Southern Fried Playoff: How to Make CFB Better than Ever!

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Part II

The Southern Fried Playoff (SFPO) is a simple 16-team single-elimination tournament that would integrate some of the existing bowl venues while allowing the other bowls to thrive and prosper.

SFPO qualification is simple. Win your conference and you are in, period.

Each conference can determine a champion as they see fit, with a championship game of divisional winners or a round-robin with tie breakers, leave it up to each conference.

Notre Dame and the other independents might want to join a conference but they don’t have to.

In addition to the conference champions, five "at-large" entrants would be included based on the composite rankings from the AP, USA Today, and Harris Interactive polls.

The "at large" bids would go to the five highest ranked "non" champions, irrespective of conference affiliation.

This would virtually guarantee that no deserving team is left out, nor does it unfairly "lock out" the Boise States and TCUs of the world.

For Part I see: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/304181-ncaas-plantationthe-bcs-is-holding-tcu-and-all-of-mid-america-down

How it would work

First, shift the start of CFB back one week and let games begin in the last week of August instead of the first week of September.

Second, reduce the schedule to 11 games, with an allowance for a 12th game for conferences with a championship game. I’m not bothered by 12 game schedules but am cognizant of those that complain the added games could impact the student-athlete.

After taking one week off after the conference championship games, which would have played out over Thanksgiving weekend, the "Bowl Season" would begin the following Saturday with a slate of 20 Bowl games that could be played up to Christmas Eve.

Christmas day and weekend would see the first round of the playoffs in venues such as the Cotton Bowl, Holiday, Peach (Chic-Fil-A), etc.

New Year’s Day would see the National Semi-Finals (second round) at the venues that currently make up the big four BCS games(Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, Rose).

One week later, you would all be glued to your televisions for the CFB Final Four!

After a week off or one week prior to Super Bowl Sunday, stage the College Football Super Bowl (National Championship Game).

The CFB Final Four and College Super Bowl would be moved from City to City like the Super Bowl and NCAA Basketball Final Four.

I have no doubt, and I’m guessing you don’t either, that this would quickly become the greatest and most profitable overall sporting event/series on the planet.

Playoffs!

If the SFPO were in use today, this is what we would be looking forward to:

Christmas Day—SFPO first round:

Cotton Bowl
(1) Alabama vs. (16) Troy

Peach Bowl
(8) Ohio State vs. (9) Georgia Tech

Outback Bowl
(3) Texas vs. (14) East Carolina

Insight Bowl
(6) Boise State vs. (11) Iowa

The Saturday after Christmas (first round continued):

Holiday Bowl
(2) Cincinnati vs. (15) LSU

Alamo Bowl
(5) Florida vs. (12) Central Michigan

Capital One Bowl
(4) TCU vs. (13) Virginia Tech

Gator Bowl
(7) Oregon vs. (10) Penn State

The National Semifinals on New Year’s Day:

Sugar Bowl
Alabama vs. Ohio State

Fiesta Bowl
Texas vs. Iowa

The Saturday after New Year's Day (second round continued):

Orange Bowl
LSU vs. Florida

Rose Bowl
TCU vs. Oregon

CFB Super Bowl

The following Saturday: (Jan 9)
The College Football Final Four

LSU vs. TCU
Alabama vs. Texas

The College Super Bowl (Jan 16)
(Or the Sunday prior to the NFL's Super Bowl)

Alabama vs. TCU

The Final Four and CSB would rotate from Chicago to Miami, Dallas, Atlanta or whoever is the best/highest-bidding city for the year.

A Better Bowl Season

The remaining bowls, which would now have much better matchups and higher ranked teams would have played out prior to the start of the SFPO and would have looked something like this:

*Seed represents highest ranked teams not included in SFPO:

Independence Bowl: (B12 vs. SEC) Nebraska (9-4) vs. Ole Miss (8-4)

Sun Bowl: (Pac-10 vs. B10) Arizona (8-4) vs. Wisconsin (9-3)

Music City Bowl:(ACC vs. BE) Boston College (8-4) vs. West Virginia (9-3)

Humanitarian Bowl: (MWC vs. WAC) BYU (10-2) vs. Nevada (8-4)

New Orleans Bowl: (CUSA vs. Sun Belt) Houston (10-2) vs. MTSU (9-3)

Little Caesars Bowl: (B10 vs. MAC) Northwestern (8-4) vs. Ohio (9-4)

Papajohns.com Bowl: (BE vs. SEC) Pitt (9-3) vs. Tennessee (7-5)

Texas Bowl: (B12 vs. CUSA) Oklahoma State (9-3) vs. Navy (8-4)

Emerald Bowl: (ACC vs. Pac-10) Oregon State (8-4) vs. Clemson (8-5)

GMAC Bowl: (ACC vs. MAC) Miami (9-3) vs. Temple (9-3)

Poinsettia Bowl: (MWC vs. Pac-10) Utah (9-3) vs. Stanford (8-4)