Finally, here’s the perfect college football playoff plan
The first objective: Get to the college football postseason without the acronym, BCS. (AP photo)
While there is no actual data to back this statement, I’m almost certain my three greatest sources of email relate to unclaimed winnings in the Irish lottery (“This is your final notice!”), male enhancement pills (“See the desire in her eyes!”) and the perfect college football playoff format (“I have no life, no friends, I live on Pop-Tarts and ramen noodles and have been working on this for 17 months!”).
So it comes as great relief that college football finally appears to be moving close to some form of a playoff, with even NCAA president Mark Emmert saying Thursday that he might support a four-team format. We will get a champion. I will get less email.
But I’m kind of old school in many ways. I believe college football is better with debate. It partially fuels the passions and traditions of the sport. What we don’t need is an eight- or 16-team playoff format, which is unworkable and would drive the bones of these kids into dust. We already have hypocritical university presidents who pound their fist on tables and claim they’re all about academics, then when the TV lights click off approve 12-game regular seasons and conference championship games to generate revenue (and not to build libraries).
“The season is very long, and I don’t know if you can do a whole lot more than what we’re doing now,” Georgia coach Mark Richt said Friday. “I guess you can do the plus-one that they’re talking about. Keep it sane. But beyond that, you’d have to cut back on regular-season games.”
That’s not happening.
Mark Richt says an expanded playoff system in college football isn't workable. (Jason Getz/AJC)
With that, I now unveil the perfect plan, not to be confused with all of the other plans.
Understand something: Bowl games largely have lost their appeal. Too many matchups are not appealing to even the fan bases involved in the game. One reason for that is the BCS’s No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup has rendered all other bowls meaningless. The under-40 crowd may not realize this, but New Year’s Day games used to be a treasure, not just because the Sugar, Rose, Orange, Cotton were great, but because the games actually meant something. Human polls determined the champion, so several teams in the major bowls could convince themselves, with a series of results, that they had a chance to finish No. 1.
This plan also restores the bowls’ tradition, gives them meaning, provides a title game and leaves worthy debate intact. So here goes:
• 1.) Drop the BCS into a dumpster. What other sports enterprise takes its biggest money-making venture and allows an outside company to run it?
• 2.) The NCAA creates a blue-ribbon panel of a dozen members, similar to basketball, who select at-large berths for the five major bowls (see below). All remaining teams are available for other bowls.
• 3.) We bring the Cotton Bowl, which has revenue-generating Cowboys Stadium, back into the equation, joining the Sugar, Rose, Orange and Fiesta. If somebody considers five too many, dump the Fiesta. They bring little to the table anyway, other than corruption.
• 4.) The major bowls will have traditional conference tie-ins. SEC champion to the Sugar, ACC to the Orange, Big 12 to the Cotton, Pac-12 and Big Ten to the Rose. (The Fiesta can get two worthy at-large bids, since no other conference champion is worthy of an automatic bid.) Potentially, each of the five bowls will mean something because there’s no automatic 1 vs. 2 match-up. It effectively gives you “five semifinal” games (kinda, sorta). The often-heard proposal of having two of the current BCS bowls designated as semifinals would render the other three bowls meaningless.
• 5.) After the New Year’s bowls, the panel selects the two best teams for the championship game. Of course, arguments will ensue. So what? Each team will have had a chance to prove itself in the bowls. Picking four teams for semifinals would diminish the bowls and extend the season too long.
One last thing: If the two best teams come from the same conference, I’m OK with that. Most consider the NCAA basketball tournament the greatest thing going, and nobody complains when there are multiple teams from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten or Big 12 in the Final Four. So why should football be any different.
So there’s the perfect plan, which by the way would’ve concluded the same way as the BCS’s imperfect one: Alabama over LSU in the final.
By Jeff Schultz
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192 comments Add your comment
JDW
January 14th, 2012
9:36 am
@jeff….”What we don’t need is an eight- or 16-team playoff format, which is unworkable and would drive the bones of these kids into dust.”
