College Football Postseason: The Joke

Arial view of the Hoover Dam.

(Not shown: the seventy-five year old man who represents the NCAA using his finger to plug a hole near the base of the dam.)
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I thought I'd take a break from the usual and talk about college football. Normally I don't really care for the NCAA's version of football, but now, since my Kansas Jayhawks are 7-0 - and ranked #10 in the USA Today Coaches Poll - my motivation for paying attention has suddenly increased exponentially....meaning that my attention is now more than zero.

My disdain for college fooball has always been for a multiple of reasons:

a) I live in the heart of Big 10 "Country" yet I am not a fan of the Big 10 Conference at all...maybe it's because they have 11 schools. Can't people count? Unless you were pretty awful in shop class, ten would equal the number of digits combined on both of your hands. Of course, if you're still getting that wrong, maybe you belong in the Big 10. (I know I'll catch slack for that one...)

b) The Jayhawks are perennially a bad to mediocre football team. While a student, I went to the games because we got drunk first and wandered into the stadium. To our surprise there was a game going on.

c) Division I-A football has always had Bowl games serve as their "postseason", and therefore never been able to truly crown a National Champion.


**The Past**

So, how hard is it to just let the teams decide it on the field, you ask? Apparently, it's extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely hard. After there were co-national champions in both 1990 & 1991, the NCAA decided to do something about it. So they started what was known as the Bowl Coalition (which lasted from 1992-1994). This was one of the most insane systems ever put in place. Just a summary of how it worked was that they took 8 teams and tried to place the top 2 against each other for the title. The 8 teams came from 5 conference champions, 2 runners-up from other conferences... and Notre Dame! Seriously. Somehow Notre Dame was always a part of the Bowl Coalition, no matter how good (or bad) their team was that year. Wha-Wha-WHAT?!

The entire idea of the Bowl Coalition could be summed up like this:

For a variety of reasons, the NCAA did away with the Bowl Coalition, and instead started the Bowl Alliance (1995-1997). For comparison's sake, if the Hoover Dam had a massive crack in it, the Bowl Coalition basically came along and tried to cover the crack with Band-Aids. When the Band-Aids didn't hold, the Bowl Alliance said, "Ah ha! I can fix the crack, because I know why the Band-Aids didn't work. You forgot to lick them!" Yeah, the Bowl Alliance was just as bad, this time involving 6 teams: 4 conference champions plus 2 at-large teams....oh yeah, and there were also special provisions for Notre Dame to get in. *sigh*

Wow, licking the Band-Aids didn't work either? Who woulda guessed?

So, in 1998 the NCAA went with a program called the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, to determine the national champion. This system is still in use today so it must be all fixed, right? Uhhh no, not even close. The system has been wrought with controversy from the outset. You see, in every other sport the polls are simply a fun way to rank the top teams during the season...and that's all. The rankings don't really matter in other sports because a playoff system or tournament ends up deciding the national champion. But with the advent of the BCS, there is still no playoff system in college football and the Hoover Dam is bursting!


**The Present: Controversies of the BCS**

2000-2001 Season:
Oklahoma finshed the season undefeated and deserved to be in the National Championship game. But who should they play? The BCS chose Florida State, who only had one loss all season long. Easy enough, right? However, the Miami Hurricanse also had only one loss on the season...and not only that, Miami was the team that beat Florida State to give them their only loss!! So who did Miami's only loss come to? The Washington Huskies...and they, too, only had one loss all season long!! Mass confusion!! Florida State, Miami and Washington all had legitimate claims at the right to play Oklahoma for the Nat'l Title. But the BCS chose Florida State, and that was that. Miami & Washington??? Sorry....

2003-2004 Season:
An undefeated team is a pretty obvious choice to pick as one of the teams to play for the nat'l title. However, the '03-'04 season ended without anyone going undefeated. Oops! Even worse, SIX teams finished with only 1 loss on the year: Oklahoma, LSU, USC, Boise State, Miami Univ.(OH) and TCU. So how do you choose between them? Hmmm, what would the BCS do? Well, based upon who certain people thought were the two best teams, they chose LSU & Oklahoma to play for the title. Sounds fair, right? But USC was ranked #1 in both the AP & Coaches polls!

