Determining a Champ: Another Solution to the BCS Mess

At a time when every college football fan has an idea on how to fix the BCS, I couldn't help but add my two cents to the mix.

For the record, I don't expect that anyone involved with college football would agree to the following. My only intention is to encourage further thinking about how to make a great sport even better.

I'm not going to go so far as to throw away the BCS and start from scratch. I also want to maintain as much tradition as possible while creating a more level playing field.

So with that in mind...

First, Notre Dame has to move to the Big East. The Irish can keep their TV deal, but their inclusion in a BCS conference is a must. 

If they refuse to participate, they don't get to play in a BCS bowl unless they finish in the top four.

The ND move ensures that the Big East can play eight conference games per season—which is an exact requirement for all conferences. If the two teams tied for the Pac-10 or Big Ten lead don't play each other during the regular season, they have to play on conference championship weekend.

BCS conference teams will play a more structured out-of-conference (OOC) schedule to ensure a more balanced system.

Out of four OOC games, at least two must be against fellow BCS conference teams, and none may be played against I-AA teams. 

If a BCS conference team wants to pay a team a large sum of money to be a sacrificial lamb, they're still permitted to schedule non-BCS conference teams.

The BCS OOC games will be scheduled by the NCAA—not the member institutions. The NCAA will uphold existing OOC rivalry games like Georgia-Georgia Tech, Clemson-South Carolina, and Notre Dame-USC. 

The rest of the games will be randomly drawn, with each team playing one game at home and one game away per season. These matchups will be drawn every two years, so that each team plays against a scheduled opponent at home and away in successive seasons.

Schools can schedule their remaining OOC games, with the following provisions:

First, a team can schedule each non-BCS school only twice every eight years, with the exception of existing rivalry games approved by the NCAA (e.g. Colorado-Colorado State and Notre Dame-Navy). This ensures that schools will play a variety of opponents. 

Second, schools must play one of these games away from home every two years (i.e. one out of four games). Scheduling teams from the Sun Belt or MAC is fine, so long as a school is willing to travel every now and then.

Teams can also use these games to play other BCS teams in the interest of rivalries or strength of schedule. 

For example, Notre Dame will have scheduled rivalry games with USC and Boston College every season, but can still schedule a game with Michigan if they so desire.

The following is a simulation of a random draw for the two OOC games involving BCS teams...

(Rivalry games are in bold.)

OOC Game 1

South Carolina	at	Clemson
Wake Forest	at	Vanderbilt
Notre Dame	at	USC
Georgia	at	Georgia Tech
Iowa	at	Iowa State
Florida State	at	Florida
Penn State	at	Pittsburgh
Louisville	at	Kentucky
West Virginia	at	Virginia Tech
Miami FL	at	Northwestern
Michigan	at	UCLA
Mississippi	at	Texas Tech
Tennessee	at	Kansas
Kansas State	at	Washington State
Stanford	at	Ohio State
Cincinnati	at	Boston College
Oregon State	at	North Carolina
California	at	Texas A+M
Texas	at	Washington
Rutgers	at	Mississippi State
Auburn	at	Maryland
Duke	at	Colorado
Missouri	at	LSU
Nebraska	at	South Florida
Illinois	at	Baylor
Alabama	at	Arizona State
Minnesota	at	Oklahoma State
Connecticut	at	Indiana
Arizona	at	Wisconsin
Oklahoma	at	Virginia
Arkansas	at	NC State
Michigan State	at	Oregon
Syracuse	at	Purdue

OOC Game 2

Boston College	at	Notre Dame
Florida	at	Miami FL
Maryland	at	West Virginia
North Carolina	at	South Carolina
Kansas	at	Michigan
Washington State	at	Mississippi
Washington	at	Tennessee
Arizona State	at	Kansas State
NC State	at	Stanford
Virginia	at	Cincinnati
Baylor	at	Oregon State
Texas Tech	at	California
USC	at	Texas
Clemson	at	Rutgers
Wisconsin	at	Auburn
Iowa State	at	Duke
Indiana	at	Louisville
Pittsburgh	at	Florida State
Mississippi State	at	Missouri
Virginia Tech	at	Nebraska
Oklahoma State	at	Illinois
Oregon	at	Alabama
Northwestern	at	Georgia
Colorado	at	Syracuse
LSU	at	Wake Forest
Vanderbilt	at	Minnesota
Georgia Tech	at	Connecticut
Texas A+M	at	Arizona
South Florida	at	Oklahoma
Ohio State	at	Arkansas
Kentucky	at	Penn State
UCLA	at	Michigan State
Purdue	at	Iowa

As for the BCS itself—the only change I would make is to eliminate the Coaches Poll in favor of the Associated Press Poll. 

The coaches have too much to win or lose from the rankings to be entirely objective. While I'm not accusing coaches of outright bias, history has shown that the press is more likely to be evenhanded.

What would all this accomplish? 

For starters, teams could never be accused of not playing good teams out of conference. They would play games against BCS opponents, and would be immune from criticism, as the NCAA would be scheduling the matchups.

There are drawbacks to the system, but that's to be expected. There is no perfect solution. In any event, the proposal has fewer flaws than the current model.

Leaving the BCS in place would appease its supporters. More importantly, the change would give the voters and the computers more information in making their choices.

Best of all, the new system would provide another level of excitement to a sport that thrives on it. Conference races would still go down to the wire, and there would be more quality OOC games than ever before.