Yet it happens every year in the other NCAA football divisions. You know those teams with fewer players on them. You might not want it but it is demonstrably workable.
Homepage | MrSEC.com
January 14th, 2012
9:43 am
[...] Jeff Schultz has his own plan: “After the New Year’s bowls, the panel selects the two best teams for the championship [...]
Dean
January 14th, 2012
9:50 am
I like! and dump the Fiesta. It never belonged with the big boys to begin with.
J Bo
January 14th, 2012
9:52 am
My take on the fix for the BCS would be:
1. Four BCS Bowl plus one
a. Eliminate qualifing/non-qualifing system
b. Top 8 teams play in the BCS Bowls matched 1/3, 2/4, 5/7, and 6/8 with the winners of 1/3 and 2/4 playing in the plus one bowl for the championship.
2. All Conferences are limited to 12 members, are split, and play a championship game.
4. The other Bowl games match Conference champions against conference champions and division champion against division champion.
5. Rankings
a. keep current BCS system
b. No preseason ranking
c. Teams enter the season defending their final ranking from the last year.
6. Games
a. 12 regular season
b. Division winners play conference game
c. Conference winners play major bowl games
d. division winners play lower level bowl games
e. top eight teams play BCS bowl games
f. Winners of 1/3 and 2/4 play championship game
I think these changes would level the playing field without taking away for the money being made on the games.
Saban Never Sleeps
January 14th, 2012
9:54 am
Michael Adams is an idiot!! What in the hell is he thinking in his support to cut football scholarships from 85 to 80.
Ted M
January 14th, 2012
9:59 am
Shorten the regular season, thats better for the “students” anyway, and go to 16 team playoff.
The revenue would be off the charts and enough to off set the shortened season.
DocDawg
January 14th, 2012
10:08 am
I’ll go one step further. Take the last 30 years of results and seed sixteen 8 team geographic “areas” that can overlap. Perennial doormats, go play in the 2nd tier. Round robin within your area. Play 3 inter-area rivalry games. There’s ten games. Top 32 teams now have playoffs. Bottom 16 can be challenged by teams outside the 128 in a “lose and you’re demoted to 2nd tier” game. That ought to freak people out.
ATLien
January 14th, 2012
10:13 am
Stupid, stupid, stupid plan. So let’s take a system that picks the championship teams based on a entire season (flawed as it is) and replace it with a system that picks championship teams based on one bowl game played a month and a half after the regular season ends.
The perfect playoff plan would use the bowls as the playoff. Add another bowl to the current BCS bowls and make it 5 total. Then use those 5 bowls, starting the week of Christmas, as a playoff for 6 teams. Six is as deep as any CFB playoff needs to go, and follows the NFL conference model with the #1 and #2 seeds receiving first round bye’s. Regular season games still mean everything, and there is still a huge incentive to win every game with the bye week as the reward for the top 2.
Hike
January 14th, 2012
10:24 am
All you have to do is use the formerly called div 1AA playoff system. The 16 teams crown a champion before Xmas. Now, ESPN has ruined even that playoff, paying the teams to wait 3 weeks before playing the final game. There is NO EXCUSE for not following that format…except $$$.
BTW, thanks to ESPN $$$, we have bowl games strung out from Dec 20th thru Jan 9th. Most playing @ night… No more multiple games on new years Days with 3 TV’s going and the “big game” deciding the NC playing that same day. ESPN $$$ is destroying college football. These college presidents should stand up for their fans who want to tailgate in the “daylight” and not be rescheduled to suit ESPN. It’s the classic “sellout” and I am suprised that no one has complained.
bamaguy
January 14th, 2012
10:42 am
1) No University President is going to give money out of his budget to achieve “fairness” in any sport.
2) There will be controversy no matter what the format.
3) No only is it about money for the universities, it is about big bucks for the four host cities of the BCS championship game and they will spend considerably keeping that in tact (why can’t cities bid on the college NC game like they do the Super Bowl).
