 8 team who was relegated to a lesser bowl. So, in a sense, the BCS has done that right this year. However, there is the possibility that there will be three BCS bowl teams that finish the season with undefeated records -- and a guarantee that there will be at least two (Fiesta Bowl & National Championship game winners). Plus, the two non-BCS conference teams (Boise State & TCU) are stuck playing each other in the Fiesta Bowl, so nobody will be able to find out whether or not they could've beaten the BCS conference teams head to head.

This bracket is intruiging because it gives Boise State and TCU a chance to fight their way to a national championship. It also sets up a possible SEC championship rematch in the second round, and gives a very good #7 Oregon team the chance to upset a very beatable #2 Texas team, and then the winner of the Boise State/Cincinnati game to advance to the National Championship game. These are story lines that you can't make up, but that a postseason tournament like this can create. But, alas, we'll never know, and you'll be stuck watching Georgia Tech and Iowa play in the Orange Bowl. Have fun with that.
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