My last article spoke to why a playoff is being proposed by college football. This one will look at how I think it will be implemented.
For a long time the opponents have given a few excuses why a playoff is bad for college football. I've always felt it was a cop out but they were mainly centered on protecting the regular season. This season turned that idea on its head as Alabama played LSU in October to determine who would represent the SEC West in their championship game. LSU won that game but the way the polls worked by the end of the season LSU was #1 and Alabama was #2 so they were chosen to play again in the BCS game. To many fans this felt like a betrayal of what has always been the focus of the BCS because if a school plays another, loses then plays them again in the championship does the regular season really matter? It doesn't matter if the two teams were the best in the country (I happen to believe that they were), the key is they'd already played and to play again seemed wrong. Many fans seemed to agree and this year's BCS game got terrible ratings which was the final impetus for Delany's statement.
So how would a system work under the Delany plan? Most people feel that the best system is to take the top 4 BCS teams and match them up with the top 2 getting a home game. This would have created the following match up this year:
Stanford @ LSU
Oklahoma St @ Alabama
These games would have been very interesting to watch but the question is: does it honor the regular season? The answer is it really doesn't. I mentioned earlier that Alabama didn't win their conference but neither did Stanford. Stanford lost to Oregon head to head but Oregon lost to USC a two weeks later dropping them below Stanford in the polls. Just like LSU, because of their head to head win, Oregon went to the Pac 12 championship game and beat UCLA to win the league. Does including Stanford over Oregon make sense? Does it honor the regular season?
Some may say that the BCS computer rankings are good thing as it creates tension every week. I agree that it has its uses but evidence on a football field trumps any computer generated data. For that reason, Oregon has a much better claim to be included than Stanford as they won the head to head and won the league championship game. Something like this happens about every year which is why I would propose that the highest ranked conference champions be included in the 4 team playoff. For 2011, we would have seen these matchups:
Boise State @ LSU
Oregon @ Oklahoma State
I'm sure Stanford and Alabama fans would be livid under a scenario like this but my advice would be to win your league so there isn't an issue. One thing this would do is make winning your league the first step to becoming a national champion. This would make the refular season even more important than it is today and it would encourage fans from rival conferences to watch key matchups which would only help viewership.
There is a flaw in this plan and that is -- What happens if there is an upset in a conference championship game?
That's a good question and one without an easy answer. The best answer is to go to an 8 team playoff but that's unlikely to happen any time soon. So we need to have an idea of how our system would work if we have a lot of upsets like in 2007. For consistency's sake we will stick with the 2011 season but assume that the underdog won in the SEC (Georgia) and Pac 12 (UCLA) game. Under this scenario, I'm pretty confident that the top four in the BCS would have been the same although LSU probably would have been 4th and everyone else would have moved up. Would that be a fair championship? 3 of the 4 teams didn't win their conference but they'd be playing for a national title. Here's where the rankings would have been of the conference champions.
3 - Okla State
7 - Boise State
10 - Wisconsin
15 - Clemson
16 - Georgia (9)
18 - TCU
23 - West Virginia
NA - UCLA (20)
No doubt both UCLA and Georgia would have improved so I've given a tenative rank in parenthesis of how I think they would have finished if they won. That would have given us a game of of the following:
Wisconsin @ Oklahoma State
Georgia @ Boise State
If something like this happened, people in college football would be howling for change. Most of these teams weren't considered elite last season so how could they be considered for the national championship?
The answer is simple: THEY WON THEIR LEAGUES!!!
I'm not saying it is a perfect system but I like it a lot more than what we've seen lately or just picking the top 4 BCS teams. This makes every game of the season like a playoff and encourages people to watch everything and protects against the BCS defenders alleged biggest fear.
Having said all this, I know it isn't perfect and won't happen because it rewards those playing in an easier conference. The tougher conferences want a system that is likely to bring the most money to them which is a stumbling block for any of these systems. The one saving grace for all is that the best football programs have joined bigger conferences so this is less likely to happen in the future but it is the one reason I prefer an 8 team playoff. I will discuss that more in my next article.
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