I'm not a fan of the BCS. There's far too much subjectivity involved and while the controversy keeps some people interested in college football, I think it does a disservice to the teams involved since it rarely if ever results in an undisputed national champion. There have been lots of proposals for an 8 team playoff or a plus one game, but those really are just reinforcing the same values and interests that the current format does.
My proposal is a 24 team playoff based off of a realigning of the conferences and modeled somewhat off of the NCAA basketball tournaments.
Step 1: Realignment
There are 120 teams that currently play in the D1 BCS division. They are currently in 11 conferences with between 8 and 12 members plus 4 independents. Those schools will be realigned into 10 12-team conferences each split into 2 divisions. The WAC will be dissolved with its teams split among the Sun Belt, Mountain West and Pac 10 conferences. Army, Navy and Western Kenticky will join the Big East while Notre Dame moves into the Big 10. There are a couple of other minor shifts between the teams of Conference USA and the new Sun Belt Conference.By keeping most of the conferences in tact, I keep them happy and keep the traditional rivalries strong. Whenever possible I kept the top rivalry games in the same division.
Step 2: The Schedules
Each team will play every team in its division every year. It will play 4 teams from the other division each season on a rotating basis. Each team will play 3 non-conference games. For a total of twelve regular season games.
Division Champions will meet in a conference championship game.
Step 3: The Playoffs - Selection
Each conference will get one automatic bid to the playoffs. That bid will go to the conference championship game winner. (10 teams)
Six conferences will get a second automatic bid. That bid can go to either the conference runner up or to the second place team from the division that produces the conference champion. (6 more teams)
The remaining slots will be filled by the eight best remaining teams based on this simple formula:
Wins x opponent's winning percentage
Step 4: Which conferences get the bonus bids?
For the first year, the current big 6 BCS conferences get the extra bids. For the subsequent years the extra bids will be allotted on a point system based on the performance of those conferences in the playoffs the year before. The six conferences that earn the most points get the extra tournament bids.
National Champion 6 points
Runner Up 4 points
3rd round win 2 points
2nd round win 1 point
1st round win or bye .5 points
Step 5: Seeding
The NCAA would create a committee made up of one representative of each conference. That committee would seed the tournament in much the same way that the committee does for basketball. Number of wins, number of wins against other playoff teams, head to head meetings, and overall opponents' strength of schedule. The top 8 seeds get first round byes.
The Alternative
I have an alternative proposal based on the same principles, but there would be twelve 10-team conferences with a round robin schedule and the conference champions getting twelve of the playoff slots and the other twelve going to the next 12 best teams based on wins x opp. win percentage.
The biggest problem with this would be the massive realignment. The Big 10 would have to drop someone (Northwestern) The Big 12 would lose 2 (Baylor, Colorado). I haven't totally figured out this realignment yet, but it would probably be less popular due to splitting up some rivalries and the big six conferences would be opposed because it would definitely weaken their control of seeding committees and such.
I would say 16 team playoff and run the entire "rankings" off of stats. Wins, Loses, PF, PA, yards gained, yards given up, etc. Take the human factor out of it and it will come around. The argument would be the weaker conferences vs. the big conferences but hey they are all at the same level correct?
ReplyDeleteI see two problems with your proposal. First, 24 teams is 20% of the teams which is about what the NCAA likes to have in their playoffs (65/300+ for basketball). Sixteen teams would only be about 13%. Too many really good teams would be left out in favor of "lesser" conference champions. The second issue I have is that basing rankings on the statistics encourages teams to run up the score and play for statistics.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the NCAA runs any football tournaments already??? Oh thats right they do. Just take the Football Championship subdivision rules and apply them to the Bowl subdivision.
ReplyDeleteBut see that is too logical and makes too much sense for the NCAA to employ.
Th big conferences have too much power for that and a lot of people don't like the way those are run either. The whole region thing throws off scheduling for a lot of teams.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, but the voters already encourage the score to be run up ..... uuggghhh Texas only beat UTEP by 21 points while Ohio State beat Toledo by 70 points .... I know who is getting my vote. It is a hard thing but to some extent stats will self regulate. If the teams are really worried about having the score ran up on them, maybe they should not be at that level of football. So that leads to another point should their be a different criteria to get to the top tier of college football?
ReplyDeleteMy system does get rid of the voters except for the selection committee. There would be no reason to run up the score in my system. Jay's solution doesn't factor in strenght of schedule and actively encourages poor sportsmanship.
ReplyDeletehmmmm, To some extent that is true but even a selection committee will allow for some propping up of old time cannons. What about a point system like in hockey? 2 pts for a regulation win win. 1 pt for an overtime win and no points for a loss. Any tie breaks could be set out by something like points allowed? lol can't tell I love this topic can you ....
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