A Simple and Plausible College Football Playoff System

Some people overthink things, and that's exactly why we don't have a playoff in college football.

The demand is there, but stubborn thinking is the road block. The sad thing is that implementing a playoff system in college football would be so easy to do, and could be a win-win for everybody without bruising egos.

The issue will not go away, especially after ACC commissioner and BCS president John Swofford was brought in front of Congress last month.

Swofford was grilled by representatives, namely Texas Republican Joe Barton, who proposed a bill that would not allow the BCS refer to its championship game as a national championship game unless it was the culmination of a playoff.

The straw that broke the camel's back on the issue came in January when Utah hammered Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to remain college football's lone unbeaten. Utah finished second in the polls behind one-loss Florida.

The BCS wants to ensure the retention of bowl games, while Congress and most fans would like to see a playoff. The solution is surprisingly simple.

College football needs a couple of changes, not the least of which is establishing a four-team playoff.

Why are there 34 bowl games? Why did people in Washington, D.C. and St. Petersburg, Fla. feel the need for their own bowl game? There are too many as it is. But to have 34 bowl games, meaning more than half of the college football teams qualify for a bowl game, is ridiculous.

One way to limit the number of bowl games is to change the criteria for bowl eligibility. A team should not have the opportunity to lose its bowl game and finish below .500 like North Carolina State, Northern Illinois and Memphis did in 2008. If the NCAA wants every team to play a 12-game schedule, then make seven wins the qualifying mark for bowl eligibility.

This year, there were nine 6-6 teams to make bowl games. If the criteria was different, then we’d have four fewer bowl games, and we might have some better contests. But that's for an issue for another day—back to a playoff.

A post-bowl, four-team playoff is really the only way to go.

Before you go ranting about eight or 16 teams, hear me out. A 16-team, or even 8-team playoff system is a novel idea, but would never happen. It’s just unrealistic. A post-bowl, four-team playoff is the most realistic solution. And, there would be loads more money to be made.

You let the current bowl system sort some things out, sort of like a playoff, and then use the BCS formula to get the top four teams and seed 'em up.

If they had done that in 2006, you would have had all four of the major bowls as a player to determine which teams would make the semifinals, but even the Capital One Bowl champion, Wisconsin, could have gotten in as the number four team depending on how things worked themselves out. Boise State, that year’s only unbeaten, would have gotten its shot at the title following the bowl games.

In 2007, the only undefeated team in the country, Hawaii, could have actually played for a shot at a national title. Even Georgia, the team that demolished Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl, would have been a player.

Four years ago, the Liberty Bowl would have been a factor in the national championship, with then Conference USA champion Louisville and Boise State vying for the opportunity to get into the playoffs. This would create more of an interest in the non-BCS bowls and that would be great for college football. The most frustrating thing is that it's so easy to do.

A four-team playoff would only extend the season by two weeks, and would only affect four teams, two of those for just a week. Missing classes would not be an issue for the first week, because classes would not have started yet.

Simply return back to the old bowl tie-ins and use the bowls to sort everything out before using the final rankings to determine the top four teams. The BCS rankings can be used in this, pacifying the BCS brass because their system would still play a part.

Working in the bowls to determine playoff teams would make more bowl games more meaningful, and would probably get more people watching bowl games like the Liberty Bowl or Motor City Bowl.

So making the bowl games more meaningful, having a real playoff, still using the BCS in some fashion and making a boatload of cash in advertising and sponsorships for the three extra games would be bad for the NCAA how? Everybody wins, especially the fans.

Eight or 16 teams would be too complicated and would detract from the bowl games, creating red flags that would not make the solution probable to implement. The four-team system is very simple to implement.

Back to a game like the Liberty Bowl, four years ago, it would have impacted the national championship. It would have been more meaningful on a national scale, creating more viewers and more advertising money for ESPN, the network that televised the game, the bowl game itself, and the NCAA.

Right now, if you’re not in the national championship game, the other bowl games are so much less important that you’re not even getting sellouts to some New Year's Day bowl games anymore. That is bad for college football.

To make the bowl games more meaningful by incorporating them, in some fashion, into the national championship picture is just good for the future of college football and is a win-win for everyone involved.

Use the bowl games to determine who should be there, sort of like a playoff, but not really. A full-out playoff would never happen and is just unrealistic. Again, a novel idea, but give up.

There is just too much money wrapped up in the bowl games and those bowls are not going to want to be part of a playoff, nor will conference presidents, because it will limit the number of teams that will get to a bowl game. Not that it would be a bad thing because there are too many bowls as it is, but still.

My plan is a win-win and, more importantly, is plausible.

It adds more value to the non-BCS bowls and would generate a buzz in those games while giving fans a playoff. The national championship game would be played during the week between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl. You know that weekend when there is no football?

It’s perfect.