A College Playoff System that works

[hopalong]

playoff will never work in Div I botton line is MONEY MONEY MONEY there are at least four bowls with a payoff of $17 MILLION it not about who is champion the coaches get bonuses for winning certain games why do you think over the years colleges went from 10 games to almost 13 in the regular season. Its also the reason smaller schools love playing larger ones is for the revenue. Sports are not sports anymore they are a business. And the bottom line in any business is making money.

[oak hill71]

I would like to see it as have a playoff start in Early December with 8 teams, 6 "Major" Conferences, and 2 at-large teams chosen by the coaches of the "Mid-Major" Conferences. Don't seed teams, draw teir names out of a hat, or do it lotery ball style. Play three weeks of Playoffs. The two remaining tems play in the Championship game on January ?, and insert the remaining 62 bowlteams into the bowls of their choice. If at al possible put still put Big Ten vs. Pac-10 in Rose Bowl, and other bowls like it.

If you do it that way, yoiu would still have the tradition of bowls, plus you would have the playoff system.

[pbuck]

Here is mine...... first off everyone in the Country play a 12 game schedule...... next no conference championship games......... you keep the BCS formula......... then you take the top eight in the BCS standings ................. more than two teams from a single conference can be in the playoffs unlike it is now........ the 1 plays 8 2 plays 7 ect.......... the quaterfinal or first round will be played at the 4 BCS bowl sites Rose,Sugar,Fiesta,Orange...... then you play the following week at two neutral sites in the National Semifinals ... the of course the next week on a neutral site play the National Championship game........... and you keep you BCS standings and all the other bowl games for the other schools in lesser conference will still play in a post season bowl game PROBLEM SOULVED

[kevbk6222]

here is an article i got off another forum

Remember when South Florida was all the rage? When Matt Ryan was your Heisman front-runner? When Notre Dame fans thought if the Irish could just get past Georgia Tech in the season opener ...

Remember when Illinois literally ran over the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes? When Cal was one play away from being the nation's top-ranked team? When LSU lost its top ranking in a triple-overtime thriller at Kentucky ... and then lost it again in another three-OT classic that stamped Darren McFadden as an Arkansas legend?

College football has never been better, never been wilder. Nebraska is a nobody, and Missouri, which hasn't won its conference in 38 years, stands alone at No. 1. And when Mizzou collides with Oklahoma on Saturday in the Big 12 title game, the Tigers will help determine the national championship, the Rose Bowl and the Heisman.

College football also has never been more popular. You can base that on a ton of recent examples, namely attendance (the Big Ten set a conference record with 41 sold-out games), ratings (an all-time high 2.03 million people tuned into ESPN's "College GameDay" last Saturday) and media coverage (back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers).

And amid all the fun, we have people yelling that the sport has to change. It needs a playoff system. Why? So the casual fans who are confused by the BCS and the angry columnists who write about college football three times a year can get finality.

Great idea. Let's make college football more like the NFL, which would rival rodeo in popularity if it weren't for gambling and fantasy football.

Or better yet, let's have a 16-team playoff as is done in the NBA, where the regular season is so boring arenas pipe in music during games and fans pay full attention only to the "entertainment" during timeouts - i.e. whether that freaky guy will be able to fold his legs and arms into a translucent box.

No wait, let's make college football more like baseball, which just produced a postseason that will be best remembered for those incessant "Frank TV" ads.

We all love the NCAA basketball tournament. But you can't do it in football. A team can't play six games in 18 days. And let's face it, non-conference basketball games are glorified exhibitions. College football plays meaningful games every Saturday. Even some Thursdays.

There are so many reasons to oppose a playoff, but I'll boil it down to two. And I won't even use the word "academics," because if you dare mention that in the same breath as big-time sports, people brand you a hypocrite.

*There is no regular season that delivers like college football. In movie parlance, it's an unpredictable two-hour thrill ride. The NFL, by comparison, is "Ishtar" with a decent ending.

The regular-season games are so great because there's a do-or-die component to every one involving a title contender. These are trapeze artists working without a net.

If we had a playoff, last year's Ohio State-Michigan game would have been almost meaningless, with the loser knowing it would be an at-large selection.

Same for last Friday's LSU-Arkansas game. If you had conference champions advancing to an eight-team playoff, LSU, having already clinched a berth in the SEC title game, would have rested its regulars and we would have missed out on the game of the year.

*Fairness. Let's say the season ended Friday and you wanted to create an eight-team playoff because it's the "fairest" way to determine a championship.

Here are the teams ranked in the BCS' top 13: Missouri (11-1), West Virginia (10-1), Ohio State (11-1), Georgia (10-2), Kansas (11-1), Virginia Tech (10-2), LSU (10-2), USC (9-2), Oklahoma (10-2), Florida (9-3), Boston College (10-2), Hawaii (11-0), Arizona State (9-2).

Now pick the best eight. It's impossible. Tell me why No. 6 Virginia Tech should make it over No. 10 Florida. Or why Hawaii should be excluded.

OK, you say. Take the six major conference champs and add two at-large teams. How do you pick from an at-large pool with Georgia, Kansas, Florida, Hawaii and, perhaps, an 11-2 Missouri team. Which two would you take?

Two seasons ago, only USC and Texas finished the regular season undefeated. An eight-team playoff would have included 9-2 Notre Dame. Would that have been fair?

Look, what we have might not be the perfect system, but it's the best system. And it's unique.

So the next time someone complains about a "BCS mess" or you hear the inane "the BCS shouldn't have a 'C' in it" comment, roll your eyes, shake your head and smile. You know better.

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