BCS, A Four-Letter Word

If only college sports were a democracy. Imagine if the general public got to vote to decide upon how the post-season of college football played out. With 1% of districts reporting, CNN would be proclaiming defeat for the BCS. Unfortunately, Myles Brand and his narrow-minded cohorts over at the NCAA want nothing to do with a playoff, and in this dictatorship, we, the viewing public, have to eat the BCS slop that we get fed every year, and come back like little orphan Oliver, saying "Please, sir, may I have another." But, even after another season of watching my beloved Buckeyes stink it up in the championship game, it isn't myself for whom I feel sorry. It's Boise State, it's Hawa'ii, it's TCU. When next season kicks off, 54 teams will already know that they will not be playing for a national championship. Because facts are facts, if your team isn't in a BCS conference or doesn't have solid gold helmets and Touchdown Jesus overlooking their field, then you can pretty much forget watching them battle for a championship. Does this injustice exist in any other sport? In baseball, half of the teams come out of training camp knowing they won't be making the playoffs. But, that's because they suck, not because the system in place takes it out of their power.

I believe it is the voice of the college football nation, crying out for a playoff. But, the cries are misguided. They are scattered, unclear. How many teams? Where will the games be played? What about the bowls? The first step towards a playoff is to agree on a system that will please everyone involved. There are five major parties that need to be accounted for: The teams, the fans, the NCAA, the Bowls, and the networks. Each party has their own needs, and most conventional ideas for a playoff leave one or more parties disappointed. I believe that the NCAA would be more than willing to rid itself of the BCS, provided a good, solid system replaced it. I would like to outline my idea for that system.

The first question to be answered is how many teams. Some models have proposed a plus-one game, and most models show 4 or 8 team playoffs. My model has 16. That concerned voice you hear is the NCAA. "That makes the season too long, it's bad for the students, and school comes before athletics!" Well, then, I suppose you'd like to try and explain why the NCAA expanded the season by a game 2 years ago. The simple solution here, is to return to an 11 game schedule, and start the season one week earlier. This permits all the time in the world for a 16 team playoff. Now we get to the benefit of a 16 team playoff. It will be a shrunken down version of March Madness. The winner of each conference automatically gets a bid into the playoffs. Talk about regular season games with implications! Imagine the ACC championship game determining who will advance to a playoff. That's must see TV. Now 11 teams are accounted for. How will the remaining 5 teams be chosen? That's right, those 3 ugly letters: The BCS. The top 5 teams in the BCS standings that did not win their conference will garner the wild cards, or at-large births. The BCS will also be used to seed the teams, 1-16, just like in basketball, only there will be no regions, it will be one bracket.

Okay, now you have your field, and your seeds, the final question, where will the games be played? Simple, use the same system the BCS uses now. The championship site will rotate on a yearly basis to the four major bowl games. Two of the three games left will host the semi-finals, and the remaining major bowl will host a quarterfinal. This will alternate every year. A second slate of three bowl games (Cotton, Outback and Capital One perhaps) will host the remaining quarterfinals. The first round games could either be played at the higher seeds home stadium, or 8 bowl games could be chosen every year by the NCAA. As for the remaining bowl games, those not involved in the playoffs, let them have their game anyway, they won't lose any relevance, because they have almost none to begin with. 

To give you an example of what it would look like, I present to you how last year's playoff bracket would have looked, had my system been in place.

1) Ohio State

16) Florida Atlantic

8) Kansas

9) WVU

5) Georgia

12) Florida

4) Oklahoma

13) Brigham Young

6) Missouri

11) Arizona State

3) Virginia Tech

14) Central Florida

7) USC

10) Hawa'ii

2) LSU

15) Central Michigan

Are you kidding me? Hawa'ii defending it's perfect season against the dynasty from Troy? Another Georgia-Florida battle after the regular season game, the most fiery game of the year? Missouri and Kansas extending their dream seasons? Not to mention the potential for an upset in any one of those first round games. And in case you are curious as to who I think would have won the championship last year in this system, it would have been Knowshon Moreno and his Georgia Bulldogs.

So there you have it, a post-season scenario that would please everyone. The NCAA gets their bowl revenue, they get to look good in front of the fans as well as the schools. The Bowls still get to play their games, but on a grander stage. Everyone wins! Except, of course that is for the 15 teams that...well...don't win. But, for the first time since the inception of those 3 ugly letters, college football would have a legitimate national champion.