4) The teams that have won the NC the majority of the time the last 20 years will continue to do so no matter the structure of the playoff.
Josh
January 14th, 2012
10:52 am
Good thoughts, but when is the season over? End of January? February? No way they’ll schedule conflicts with the NFL Playoffs/Super Bowl.
Good theory
January 14th, 2012
10:54 am
I do like picking the two teams after the bowl games, but they seem to like spreading out the bowls the week after New Year’s nowadays. Did anyone notice that all the games to see were on at 1pm on Jan 2?
Maybe they should eliminate a conference championship game loser as well.
We must realize that the BCS and maybe a plus 1 is all that the big boy conferences would allow. They don’t want to split the big bucks with all the leachs anyway.
bamaguy
January 14th, 2012
10:59 am
On an unrelated note: The guy in the picture at the top of Jeff’s blog over the BCS is Vinnie Suseri who’s father Sal Suseri is going to Tennessee to be the defensive coordinator. I knew Sal would go somewhere as a defensive coordinator, he is that good. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be another SEC team. Vinnie is staying at Alabama (so he says).
DawgVoiceofReason
January 14th, 2012
11:11 am
I’m not so sure about the committee thing. The reason it works (sort of) for the NCAA tournament is because it is needed to do the complex scheduling, factoring in regular season record, geographical location, conference alignments and rivalries (among other things, I’m sure), that is required to fit in 66 teams. Even that committee generates controversy. They would need to be very open about what their selection criteria are and how they made their choices. There would need to be some way to minimize the corrupting influence of the individual bowls (i.e. ROSE BOWL) trying to benefit themselves to the exclusion of getting the best football outcome.
Joey
January 14th, 2012
11:12 am
How about a 10-WIN-Playoff-Series?
We would make it almost every season, because in case you haven’t heard, Coach Richt, “averages 10 games a season!!”
That’s the most popular assertion by the 10-WIN crowd.
The others are, in no particular order:
“If you run Richt off, who are you gonna get that’s better?”
“Look what happened to UT when they fired Phil.”
“Do you want to go back to the days of Goff?”
“Richt is the greatest coach UGA has ever had!”
“You have to give Richt 15 years to win a Title, because that’s how long it takes most coaches.”
I’d rather have Richt than Saban and Myer any day!”
Otto
January 14th, 2012
11:12 am
Sorry, Jeff, but can’t take this seriously. You didn’t address the most important issue, one of the biggest reasons for the BCS in the first place. How would revenues be distributed?
The BCS was born because traditional football powers don’t think they should be forced to share revs through a socialistic process with schools that don’t command big TV audiences and cannot consistently draw 80,000 fans.
4-teams? What a joke. There would be more controversy about who got left out than there is now. Pressure would be to go to 8, then 16, then 32. Look at what is happening in the FCS. Just went to 20 in 2010-11, now proposal to go to 24. It won’t stop until it gets to 32 and then you will still hear complaints from No. 33 and No. 34.
Knute Rock Knee
January 14th, 2012
11:17 am
Jeff,
I don’t agree with you often, but I think this idea is right on the mark.
Thank goodness, the weather was good this year on New Years day. At least I could play golf ……. because there was not Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl or Orange Bowl. I may sound like a grey haird old man (which I am), but there was not a more exciting sports day of the year than January 1st.
Comments from Knut
bamaguy
January 14th, 2012
11:18 am
Otto makes a good point. I don’t follow basketball that closely but someone told me that is exactly how March Madness got so big but teams left out still complain (Alabama complained about being left out last year and went on to come in second in the NIT)
DawgVoiceofReason
January 14th, 2012
11:21 am
The problem, of course, with most playoffs is that they still have to address the issue of what constitutes valid entry into the playoffs. Some people believe that “only conference champions” should make it. That would have, of course, eliminated Alabama. It would have also eliminated Stanford. AND it would have included a school like Clemson, which turned out to be a pretender this year, but somehow beat VA Tech, which also flopped in the BCS.
