Football
Playoff. Now!
By Tom Orr
The Buckeyes get to go back to Tempe, the Big Ten gets
two teams into the premier games, the SEC only gets one, and the entire
stupid BCS format is just one USC win away from collapsing like the
Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Sometimes, I absolutely love college football and this, friends,
is one of those times.
In my book, the BCS ranks right between Kellen Winslow and the flu
virus. The sooner it's a pathetic footnote in college football history,
the better. This sport can't get a legitimate playoff system fast
enough.
Before I go any farther, let me start by addressing some of the tired,
old arguments that stodgy traditionalists use against the playoff
system.
1) "It would make most bowls completely irrelevant."
Riiiiight. Like anything outside of one or two BCS games really matter
now. The following bowl games will have a direct impact on who wins
the national title; Sugar and Rose. That's it. Last year it was one
(Fiesta), and everything else was just a pleasant diversion as Americans
took down their Christmas trees, Hanukkah bushes, and Festivus poles.
2) "The season would be too long! Student-athletes wouldn't have
time to study for finals."
Somehow this is a major issue with D-1A football players, but not
for D-1AA. Or Division 2. Or Division 3. All of those leagues have
playoffs, and their players manage to finish their classes. Somehow,
basketball players can miss at least three days of class in each of
three weeks during the NCAA tournament, and that's okay. This is Division
1-A football; these guys travel with tutors every time they leave
home. They can study on the road, and they can study before and after
practice.
3) "A playoff devalues the regular season."
There's actually a little truth to this, but not much. You might
not need to go unbeaten to play for the national title (like you did
this year, right? Oh, wait...) but I'm certainly not proposing that
you let every 8-4 team in the country into the playoff. You'd have
to win your league, or have a heck of a strong season against good
competition to get into the field.
4) "A playoff would force conferences to play a championship
game, devaluing games like OSU-Michigan and USC-UCLA."
Who says so? Conferences have tie-breakers in place already. Give
the automatic berth to the team who won head-to-head, and then to
the team ranked higher in the BCS. Chances are, a good runner-up (like
Ohio State in the Big Ten this season) would make it into the field
anyway.
5) "You can't expect fans to travel to four separate destinations
in four weeks."
How about holding the first round of games at the conference site
of the higher-seeded team? How hard was that?
6) "A playoff ruins the traditional bowl match-ups, like Big
Ten vs. Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl."
Guess what? We haven't had that match-up for the last two seasons,
and it almost didn't happen again this season. That tradition has
already been sold down the river, and we have a crappy half-posterior
system to show for it.
How would it work? Form a 16-team field, comprised of the champions
of all 11 conferences (the 6 BCS conferences, plus the Mountain West,
WAC, MAC, Sun Belt, and Conference USA) and five at-large teams.
Take the precious BCS rankings (or some recalculated incarnation),
and use them to seed teams, and to pick the at-large squads. The top
five teams in those standings that didn't win their conference get
the at-large berths. Seed those 16 teams straight down the line in
the BCS standings.
That means that an at-large team could have home-field advantage
over a minor conference champion, but so what? The major conference
team probably played a tougher schedule to get there, and if a minor
conference team (like Tulane in 1998 or Marshall in 1999) goes unbeaten
and finishes high enough in the BCS standings, they could have Tennessee,
Florida State or Michigan coming into their house.
As it happens, Marshall finished #12 in 1999 and Tulane was #10 in
1998, so they wouldn't have hosted a game. But if TCU had won out
this season and finished #5 or #6, someone like Georgia could have
come to Fort Worth.
After the first round, play the Elite 8, Final Four, and Championship
Games at bowl sites.
Rotate the four BCS bowl sites through as sites for the championship,
Final Four, and one of the Elite 8. Make the Citrus Bowl, Cotton Bowl,
and Holiday Bowl (East, Midwest, and West) the other Elite 8 venues.
Leave the rest of the bowls for the teams that didn't make the playoff.
You could even decide which teams played at which second-round bowls
based on which game was closest to the higher-seeded team's campus,
further rewarding the best teams in the country.
Shorten the regular season by one week, playing 11 games. Any revenue
lost from the one less non-conference game would easily be made up
by the TV deals you could get fot this December Dance.
Here's why this idea kicks the crap out of the status quo.
1) No more complaining from minor conferences that the championship
is a monopoly that's unfair to some teams. Every team (except arguably
Army, Navy, and a couple other minor independents) starts the season
knowing that a conference championship equals a legitimate crack at
the national title. Even those independents could earn a spot if they
play a decent schedule and run the table.
2) More bowl games have a direct impact on the national championship.
The same four bowls (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange) rotate through,
hosting the title game with the same regularity. But three other games
(one in each region of the country) would all have an added importance.
If you want to rotate other bowls (Gator, Alamo, Hawaii, maybe?) through
as part of the round of eight and just have them host it every other
year, that's fine too.
3) I'm almost giddy at the thought of warm weather teams coming north
to play the first round in the winter. The Big Ten always has to play
the SEC in its own backyard in bowl games. Let's see Miami or Florida
State pack their mittens and come play in Columbus or Ann Arbor in
December.
4) No more controversy, no more missing out on a championship appearance
because Hawaii lost to Boise State, or Notre Dame lost to Syracuse
(a large part of what happened to USC this year). If some three-loss
team misses out on the final at-large bid because of the same thing,
they don't have nearly as good a case as the Trojans do this season.