LSU ended up winning the BCS title game 21-14, so the Coaches Poll ranked LSU #1, making them the national champion...right?? Well, you tell me, because in the AP Poll, the sports writers kept USC in the #1 spot after they beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Ooooops! So now each poll had a different team ranked #1 at the end of the season.

So now there's not only the dispute between USC and LSU for who should truly be the national champion, but three other teams didn't even get a chance to play for it, despite having the same record. Buh.... Oh well, at least it can't get any stranger or more complicated than that, can it?

2004-2005 Season:
Ummmmmm. Yes it can. At the end of the season FIVE teams still remained undefeated. "Mother @&@%^*~@#," said the BCS. USC & Oklahoma were ranked #1 and #2 in the preseason polls, and by remaining undefeated throughout the season they were chosen to play in the BCS title game. But, Auburn, Boise State and Utah were also undefeated.

How in the world can you not give an undefeated team the chance to win a national championship? Because they weren't ranked high enough at the beginning of the season? How does that make any sense? Answer: it doesn't. But the BCS follwed that "logic" and crowned USC the national champion after they destroyed Oklahoma in the title game 55-19. However, Auburn and Utah both easily won their bowl games as well to also remain undefeated on the season. Three unbeaten teams, and only one nat'l champion???

How does that happen? It's outageous!!!! In fact it's barbaric! BARBARIC!! BARBARIC!!

Senator Robert Byrd getting emotional over Michael Vick's dogfighting scandal...it's funny no matter how many times you see it! (thanks to Reggie Newton, who showed me this clip.)

2006-2007 Season:
The season ended with two undefeated teams in the country. Phew! Nice and easy, right? Just let them play each other and it's winner take all! Ohio State was one of the unbeaten, and being ranked #1 in both polls they were a clear choice to play for the national championship. Boise State was the other unbeaten team, but since they don't play in a "BCS Conference" the BCS decided not to give them the shot at the title. There were four one-loss teams being considered instead: Louisville, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida.

The BCS chose Florida to play Ohio State, and Florida won the game handily to claim the national championship. However, Boise State also won their bowl game to remain the ONLY undefeated team in college football that season. Yet sadly, they were not given the opportunity to even PLAY for the title. I don't need to tell you what I think that is...just ask Senator Byrd.


**The WHAT Bowl???**

So, what are we really holding on to tradition-wise? These games have been warped, become corporate-sponsored, and end up changing their names all the time or even going defunct. Ok, granted that these following games are a bit older, but they're still some of my favorite bowl-games that no longer even exist:

The Oil Bowl: played in Houston, TX from 1946-1947.
The Glass Bowl: played in Toledo, OH from 1946-1949.
The Cigar Bowl: played in Tampa, FL from 1947-1956.
The Salad Bowl: played in Phoenix, AZ from 1948-1952.
The Houston Bowl: aptly named, they played it in Houston, TX from 2000-2005...what I find funny is that this is the name they changed it to. It used be known as the game every little boy dreamed of one day playing in: The galleryfurniture.com Bowl.

And ironically enough, in Los Angeles, CA they hosted The Mercy Bowl in 1961 and 1971. Apparently mercy was only granted every 10 years...and then: NO MERCY!!!
"Strike first, strike hard, no mercy, sir!"


**The Future: A 16-Team Playoff System???**

As far as I can tell, it's not that difficult to figure out a playoff system, and there are many different scenarios that would work. After some discussions with Our Man In L.A., we've devised a pretty viable option that should keep everyone happy.

The regular season for most of college football ends this year on Nov. 24th. This puts the conference championship games on Dec. 1st. Let's give the teams two weeks to rest after that.

Selection Tuesday: Tuesday, Dec. 3rd
The Top 16 teams will be chosen for the 1st Round of the NCAA College Football Championship Series. 7 automatic bids plus 9 at-large bids.

6 of the automatic bids will be filled by the champions from the major conferences: Big 10, Big 12, Big East, ACC, SEC and Pac-10. The 7th automatic bid will be selected from the various champions of the mid-major conferences: Conference USA, Mountain West, Mid American, Western Athletic or Sun Belt. The 9 at-large bids as well as the seedings will be determined by a panel of NCAA representatives, much like the basketball tournament. As a rule, no more than 4 teams from one conference will be chosen....Also, any undefeated team automatically receives a bid to the playoffs. So if 2 mid-major teams go unbeaten, they both receive an automatic bid, and now there are only 8 at-large bids, keeping it still extremely fair.

