Why College Football Needs a New National Championship System

I wrote this article in January of 2009 on http://www.tricitiessports.com/ .

I previously said I would not have two of the same articles, but this is my exception to my rule. Enjoy!

This year, the BCS National Championship game consists of Oklahoma vs. Florida. Both teams have one loss.

Several other highly-ranked major college teams also have only one loss.

Texas is one of these teams and since they beat Oklahoma during the regular season, they think they should be playing in the Championship game.

So does Alabama since Florida lost to Mississippi, which had been beaten by Alabama.

On top of that, there is still one major college team (Utah) that is undefeated, yet they are not playing in the Championship game either.

If Oklahoma beats Florida by a slim margin and Texas throttles Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, there could very well be a split national championship. That is exactly what we had in 2003.

In 2003, USC, LSU and Florida all had one loss.

Oklahoma, which had been No. One in every BCS rating, AP and Coaches' Poll of the season, had been shocked by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game.

USC finished No. One in both the AP and Coaches' Polls, while both USC and LSU fell short on several computer factors.

Oklahoma's schedule strength was ranked 11th to LSU's 29th and USC's 37th. Despite this fact, the computers kept Oklahoma at No. One in the BCS poll, with LSU and USC being separated by only 0.16 points.

In the 2004 Sugar Bowl, LSU defeated Oklahoma securing the BCS National Championship. Meanwhile, when USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl and the final AP poll showed USC as the National Champion. So there was a split championship in 2003.

The following season, in 2004, undefeated Auburn and Utah were both left out of the National Championship Game, although the participating teams were also both undefeated.

In 2001, Oregon, which was ranked second in the AP Poll, was bypassed in favor of Nebraska, despite the fact that Nebraska didn’t even win the Big 12 Conference Championship.

For Years, College Football “experts” and fans alike have wanted a Playoff to determine a national champion.

It seems like every other year, the polls at the end of the football season are a jumbled up mess for in the BCS Standings for the national championship.

Why don’t we just draw two teams in the top 10 out of a hat and have those teams play for the National Championship Game? That would probably be as good a way to choose the national champion as what we have now.

In every other NCAA sport, the national champion is decided through a tournament. The most well known of these is the very popular March Madness Tournament that decides the national champion in basketball.

So why should football be different than all of the other sports? Why should a few so called “experts” decide who plays in the national championship game?

The major obstacle to a football tournament is the bowl committees, who think they would lose out if it were adopted.

There is a way to have a tournament and still satisfy the bowl people. Keep all the bowl games and use a selected number of them in the playoff system.

Take the winners of the major six conferences (The SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 10 and Big East) and give them an automatic bid in the playoff. Then, award two wild-card spots to the two highest ranked teams in the Coaches poll not in the playoffs.

This would lead to an eight-team tournament. Similar to the NFL playoffs.

There would be an initial round of four games. The winners of these two games would play in a two games in a semifinal round. Then would advance to play for the national championship.

This would result in the winning team playing only two extra games than they currently play. The games could all be tied in with the bowl games and rotated, like they are now in the BCS system.

If this system were adopted, we could have a real national champion with no arguing, it would generate tremendous fan interest and enthusiasm and most importantly, the National Champion would be decided by the players on the field and not the “experts” and the computers.