A College Football Playoff Proposal

It's that time of year again. The big matchups for the conferences will happen over the next few weeks, leading to bowl matchups. It's also time for the ubiquitous how-to-fix-the-BCS article. Here's a somewhat informed take on a possible playoff scenario.

Why is March Madness a 64 (OK, 65) team extravaganza? There are, at last count, almost 350 teams in D-I basketball. Roughly 18 percent of these teams make March Madness.

For a similar number of FBS football teams to make the playoffs, about 22 teams would have to qualify. To make the numbers work better, 24 teams will be used as an example.

Here are the teams that would qualify for the playoff if the season ended today.

Auto-bids (Conference Champs)

Note: This is only if the season ended today. For example, Texas Tech could fall to OU, and Florida could beat 'Bama in the SEC title game.

1. Alabama—SEC

2. Texas Tech—Big 12

3. Penn State (if they beat Michigan State)—Big Ten

So far so good, but those were the obvious conferences. 

4. Utah—MWC

They will get an auto-bid in a BCS game if they win out.

5. Boise State—WAC

Same here.

6. Oregon State—Pac-10

Gotta hand it to the Beavers: They fought hard and beat USC, and then took it to Cal when they needed to. However, who wants to see a rematch with Penn State in the Rose Bowl when PSU already clobbered OSU once?

7.Tulsa— CUSA

8. Ball State—MAC

Ball State would get a chance to prove itself.

9. Cincy—Big East

10. Maryland/Miami—ACC

11. Troy—Sun Belt

So these are the automatic 11, which leaves out quite a few good teams:

Oklahoma

Texas

USC

Florida

Troy over Florida? There's something wrong there.

If a team is in the top 10 in the BCS, they should be in, even if they aren't conference champion.

That takes care of all of the above teams, as well as adds Ohio State to the mix. It would also force Notre Dame to play a decent schedule if it wants to play in a big bowl.

That's 16 teams, enough for a four-round playoff.

This looks fairly reasonable. The matchups could be:

1. Alabama vs. 16. Troy

2. Texas Tech vs. 15. Ball State

3. Texas vs. 14. Big East Winner

etc.

The seedings could be done either by BCS ranking (regardless of conference winner status) or by the committee (as it's done in basketball). The No. 1 RPI team isn't always chosen as the No. 1 overall seed.

Ten out of the 16 teams would have fewer than two losses—a fair percentage.

But what if TCU, for example, wanted in? After all, other than the Utah loss, the only blemish on the Horned Frog's record was a loss to Oklahoma.

How many teams, though, would make sense?

Adding four would probably include Mizzou, Georgia, TCU, and BYU.

But wait. If Georgia, why not Michigan State? If TCU, why not LSU, whose only losses were to ranked teams as well?

Fine. To match March Madness, there should be roughly 24 teams anyway.

The final teams could be the rest of the top 24 (boring), but since they would be at-large, they could be picked for entertainment value (West Virginia?), a conference division champion (Miami (FL), if they lose the ACC championship to Maryland), or a team that has come close to making the big time but suffered close losses. 

Or it could be just be the rest of the top 24 BCS teams, which is what is used here as an example.

The final field would be (if the season ended today):

1. Alabama
2. Texas Tech    
3. Texas      
4. Florida      
5. Oklahoma 
6. USC         
7. Utah       
8. Penn State     
9. Boise State      
10. Ohio State
11. Georgia
12. Oklahoma State      
13. Missouri    
14. Brigham Young      
15. Michigan State     
16. TCU   
17. Ball State
18. LSU      
19. Cincinnati
20. Pittsburgh     
21. Oregon State    
22. North Carolina      
23. Miami (FL)     
24. Oregon

In a 24-team playoff, a simple bracket won't work. However, a modified version of the March Madness bracket could work like this.

(Note: This assumes seedings follow the BCS standings exactly, which they wouldn't—and don't in basketball either.)

The top eight teams would get a first-round bye. This would correspond roughly to the old Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowl participants before the BCS was created—the cream of the crop.

The Brackets would look somewhat like this.

Bracket 1

First Round

No. 1 Alabama (Bye)

No. 8 PSU (Bye)

No. 12 OK. ST. vs. No. 21 Oregon State

No. 13 Mizzou vs. No. 20 Pitt

Second Round

Bama vs. Mizzou

PSU vs. OSU

Regional Final

Alabama vs. Penn State

Bracket 2

First Round

No. 2 TTU (Bye)

No. 7 Utah (Bye)

No. 11 Georgia vs. No. 22 UNC

No. 14 BYU vs. No. 19 Cincy

Second Round

Texas Tech vs. BYU

Utah vs. Georgia

Regional Final

Texas Tech vs. Georgia

Bracket 3

First Round

No. 3 Texas (Bye)

No. 6 USC (Bye)

No. 10 OSU vs. No. 23 Miami

No. 15 MSU vs. No. 18 LSU

Second Round

Texas vs. LSU

USC vs. Ohio State (This time with Pryor at QB and Wells at RB.)

Regional Final

Texas vs. USC

Bracket 4

First Round

No. 4 Florida (Bye)

No. 5 OU (Bye)

No. 9 Boise State vs. No. 24 Oregon (Doh, a rematch. This could be avoided by seeding Oregon up or Boise down.)

No. 16 TCU vs. No. 17 Ball State

Second Round

Florida vs. TCU

OU vs. Boise (OU gets revenge for the Statue of Liberty.)

Regional Final

Florida vs. OU

National Semifinal No. 1

Florida vs. Alabama (Another rematch. However, remember that after Alabama and Florida play, they won't stay at No. 1 and No. 4.)

National Semifinal No. 2

Texas Tech vs. USC (or Texas, which would mean both semifinal games would be rematches) 

Final

Alabama/Florida vs. Texas Tech/USC (The projected BCS title game if the season ended today.)

Winning a conference would only guarantee a team a spot somewhere in the playoffs, not necessarily a first-round bye. A possible modification that could be made to the system could guarantee the conference winner a higher seed than all the other conference members who make the playoffs.

But Oregon State, for example, even though they beat USC, has three losses overall. So it would better if the playoff didn't have any restriction on seeding. This would preserve the importance of non-conference clashes like Ohio State-USC or Ohio State-Texas.

Finally, how would a potential extra five games fit into a schedule?

For a team that doesn't get a first round bye, yet plays in a conference championship on Dec. 6, 2008 (the worst-case scenario, schedule-wise), there would still be almost a month off before the first round started on Jan. 3. The playoff could culminate on the day before Super Bowl Sunday (as others have suggested).

A few problems remain, however. One of them is the non-conference schedule. Since the playoff schedule would be so grueling, all but one or two non-conference games would have to be eliminated.

The schools could have an option: Would they want to play a few exhibition games beyond those to get their team into shape? Or would they want to go in without game experience, but with less risk of injury?

The other issue is academic schedules. One way around this would be to start the season early, then have a break between the regular season and the playoffs.

Is this proposal workable, or is it another crazy scheme to do away with the BCS? I'm sure there are better proposals out there.