High school football teams in Ohio are based exclusively on computer points, with no biases or voting involved. Does the local media have polls ranking area high school teams? Absolutely, but they have no say in determining if a team will be in the state football playoffs.
It is purely a strength of schedule type system that rewards teams that play demanding schedules, while potentially penalizing those teams that do not play any tough opponents. It is not uncommon for teams to have a 6-4 or 7-3 regular season record and be selected for the Ohio high school playoffs over a 10-0 team that played weaker teams.
Using the computer rankings, the following five teams would be in the 16-team playoff: Texas, Alabama, Texas Tech, TCU, and Ohio State. Again, this scenario is rewarding one-loss teams such as Texas, Alabama, and Texas Tech, while also being more inclusive with TCU of the Mountain West Conference getting an at-large shot.
Seedings would be determined exclusively on the computer rankings. The first round of the playoff system would have games at the home field of the higher seeded team. By doing so, it could open up scenarios where warm-weather teams could go into a cold-weather site and see how well they could do.
The second round would be the traditional big four bowl games, with one notable addition—The Cotton Bowl. Once the Dallas Cowboys move into their new stadium, The Cotton Bowl would be a logical candidate for the BCS.
Using the seedings, the first round could look something like this:
No. 1 Oklahoma (Big XII) vs No. 16 Troy (Sun Belt)
No. 2 Texas (At-Large No. 1) vs No. 15 Buffalo (MAC)
No. 3 Florida (SEC) vs No. 14 East Carolina (Conference USA)
No. 4 Texas Tech (At-Large No. 2) vs No. 13 Virginia Tech (ACC)
No. 5 Utah (Mountain West) vs No. 12 Cincinnati (Big East)
No. 6 Alabama (At-Large No. 3) vs No. 11 Ohio State (At-Large No. 5)
No. 7 USC (Pac-10) vs No. 10 TCU (At-LargeNo. 4)
No. 8 Boise State (WAC) vs No. 9 Penn State (Big Ten)
Hypothetically, if the top seeds won out, the second round could look something like this on January 1st:
The Fiesta Bow: Oklahoma vs Boise State
The Rose Bowl: USC vs Texas
The Sugar Bowl: Florida vs Alabama
The Cotton Bowl: Texas Tech vs Utah
Do you think any of those match-ups might be selling tickets for $1?
The Orange Bowl could be the semi-finals on January 8th, with the national championship there on January 15th.
Yes, I know—unrealistic.
Will never happen.
But in this holiday season, forgive me if don't ask Santa Claus to deliver this one under my tree. Hey, at least I have something worthwhile with my Festivus pole and this year's Airing Of Grievances to direct at the NCAA athletic directors and university presidents for their foolish lack of a playoff system. At the very worst, now I have a reason to write my congressman.
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