How We Get Rid of the BCS Format and Move to a Playoff...

          Notice I did not say get rid of the BCS, just its current format.  So you can still have your money, because we know that is what really matters right?  But a playoff format is needed.  College football is way too big and every other sport has a format where champions are decided on the field first, rather than by rankings. 

I’m not saying rankings aren’t important.  They still are, and notice NCAA basketball still has them, they still have a tournament and the rankings are integrated nicely.  The same thing can be accomplished in college football.

First, Notre Dame has to join a conference.  The Big East would be the logical choice since they are already there with other sports, but the Big Ten makes the most sense since that’s where a good bit of their rivals are.  Then they would gain a new one in Ohio St. and could still play USC out of conference. 

Let’s face it, college football centers around conference play today.  Out of conference games have turned into paydays for small schools and games big schools try to avoid injury, or embarrassment in the case of Michigan.  Notre Dame has been a NC contender realistically once in the past what, 15 years?   And that's debatable considering how they finished that year. 

Another notable number for them:  Three.  The lowest amount of games they have lost in that 15 year stretch.  They just aren’t that special name anymore on the recruiting front and they’ll never contend for another national title as an independent school.  Write that down.  Oh wait, I just did!

Which takes us to the Big Ten (11).  They need a twelfth school and a conference championship.  As does the Pac-10 and the Big East, although with eight schools left, the Big East needs to pick up two teams to make it fairly even.  Like say, Army and Navy.  That wouldn’t really strengthen the conference much, but it would at least give them ten teams and get rid of the FBS independent schools. 

This makes a conference championship game realistic in every FBS conference, which will have a minimum of 9 teams.  Even Conference USA and the MAC have championships.  Come on already!

So with that out of the way, now we are off to the hard part…getting the playoffs together and determining who plays who and where.  Here is where rankings could actually be useful.  There are 11 FBS conferences.  So there would need to be some things done to get a usable playoff format.  Multiples of 8 works the best we know, but that is too few and 16 are too many.  So we need a realistic way to get down to 8. 

To use the NCAA basketball format again...there are certain conferences with automatic bids.  Meaning regardless of record, if a team is the winner of that conference, they go.  There are 6 BCS conferences currently, (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC) so there are your 6 automatic bids. 

Next is what to do with C-USA, the MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt and WAC.  Out of the 5, take the highest ranked conference champion and they are in.  The remaining 4 are in a playoff, seeded by ranking in a 2 plus 1.  The winner is the 8^th team in.

Now finally, the playoff format, which is pretty easy:

·        Four first round games hosted by the 4 major bowls

·        Two second round games hosted by 2 of the major bowls

·        One third place game hosted by 1 of the remaining bowls

·        One championship game hosted by the last remaining bowl.

This means that each bowl would host two games, with a yearly rotation on the games after the first round.

Scheduling is the final conflict.  First, get rid of the 12^th game.  It has not really done anything for college football other than get rid of bye weeks and many would argue that it has made it worse.  I would understand if it was added to ensure teams play every team in their conference, but that is not what has happened.  It just added an extra out of conference game, so get rid of it.  Gone.  Bye! 

That opening would be the first round of the 2 plus 1 instead.  The final round would be 1 extra game, or the traditional bowl game of the current format.  So we are down to the 8 playoff teams with no extra games added considering the original, current format.  The other 7 teams will still be at 12 games.  (Here come the unfair advantage due to the extra rest boo birds!) 

They still play considerably less than their counterparts in other sports.  I understand that football is more physical than other sports, but lets not forget a good number of these same athletes go on to play on Sundays…16 regular season games and 4 preseason games BEFORE playoffs.  And 16 games is the max any team would play under this format, if they make it to one of the final two games. 

Time is also not an issue here.  Championship week is the week ending December 5^th this season and the BCS National Championship game is on January 7^th.  That is over a month plus the extra week from eliminating the 12 game.  This would also allow emphasis to be taken off of out of conference schedules and placed on conference wins. 

Out of conference schedules would still matter for rankings though, as they do now.  Of course there will be the “playing in conference A means an easier road to the playoffs than playing in conference B and is therefore unfair” argument.  But if you win your games on your schedule, it will not matter and how is that any different than what we have now?  We hear that from 4^th and 5^th place SEC teams each season about .

            As far as the remaining bowls and what happens to them?  Nothing.  There are only 8 teams in the BCS part of the playoffs right?  Have your pick of the teams that are not in the BCS like you do now.  This gives us our playoffs and probably gives you more money since there are 2-3 extra games now in the season depending on who is in the final game.

           If one thing has been proven, it is that college football fans travel, and they travel well.  You will not have problems selling out games.  I should not even have mentioned it.  That is how much of a non-issue it is. 

           So in summary, a playoff is theoretically possible if everyone is willing to get on the same page, and there is a great chance that college football would become the biggest sport in the country with a playoff format. 

           Imagine all the big games at the end of the season that suddenly will become a whole lot more meaningful.  Right now we only really have one.  The other bowl games are just teaser games until the BCS National Championship.  This would give us multiple games every week.

Make it happen!