What if UCLA had somehow upset Oregon. That would have been a disgrace to include them in ANY kind of playoff. They should have NEVER been allowed to go to a bowl with a losing record.
I still don’t like the fact that some conferences actually play a championship game while other conferences don’t. That really needs to be addressed in whatever solution is presented.
bamaguy
January 14th, 2012
11:22 am
And, It is ALL about the money. It took an uproar over two SEC teams, one of them who didn’t win their division, being in the Championship Game.
We can all thank Iowa State for even making a discussion possible. If OSU had played, and possible beaten, LSU in the national title game there would be no serious talk among those who matter of altering the current BCS.
Bobo for Attorney General
January 14th, 2012
11:28 am
Pretty good Jeff except for the 12 member “blue-ribbon” panel.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:32 am
Sorry folks. Just checking in now. I’m going to assume before I even look at the comments that many of you want a full-fledged playoff plan, which I’m against. Here goes . . .
DawgVoiceofReason
January 14th, 2012
11:33 am
There will always be somebody unhappy about being left out. That issue can never be solved. So, the focus needs to be on clearly defining what the purpose of the playoff is. In my view it is something like this: The purpose is to decide a national college football champion on the playing field from among teams that are worthy of being considered for the national championship. The rub is deciding, from my earlier post today, what are the criteria for selecting teams for the national championship playoff? In any case, I can’t imagine a scenario that would require more than 8 teams in a playoff to do that. Most years no more than 4 teams would be worthy, so for the time being a format that includes the top four teams would solve 90 percent of the current problem.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:35 am
All I’m Saying is — If it didn’t interfere with finals, I’d be completely in favor of moving some of the bowl games up. I don’t like the long lapse either.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:35 am
AGTFan53 — Thank you.
AltamahaDawg
January 14th, 2012
11:36 am
The conference/bowl affiliations kill the whole point of the exersize.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:37 am
GTBob — Div II and Div II is a different level of competition and that level also is less dependent on attendance. Fan bases will NOT travel to new locations every week in a 16-team playoff. No way. You’re thinking purely as a TV-watching fan.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:38 am
Chipper — Haha. Thanks. I take this “lapse” as a personal challenge.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:38 am
Bali — “so let me get this right…you are saying the male enhancement pills do not really work…dang”
<<< Thanks. There’s my laugh of the day.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:39 am
Anotherdawg — “What you are proposing would give teams one last chance to prove that they belong in the championship game, without destroying the bowls, or the importance of the regular season.”
<<< Thanks. That’s what I was going for.
Eagle1234
January 14th, 2012
11:39 am
Good job sparky!
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:42 am
TommyP — Actually, the pre-BCS system with just bowls and polls was SUPERIOR to BCS, which wrecked postseason.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:42 am
Lanier — Thank you.
DawgVoiceofReason
January 14th, 2012
11:42 am
Joey,
Interesting summation of the arguments for Coach Richt and against firing him. I’m guessing that you intended those to be sarcastic since you presented the weakest (and out of context) form of each of them. The objections to Mark Richt are well known but most of them overlook and ignore his positives and don’t address realistically how that might work. Let’s hear your case….
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:42 am
Big Enos Burdette — “The people have spoken. An 8 team tourney gets a team in on merit, not pedigree or beauty. That’s the American way”
<<< Which people and which Americans are you referring to?
AltamahaDawg
January 14th, 2012
11:44 am
Joey, Buddy. Are you going to beat that worn out drum for the next 8 months, iIrrespective of the topic.
You are simply never going to convince the rest of us to have wished we had lost more games and fired the coach.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:45 am
Icallbs — “Jeff, How do I get on the Irish lottery email list? All I get are emails from the Nigerian embassy telling me I’m rich. I’m hurt. Is it because I’m a protestant?”
<<< Doubt the Protestant thing has anything to do with it. I’m Jewish and I get Irish lottery spam. Ain’t a lot of Jews in Dublins. But I’ll trade you three Irish lottery wins for five Nigerian diamond mines.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:48 am
Male Enhancement Inc. — Hah! I’m just fine, thank you.
