College Football's Big Question: How to Fix the BCS? With a Lot of Dynamite...

It is no great secret that the sporting world at large yearns for a more fitting end to the college football season. The Bowl Championship Series as it stands is hardly that, leaving much to be desired from it's five game, 10 team format.

Even if you grant that the primary goal is often achieved, having the two "best" teams meet for the title, the rest of the "series" is at best a disappointment. The "automatic qualifying" teams regularly disappoint, and the at larges are more often than not selected on the basis of revenue gains rather than quality performance.

Without a doubt College Football is the most watched, attended, and passionately followed U.S. sport. It deserves a more fitting culmination.

A playoff is the only logical solution. Championships are better won on a field rather than by popular vote. It is managed at every other level of NCAA football, as well as in every other NCAA competitive sport. How then could it not be imagined as a solution for the NCAA's premier sport?

There are a vocal few who would say that adding games, and in turn time to the end of an already long season would negatively impact the student-athletes involved. There is a point to be made.

However, how much of that point is rendered moot considering that in recent years there have been a week of Conference Championship games added, plus the staggering of BCS games with the title game now not occurring before January 10.

The only true answer is the revenue generated by the BCS.

Advertising dollars in sponsorships and television revenue is well into billions of dollars, and University Presidents are rarely willing to part with any share of the boat-load of cash rolling in every year.

The money is distributed throughout the conferences, so even a school who doesn't participate in the BCS from a BCS conference will receive it's share.

What they aren't considering is the revenue generated by the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Staged over a month, the winning team must play six tournament games. And this is after coming out of a post-season conference tournament of up to five additional games.

The NCAA Tournament is a cash cow. It is a huge television spectacle on the scale of only the Super Bowl and has networks competing with each other every year for higher and higher dollar contracts. The money is and will continue to be there if what is happening athletically is compelling.

The final argument against a playoff is that it would degrade the importance of the regular season.

It's hard not to find merit in this line of thought. The fact that every game is like a playoff game for championship contending teams all year makes every individual game a momentous occasion. Could a playoff at the end of the year lead to a lesser importance of the regular season?

I say not if the playoff is structured correctly.

Unfortunately, there will have to be "automatic" qualifications for entry into the tourney. Also, unfortunately, not every conference champion can be included. Football is not basketball, and on no day will the winner of the MAC or Sun Belt conference knock off Auburn or Ohio State in a round one game. It works for basketball when you can play three times a week, but in football the field must be limited. No more than four rounds could be considered.

If the conference championship rounds are used as round one of elimination, each winner would then get a pass into round two of the tournament.

Independent teams would need a qualifying mark, for the sake of argument, say nine wins and a top 15 ranking to be included. This rule basically would extend to Notre Dame and Brigham Young as they typically will play a difficult enough schedule that nine wins would merit inclusion.

For the sake of argument and to make structure a little easier, I'm using 2011-2012 dates to as a framework.

First round games could be played at campus sites on Saturday December 10, 2011. The Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC and ACC winners will have been crowned and bypass this round.

The teams will be selected from the Big East winner, Notre Dame (if they have nine wins), and four other "at large" teams. The six teams would be seeded according to "BCS" rank with the top three hosting.

Following the first round games, the three winners would be re-seeded along with five Conference Champions to play in the existing BCS bowls, the Sugar, Rose, Orange, and Fiesta on January 1st (this year potentially Jan. 2 because New Years Day is a Sunday, therefore conflicting with the NFL schedule-if there is one). 

The four winners of the January 1st games will meet the following Saturday (January 7th) at rotating venues (much like the current championship game, or basketball final four).

The Championship Game would follow the following week on Saturday January 14th, or since TV fancies Mondays, January 16th.

The season would only be extended by two games for the winner, and only a week in missed classes. The extra rounds would certainly draw television viewers who would need to see commercials, so it would stand to reason that advertising dollars would follow.

Plus there is the added attention of more big-named match-ups that we would rarely get to see. The regular season still holds meaning because you have to win consistently and impressively to receive an "at large" bid to enter, then win your conference's championship game.

It's fair because it leaves wiggle room for a great team that may have stumbled in it's conference title game, or the Boise State's of the world who fulfill that Cinderella role.

Once included in the "New BCS" it is up to each team's play to determine exactly who the champion will be.