Let's Pretend: My College Football Playoff Solution

Note: This is me "nerding out" in football fashion. I recently had knee surgery and I'm glued to my recliner. I figured that I would put this together to occupy my time for a bit. 

Since 1998, college football fans have had to endure the agony of the Bowl Championship Series, also known as the BCS, to determine who would play for the national championship. It has been one of the more contentious issues in sports with many high and low points over the years where teams who deserved a chance to play for the national championship  be left out of the big game (see "2004 USC Trojans") to having teams with no business being in "the big game" being thrashed (see "2004 Oklahoma Sooners").

Once Florida State and Auburn play in this year's National Championship game, the BCS will disappear.  It's replacement will bring some controversy, but much more satisfaction as the top four teams will battle for college supremacy in a tournament-style bowl series. It's an improvement - but I believe we can do better.

For a few years now, just because it is fun, I have been coming up with my own plan to determine college football's national championship.  It is a complicated matter; like anything, no one will be entirely satisfied, but this plan, known as the Bowl Championship Tournament (BCT) offers more competition, fairness, and clearer results than the BCS.  That said, let's play pretend.  I'd like to introduce you to my college football playoff proposal:

Conference-based, eight-team playoff
There are now six BCS conferences: ACC, American, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC.  Each of these conferences crown a champion using a conference championship game at the end of the regular season.  To set up the tournament, all BCS conference winners will be included in the playoff field as well as two "Wild Cards".  How do we get the Wild Cards?  We keep the BCS.  I know, I know - I hate it just like you, but the BCS actually works well as a seeding system.  Once you take the conference champs, you then take the next highest-ranked BCS schools that were not conference champions.  The 2013 BCT would setup this way with teams listed by tournament seed, conference affiliation, and BCS ranking:

1. Florida State, ACC Champions, BCS No. 1
2. Auburn, SEC Champions, BCS No. 2
3. Alabama, Wild Card, BCS No. 3
4. Michigan State, Big Ten Champions, BCS No. 4
5. Stanford, Pac-12 Champions, BCS No. 5
6. Baylor, Big 12 Champions, BCS No. 6
7. Ohio State, Wild Card, BCS No. 7
8. Central Florida, American Conference Champions, BCS No. 15

Note that the wild card teams were not conference champions, but were brought into the tournament as the next two highest seeded, non-conference champion teams.  Even though Central Florida is ranked No. 15 in the BCS, they clinched an automatic bid with their conference championship.  While some may argue that there are several more deserving teams for that eighth playoff spot besides UCF, the answer is pretty simple: if you are not going to recognize conference champions, why bother?  The NCAA basketball tournaments use conference championships to award automatic bids and it tends to work pretty well there.  

No system is perfect. That said, if you look at the eight teams listed above, we can feel confident that the team emerging from this field will be a true national champion.  

Wait. What about Bowling Green or Fresno State?

There is plenty of palace lies in college football so let's not get ourselves caught up in another one.  Non-BCS conferences, such as the MAC, Sun Belt, etc. are simply not on par with the talent of BCS conferences.  For example, while Northern Illinois' run in 2012 was fun and they were the darling "BCS
buster", how many of you really stuck around for the end of the Orange Bowl, when Florida State smashed the Huskies 31-10?

That's what I thought.  

Given that, my proposal would be to operate a separate playoff for non-BCS conferences. The talent would be more level and we could see those sort of Cinderella stories continue even if you lose some of the "David vs. Goliath" match ups that end up being terrible anyway.  Plus, it gives teams from these weaker conferences hope. Right now, in the current system and the forthcoming playoff system, schools in these "second tier" conferences begin their seasons knowing full well that they will not win a championship.  It's just how it is.  By creating a two-tier system and adding a playoff exclusively for these non-BCS conferences, there is opportunity for more meaningful football.  

That said, my proposal would be to take the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and create FBS I and FBS II.  FBS I would be include schools currently in the BCS conferences mentioned above; FBS II would be composed of non-BCS conference schools.  These conferences include: Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt. There would be four conference champions automatically eligible for the playoffs with two wild cards making for a smaller field. The format would be the same as the NFL Playoffs where the top two seeds would receive first-round byes. Notice that even though Northern Illinois is the second-highest ranked BCS school in the FBS II, they only made it as a wild card due to their loss in the MAC Championship. This gave Bowling Green, as it turns out, a first-round bye.  

Just as is the case with the FBS I playoffs, this playoff field would also selected and seeded based on the good ol' BCS.  The 2013 field would look like this:

1. Fresno State, Mountain West Champions, BCS No. 20
2. Bowling Green, MAC Champions, BCS No. 31
3. Rice, Conference USA Champions, BCS No. 33
4. Louisiana-Lafayette, Sun Belt Champions, BCS No. 66
5. Northern Illinois, Wild Card, BCS No. 23
6. Ball State, Wild Card, BCS No. 35

Yes, the 66th-ranked team in the nation made the playoffs. If your school wants to make the playoffs, encourage it to join the Sun Belt.

Wait. What about Notre Dame? What about the independents?  

This is where there is controversy.  Each independent team needs to do one of two things: 1) join a conference already or 2) declare themselves either a FBS I or II school.  If they do not join a conference, their only way into the championship tournament would be to earn a wild card.  Some may call that unfair, but these schools will have plenty of offers to join conferences.  It's time to get with the trend, no matter the panache that independence carries. 

Will the bowl games disappear?  