5) Speaking of Notre Dame... there's no special deal for them. They
don't get an automatic bid unless they join a conference. If they
have a great season and finish as one of the five at-large teams,
good for them. If not, feel free to count your NBC money while you're
on the outside, looking in. For the record, they would have made it
if we were playing under this system last year.
Just to give you an idea how this system would have worked out this
season...
Automatic berths: Florida State (ACC Champ), Kansas State (Big XII
Champ), Miami of Florida (Big East Champ), Michigan (Big Ten Champ),
Southern Miss (C-USA Champ), Miami of Ohio (MAC Champ), Utah (Mountain
West Champ), Southern Cal (Pac-10 Champ), LSU (SEC Champ), North Texas
(Sun Belt Champ), Boise State (WAC Champ).
At-Large Teams: Oklahoma (BCS #1), Ohio State (BCS #5), Texas (BCS
#6), Tennessee (BCS #8), Georgia (BCS #12).
The first two teams left out would come from the same conference.
Those teams? BCS #13 Iowa, and #14 Purdue. But under the current system
they'd also have no shot at the national title, and with three losses
each, they can't make a real good case that they're being robbed,
either.
Incredibly, the first two teams left out last year ALSO would have
been Big Ten teams (Michigan and Penn State). You certainly can't
say I'm screwing with the formula to favor the Buckeyes' conference.
As I mentioned above, you'd seed the teams 1-16, straight down the
BCS rankings. The field would be:
1) Oklahoma (BCS #1)
2) Louisiana State (BCS #2)
3) Southern Cal (BCS #3)
4) Michigan (BCS #4)
5) Ohio State (BCS #5)
6) Texas (BCS #6)
7) Florida State (BCS #7)
8) Tennessee (BCS #8)
9) Miami, FL (BCS #9)
10) Kansas State (BCS #10)
11) Miami, OH (BCS #11)
12) Georgia (BCS #12)
13) Boise State (BCS #17)
14) Utah (BCS #22)
15) Southern Miss (BCS Rank Unknown)
16) North Texas (BCS Rank Unknown)
The first round:
#16 North Texas at #1 Oklahoma
#15 Southern Miss at #2 LSU
#14 Utah at #3 Southern Cal
#13 Boise State at #4 Michigan
#12 Georgia at #5 Ohio State (pack your ear muffs, ladies)
#11 Miami, OH at #6 Texas
#10 Kansas State at #7 Florida State
#9 Miami, FL at #8 Tennessee
Is there anyone in America who wouldn't love to watch this slate
of games this coming Saturday? This would be like the first weekend
of the Big Dance, only better because it's football.
Let me reiterate the fact that this would raise so much cash, the
NCAA might as well start printing its own money.
It's also a chance to see how good the Miami RedHawks really are.
Boise State wants to be a national player, and this is their chance.
Southern Cal got shut out of the championship, and whether you think
they deserved to be a part of the Sugar Bowl or not, we'd all be screaming
if the same thing happened to the Buckeyes.
If you think a minor conference team like North Texas is too lousy
to deserve a shot at the crown, then they shouldn't be too much trouble
for Oklahoma, should they? And wouldn't it be great to see them take
their crack at the Goliath?
Hypothetically, let's say the higher seeds won all of the first round
games. The second round games would be played on New Year's Day. This
would give fans a few weeks to work out travel arrangements, as well
as keeping the January 1st bowl tradition alive.
How's this for a New Year's Day? 12:00 pm: Citrus (#5 Ohio State
vs. #4 Michigan), 3:00 pm: Cotton (#7 Florida State vs. #2 LSU), 6:00
pm: Fiesta (Tennessee vs. Oklahoma), 9:00 pm: Holiday (Texas vs. Southern
Cal).
Assuming again that the higher seeds all won, you could select the
Final Four game sites based on the most convenient location to the
higher seed's campus, or that team's traditional bowl tie-in. Take
your pick. Play these on the first Saturday that falls at least seven
days after New Year's Day.
This season, Michigan could play LSU in the Orange Bowl with Oklahoma
and USC playing in the Rose Bowl, or you could flip those bowls if
you wanted to.
The Championship game would play the Saturday after that. You'd have
one true national champion, no more and no less every single year.
When you walk into work on Monday, just think about this: Can you
imagine the frenzy around the water cooler as everyone filled out
their NCAA football brackets?
Can you imagine sitting down next Saturday, and instead of watching
"Frosty the Snowman" for the 835th time, working the remote
control like Phil Fulmer working the buffet at Ponderosa to watch
EIGHT incredible college football games?
Before you answer, think about this; all of those games would have
a DIRECT impact on who gets to play for the national title.
Finally, can you imagine a sport dumb enough to leave all this on
the table, and instead use a system that not only destroys the bowl
tradition, but also has the shakiest "championship" formula
this side of boxing?
If you're in Columbus this Saturday, drive past the empty Horseshoe,
and picture it packed to the top of D-deck with 105,000 screaming,
scarlet-clad fans. Picture hotels booked, restaurants packed, Hineygate
rocking.
Picture the Georgia players shivering around a space heater on their
sideline. Picture the OSU seniors leading the team out of the tunnel,
getting an unexpected chance to play another game at home. Picture
a Buckeye team that's still just four wins away from defending its
national championship.
Then, feel free to tell me that it's not a better picture than what
we're looking at right now.
Tom Orr is an O-Zone columnist. E-mail him at tomorr@the-ozone.net