AltamahaDawg
January 14th, 2012
11:50 am
shoot….make that illrespective. would have been funny had I nailed it the first time.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:58 am
Phil Oneacre:”Gives 10 top teams (not necessarily poll top ten) a chance to exhibit one last time why they think they are worthy and then choose 2 for the final. Makes the season 1 game longer rather that they traditional playoff method that would keep it going until Easter.”
<<< Exactly.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
11:59 am
JDW — Asked and answered above.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
12:01 pm
Otto — You’re right. Conferences will whine. Therein lies one of the problems in college athletics — they care only about themselves.
Jeff Schultz
January 14th, 2012
12:02 pm
Knute Rock Knee — “Jeff, I don’t agree with you often, but I think this idea is right on the mark.”
<<< Maybe it’s that blind-squirrel/acorn thing.
Dennis
January 14th, 2012
12:35 pm
Put yourself in this circumstance. UGA beats Boise State in the opener and are one and two with FL in the poles. UGA beats FL by three in Jacksonville. UGA beats everyone else and goes to Atlanta and destroys Ark in the SEC Championship. FL wins out and routs FSU and the BCS puts FL into the National Championship game with UGA. FL wins by 7 and UGA goes home without. How many rivers would be clogged by Bulldog Fans having just jumped from the nearest bridge. I don’t think most can see the depth of what just happened BECAUSE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN TO THEM. WINNING YOUR CONFERENCE AND DIVISION HAS TO COUNT FOR SOMETHING. REGULAR SEASON HAS TO COUNT AS AN ELIMINATION.
drew
January 14th, 2012
12:54 pm
Jeff…I’m disappointed. That’s a start, but let’s think bigger. I think an 8 team playoff is the way to go. 8 teams = 7 games total. They can rotate the championship game (i.e., the final) among the big bowls, with the other bowls handling the quarters* and semis. We’ll still need some BCS-like system to determine the top 8 teams, and their seedings.
*Quarters:
#1 vs #8
#2 vs #7
#3 vs #6
#4 vs #5
Then proceed like this:
Let’s say the Cotton Bowl gets the Final, the Sugar and Rose bowls get the semi-finals, and the quarter-finals can be hosted by the four other bowls (Fiesta, Orange, Peach, whatever..). Have the quarters (as well as all the other little bowls) before Christmas. Then the semis the Saturday after New Years, and the Final the next week.
I can’t even imagine how much bank could be made with a system like this. All of the “meaningless” games you refer to Jeff, would immediately become very meaningful.
Or we could go with the top 6 teams and give the 1 and 2 seeds a bye, but I like the 8-team scenario simply because it gives us more football.
Big 10 still can't count
January 14th, 2012
1:02 pm
A quick note….ACC was never a “traditional” for Orange bowl until Miami and FSU entered ACC in ’90s. And who the heck wants ACC today? Orange would be better off with two at-larges.
Big 10 still can't count
January 14th, 2012
1:06 pm
Eliminate Fiesta and bring in Chik-Fil-A “Peach” Bowl. Atlanta’s the epicenter of college football and those boys bring a sellout no matter who’s playing, regardless of economy or state of BCS. It’s time they get elevated to a higher level.
Wake me in September
January 14th, 2012
1:15 pm
Anybody read about the PC police coming at OH.St. Prez, after his “Polish Army” analogy/comments. What? Was the Polish Army supposed to be a source of praise after WWII? How about the “French Army”? Are we to talk about it’s greatness?
King of Southern Football
January 14th, 2012
1:54 pm
I like the idea. Bama woulda been 13-1 instead of 12-1. Each region of the country should deteramine their champion. Under that senario Georgia would not have played in SEC title game.
1 4 GT
January 14th, 2012
2:46 pm
Heck fire! I get “you’re rich emails” from the UN, FBI, UK. Nigeria, Russia and parts of Asia, but never the Irish Lottery! My feelings are hurt! And no, the male enhancement pills don’t work!