No way. Bowl games are the gems of college football. The bowl games would become part of each tournament.  For instance, the national champion could play in three bowl games. Some may argue that it sounds like a lot, but it can be easily refuted to all parties involved.  For the schools and conferences, the winners of each bowl game could collect the payout, offering their school an opportunity for a huge payout.  For the players and coaches, more national exposure can increase visibility for future opportunities in the draft and other coaching opportunities, respectively.  There will be certainly be a case made that adding games would create further player safety issues.  If that is a concern, cut back on a cupcake game at the beginning of the season.  Create a standard number of games that each team must play to be "tournament eligible".  There will also be those concerned with missed class time.  Now that you have stopped laughing, this can easily be resolved by starting the tournament after most schools have completed finals week.  

The bowl games will be utilized within the FBS I tournament only, while the FBS II tournament will use only one bowl game for its championship (more on that in a moment).  Exactly which bowls will be used in each round will be determined by payouts. Yes, it is about the money.  That said, here are the bowls that would be used for the FBS I Tournament by round:

• National Championship Game, Pasadena, CA - $18 million payout
• Semifinal Games:
• Discover Orange Bowl, Miami Gardens, FL - $17 million payout
• Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, AZ - $17 million payout
• First Round Games:
• Rose Bowl, Pasadena, FL - $17 million payout (features No. 1 ranked team)
• Sugar Bowl, New Orleans, LA - $17 million payout (features No. 2 ranked team)
• Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Atlanta,GA, $~7 million payout - currently split between two schools (features No. 3 ranked team)
• Capital One Bowl, Orlando, FL, $4.55 million payout (features No. 4 ranked team)

These bowls can rotate throughout the years, just as they do now with the national championship game.  This part is always up for debate and can be altered in many ways. This is just an example.

What about the rest of the bowls?

They aren't going anywhere.  What's a December without a semi-meaningless bowl game or 30?  Before we go semi-meaningless, let's address the FBS II playoff locations.  These smaller programs actually lose money when they bust the BCS and go to larger bowl games.  This was widely reported with MAC schools, including Northern Illinois in 2012 and Bowling Green here in 2013. Travel expenses, inability of small fan bases to travel and purchase pricey tickets are some of the culprits.  Having said that, FBS II playoff games would be played on the home fields of the highest-ranked school in each game.  Wild card teams, despite their rankings, would not be able to host a tournament game, while the top seed, which would be Fresno State this year, has home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.  The FBS II National Championship Game, much like the Super Bowl, would then head to a neutral site of an existing bowl.  This year, because it is the highest payout featuring a non-Automatic Qualifying (non-AQ) school, the national championship will be played in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.  

Wait. Aren't there like 5,000 bowls?

Close.  Once we use the bowls for both playoffs, we are left with a whopping 27 bowls.  Who plays in those? The rest of the teams, of course.  Now we are going to look at the FBS as one big happy family and once again return to the BCS rankings to fill in these bowl slots.  We will sort the bowl games by payout; the higher the payout, the higher the rankings of the teams to play. Conference tie-ins are gone.  We are now going by rankings to match teams with like opponents, as close as possible, to ensure better games. Below is a list of bowl games for the hypothetical 2013 post season featuring the teams and their BCS rankings:

• Cotton Bowl Classic: 9 South Carolina vs. 8 Missouri
• Gator Bowl: 11 Oklahoma vs. 10 Oregon
• Outback Bowl: 13 Oklahoma State vs. 12 Clemson
• Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl: 16 LSU vs. 14 Arizona State
• Alamo Bowl: 18 Louisville vs. 17 UCLA
• Russell Athletic Bowl: 21 Texas A&M vs. 19 Wisconsin
• Holiday Bowl: 24 Duke vs. 22 Georgia
• Sun Bowl: 26 Notre Dame vs. 25 USC
• Music City Bowl: 28 Washington vs. 27 Miami (FL)
• Pinstripe Bowl: 30 Texas vs. 29 Cincinnati
• Belk Bowl: 34 Iowa vs. 32 Vanderbilt
• Texas Bowl:  37 Virginia Tech vs. 36 Minnesota
• Liberty Bowl: 39 Ole Miss vs. 37 Nebraska
• Advocare V100 Bowl: 41 Arizona vs. 40 BYU
• Las Vegas Bowl: 43 Mississippi State vs. 41 Michigan
• BBVA Compass Bowl: 45 Kansas State vs. 44 Washington State
• Military Bowl: 47 Houston vs. 45 Georgia Tech
• Fight Hunger Bowl: 49 Boston College vs. 48 Oregon State
• Little Caesars Pizza Bowl: 50 Navy vs. 50 Texas Tech
• GoDaddy Bowl: 53 Pittsburgh vs. 52 East Carolina
• Hawaii Bowl: 55 Boise State vs. 54 Utah
• Armed Forces Bowl: 57 Tennessee vs. 56 Toledo
• Beef O Brady's Bowl: 59 Syracuse vs. 58 North Carolina
• New Orleans Bowl: 61 Maryland vs. 60 North Texas
• Poinsettia Bowl: 63 Marshall vs. 62 Buffalo
• New Mexico Bowl: 65 Northwestern vs. 63 Indiana
• Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: 68 Western Kentucky vs. 67 Utah State

There are certainly some interesting match ups here.  The Notre Dame/USC rivalry is renewed.  Mississippi State and Michigan would be a fun one to watch, along with Mizzou/South Carolina, and many more. There are story lines here.  Some of these are only 5-win teams, which could change, but let's keep it as is for right now.

Ok, now what, nerd?  

Given the fact that I'm laid up for a while and I absolutely love this sort of dumb stuff, I'm going to play this out for you.  I'm going to blog about it and pretend it is real.  You should buy in too.  Why the heck not?  I'll sim the games using EA Sports' NCAA Football 14.  I'll report the results right here and we will see where things end up.

Scheduled and tournament bracket to follow...

Welcome to the 2013 Bowl Championship Tournament!