What if I told you that there was a stimulus plan that everyone could agree on — that there was an arrangement that would breathe life into the college football postseason, a system that would resuscitate the Cinderella, quell the BCS naysayers and appease the bowl-game critics? What if there was a way of organizing the college football postseason that would allow the national champions to be bona fide — that would let them be No. 1 without answering questions about their strength of schedule, preseason rank and the intricacies of a mathematical formula?
I think I have a plan.
Yes, it’s a playoff. No, it is not the traditional eight-team tournament many have proposed, including President Barack Obama. Though it is slightly more complicated, it addresses the problems and criticisms presented by an eight-team format and the current bowl-game arrangement.
My playoff has 16 teams making the postseason tournament. Six of those 16 receive an automatic bid by winning their conference titles. Those conference champions will represent the same conferences currently given automatic spots in the BCS bowl games: the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC.
The 10 at-large spots are then filled by the top 10 remaining schools according to the final BCS rankings.
If all six conference winners happen to be in the top 16, there are no complications: The top-16 teams make the tournament — six conference winners plus the top-10 at-large bids.
But, let’s say a team is ranked 30th and wins its conference title. It will replace the lowest ranked at-large team in the top 16, earning a trip to the playoff. If two schools outside of the top 16 win their respective conference championships, they will replace the two lowest ranked at-large teams in the top 16.
Why this format? The implementation of a basic playoff has the risk of devaluing not only much of the regular season but also the conference title games. If we had the top-16 teams make the playoffs without any automatic bids for conference winners, the LSU vs. Florida SEC title game would all of a sudden lose a lot of its significance, for example. If both teams are strong — as they usually are — then even the loser is sure to crack the top 16 and make the postseason.
In my playoff, there would be a huge incentive for grabbing the conference crown. To take it one step further, there would be added value to regular season matchups as well. Wouldn’t you be a lot more interested in the Virginia vs. Virginia Tech season finale if a Wahoo win sent the Cavaliers to the ACC title game and gave us a chance to get an automatic bid to the postseason playoff?
The beauty of the system is that it gives teams that are not in the top 16 at season’s end a chance. It gives us upsets. It gives us Cinderellas.
But what about that 16th-ranked team that would have received an at-large bid but gets replaced by a lower-ranked conference winner? Too bad. Tough luck. That’s sports. You know what you tell that team? You shouldn’t have been ranked 16th — you shouldn’t have lost your second game of the season to Idaho State, and your quarterback shouldn’t have thrown so many interceptions in the conference title game.
As it is, a 16-team playoff is a healthy number. There are just eight spots in the MLB baseball playoffs and only 12 in the NFL football playoffs. There are 16 in both the NBA and NHL playoffs. All of those leagues give automatic bids to the playoffs to division winners, too, by the way.
Someone is going to get gypped and if it’s the 16th-ranked team in college football, then so be it. At least it’s not the No. 3 team — as is the case under the current bowl game system. Or the No. 9 team, as would be the case in an eight-team playoff scenario.
Once you have the 16 teams set, you arrange the bracket as you normally would to get the highest-ranked teams playing the lowest-ranked teams in the earlier rounds. A playoff of 16 teams gives you four rounds: Games will start in the middle of December after players take their finals and extend to the middle of January.
And, you can still have some of the smaller bowl games intact for those teams that didn’t make the playoff. Those games can be exciting, too — just ask the players and coaches at TCU and Boise State who participated in the Poinsettia Bowl Dec. 23rd last year (TCU won, 17-16).
There are some questions that do need to be addressed. Where do you play those playoff games? Home-field advantage for the first two rounds could work. How would big businesses and sponsorship deals be affected in the new playoff system? Playoff games could still have sponsors, and teams could still get payouts. And is playing four extra games too much? I’d say no — if it is, take one of the non-conference games off the regular-season schedule — would anyone care if we didn’t play Middle Tennessee State next year?
It’s a system that has some kinks and knots. But those can be smoothed out and untied with more discussion, debate and thought.
Obama said he would have “quibbles” if he were on one of the deserving teams that was not selected to play in the BCS title tame this year. And if Obama has quibbles, I have quibbles.
And it’s not “just sports.” It’s an industry. Billions of dollars are thrown around for bowl-game sponsorships, advertisements, team memorabilia and team apparel. It’s a system that must be reinvigorated and, like the economy, stimulated.
Just don’t be surprised if politicians from Texas or Utah lead the charge.
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