How the system would work is the conference championship games would occur on Thanksgiving weekend. Not only does this spotlight the conference championships during a holiday for prime viewing but it also gives space for 2 weeks of playoffs. The first round of the playoffs would occur the next weekend with the 2nd round the week after that. This season that would have put the games on December 3rd and 10th though you could move them around to maximize viewership. At the end of the conference championships teams would be ranked from 1st to 8th and a bracket would be created with 1st playing 8th, and so on. The higher seeded team would get the home game. After the first week's games, the victors would play again with the higher seed being the home team. Here is an example using the 2011 results:
Kansas St @ LSU
Boise State @ Alabama
Arkansas @ Oklahoma State
Oregon @ Stanford
This is pretty good and there is a lot to like here. The champs of the SEC, MWC, Big 12, and Pac 12 are all represented. The others are 2 SEC, 1 Pac 12, and 1 Big 12.
The only flaw with this system is it is essentially an SEC/Pac12/Big12 competition which leaves out a large portion of the population (Midwest and East Coast). Many of these schools also were pretty much locks for a top 8 spot all season so this would lessen desire to watch games in other areas of the country.
How could you make it more competitive and encourage others to tune in? By limiting the at large bid and making winning the conference championship more important. My proposal would be to take the top 6 conference champions as well as the top 2 at large teams. Additionally, only conference champions would be able to host a home game in the first round. Here's how 2011 would have looked:
Clemson @ LSU
Wisconsin @ Oklahoma State
Stanford @ Oregon
Alabama @ Boise State
This system drops Kansas State and Arkansas for league champions Wisconsin and Clemson. I personally prefer this situation as it again puts the pressure on teams to win their league. Notice that both Alabama and Stanford are playing the same teams but this time they are no longer the home team? Part of that is just pure luck the way the rankings fell but this system punished them for not winning their league but still gives them the opportunity to win albeit with a tougher track.
I personally like this a lot and can only imagine sitting down to watch 3 weekends of football starting with the conference championship games that have a direct impact on the playoffs then seeing the first two rounds as shown above. I'd think the television rating would be through the roof especially if the bowls for the non-qualifiers started the following week. Bowl games would continue focused on Friday and Saturdays then most days between Christmas and New Years culminating in a day long set of games on New Years day. The College "Superbowl" would then be held on the Saturday right afterward to maximize viewership.
There are a few issues with this method as well.
What would happen if we saw a bunch of upsets during the championship games? Here's how the system would look if we had the same UCLA/Georgia upsets mentioned in my last post:
UCLA @ Oklahoma St
Wisconsin @ Georgia
Alabama @ Boise State
Stanford @ Clemson
Again this would create a series of howls around college football but it wouldn't be much different than what occurs before every March Madness. The teams affected here would be LSU and Oregon because they lost. I'd love it because of the pressure that would occur to win your league championship though I'm sure some would argue it would be less likely to give you a true national champion. Also note that some would argue that Stanford/Alabama had an easier path because they lost the head to head matchup. Despite that I like it but we will most likely never see something like this.
The reason this won't happen is because this system is more likely to reward smaller schools at the expense of the big schools. To illustrate this I ran the numbers for a playoff under both scenarios for the last 6 years and under the first scenario the Big 4 (B1G, SEC, P12, B12) had 81% of the playoff spots while under the second scenario they only got 73%. Any solution that negatively impacts the big conferences that make all the money isn't a solution that can win.
So if we ever get to a point where we can have an 8 team playoff we are most likely stuck with the simplest solution of using the top 8 from the BCS. I'm not a big fan of that because it will lessen the regular season but money is ultimately the name of the game here and this solution will maximize revenue for the people calling the shots.
My final article on this subject is a look at the how the money, which is driver of all this change, will be split.
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