ROUND ONE: Thursday, Dec. 13th - Saturday, Dec. 15th
For the sake of argument, let's look at who might be making up the field of 16 this season, as of October 21st:

Automatic Bids:
Big 10: Ohio State (8-0)
Big 12: Kansas (7-0)
Big East: South Florida (6-1)
ACC: Boston College (7-0)
SEC: LSU (7-1)
Pac-10: Arizona State (7-0)
(mid-major) WAC: Hawaii (7-0)

9 At-Large Bids:
As of right now, there are probably 18 teams that have a legitimate shot at grabbing one of the 9 bids. Of those, 7 stand out as definites: Oregon (6-1), USC (6-1), Florida (5-2), West Virginia (7-1), Missouri (6-1), Oklahoma (7-1), Virginia Tech (6-1). This leaves 2 open spots, with up to 9 teams fighting for them. Obviously there will be some difficult decisions to be made, but I would take Texas & Kentucky to fill out the bids.

The 16 teams will then be seeded, with the caveat that in each sub-bracket of 4, there will be no more than 1 team from each conference. So the field could very well look like this:

#1 Ohio State vs. #16 Hawaii
#8 Kansas vs. #9 USC

#4 Oklahoma vs. #13 Kentucky
#5 Arizona St. vs. #12 West Virginia

#3 LSU vs. #14 Virginia Tech
#6 Oregon vs. #11 Missouri

#2 Boston College vs. #15 Texas
#7 South Florida vs. #10 Florida

ROUND TWO: Saturday, Dec. 22nd
Eight teams remain from the 1st Round. Here in the 2nd Round is where we can start incorporating Bowl games into the playoff system.

The Fiesta Bowl gets the winners of the 1-16 and 8-9 games. Possible matchup: #1 Ohio State vs. #9 USC

The Chik-fil-A/Peach Bowl gets the winners of the 4-13 and 5-12 games. Possible matchup: #4 Oklahoma vs. #12 West Virginia

The Cotton Bowl gets the winners of the 3-14 and 6-11 games. Possible matchup: #3 LSU vs. #11 Missouri

The Gator Bowl gets the winners of the 2-15 and 7-10 games. Possible matchup: #2 Boston College vs. #10 Florida

ROUND THREE: The Final Four - January 1st, 2008
Just as it is now, the "Big 3" bowl games will represent the Final Four of college football on a rotating basis. Every year the championship game will switch between the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl. A very possible Final Four this season could be as such:

The Orange Bowl: #1 Ohio State vs. #4 Oklahoma
The Sugar Bowl: #3 LSU vs. #10 Florida

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: January 8th, 2008
The Rose Bowl: #1 Ohio State vs. #3 LSU


**END RESULTS...**

The history of the bowl games has drawn excitement mainly from the alumni and fans of the two schools playing in each particular game. That, combined with the fact that it's a great tradition to have a bunch of bowl games to watch every January 1st, is the main draw. But, in a playoff system, wouldn't it have an even greater draw for some of these other bowl games if the teams playing in them were still fighting to be #1? Wouldn't it be an even bigger draw to the general public to watch the Peach Bowl if the winner moved on to the Final Four? Revenue-wise, it would be even bigger and better for the schools themselves and for the networks.

This playoff system gives all deserving teams a fair chance on the field to earn the crown of national champion, and also keeps in tact the tradition of the bowl games. However, the "tradition" of still being unsure that the team voted #1 at the end of the season is the true national champion... Yeah, that's a tradition I think we could do without.

Consider this: As it stands now in the BCS, it is the Coaches Poll at the end of the season that technically crowns the national champion. In fact, the poll is simply an opinion poll all season long....until the final one. Because in the final one the Coaches Poll is contractually obligated to vote the winner of the BCS Title game into the #1 spot. So basically the BCS is saying, "Of course the Coaches Poll is an opinion poll....But HERE'S your opinion!"

With the bowl games serving to accentuate the playoff system, everyone wins. The title gets decided on the field with all of the best teams playing for it. The way it should be.

Of course, now I just need to get the NCAA to listen to my proposal...does anyone have their phone number?