There are as many possible scenarios for a play-off as there are college football fans. Most of them involve the top 8 or so teams playing some type of tournament, using the existing bowls, and then culminating in a national championship game. The problem with this is who is going to attend all those games? Most fans do not have the time or money to fly to Atlanta for a Peach Bowl first round game. Then, Fly to Miami for an Orange Bowl second round game. Then finally, fly to LA for the Rose Bowl NC. Most bowl attending college football fans can make one big bowl trip a year. Everyone is going to hold out to see there team play in the championship. That leaves all the other games left having only the local market to support them. Since there is no real home team in these games, it will be a bunch of indifferent fans that only went because they could get a ticket cheap. How crapping would it be for us to play USC in Orlando in round two and only a few local LSU fans show up?
You're leaving out the part where you have to win your conference championship, and each conference would need to have a conference championship game. Looking at the top 8 teams in the current BCS standings (and ignoring the need for a conference championship game for a moment), I see: 2 Big Ten teams (Michigan and Ohio State) 2 SEC teams (Florida and Auburn) 2 PAC 10 teams (USC and California) 1 Big 12 team (Texas) 1 Big East team (Louisville) By the end of the season, we will have exactly one team from each of the conferences eligible for my playoff system. If the conferences currently in the top 8 have their champion represented by one of these teams, then that's a maximum of 5 teams fighting for a spot in a 4-team playoff berth. (We know Louisville just lost last night, obviously, but I'm working off of the current BCS standings for now). Let's assume that Ohio State wins the Big Ten, Florida wins the SEC, Texas wins the Big 12, and Rutgers wins the Big East. Whichever 4 teams are the most highly ranked out of those would make the 4-team playoff system. That would possibly leave Rutgers out this year, but a team like Rutgers obviously has a much better shot at making a 4-team playoff than they do making the existing 2-team playoff. Once again, would it be perfect? Nope. No playoff system is going to be perfect, and like you said we'll still need some way of ranking teams. But it should minimize the number of blatant screw-ups, such as not having USC play LSU in the Sugar Bowl in 2003, and Auburn not having a shot at the championship game when they go undefeated, etc. A small school like Rutgers, with little football "history" in terms of top-level performance and competition, can still miss out, but then a 6-team playoff could most likely handle those situations, with just the addition of two more games. I also disagree when you say that if a 4 or 6 team playoff doesn't somehow handle every single possible scenario in the future that it'd be no better than what we have now. Would it have been better for LSU and USC to meet in a championship game after winning the Sugar and Rose bowls in the 2003 season? I think it would have been better. Would it have been better or worse for Auburn to have a shot to win the championship a couple of years ago?
As suggested by Frank Broyles a year or so ago... In an 8 team playoff, the first round would have to be played as a home game for the top four highest ranked teams... as they do in Div 1-2A, and pro football. The expense of having fans, teams, etc., travel to three or more bowls at neutral sites in a four to five week period has always been one of the major negatives.
For me personally, my experience is that the really big bowls, especially with a lot on the line, have fewer tickets available than people willing to buy them. Let's assume a 4-team playoff was in effect in 2003, with LSU vs. Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, USC and Michigan in the Rose Bowl, and the winners of those two games playing in the Fiesta Bowl about a week later. Do you really think that any of those bowls would have trouble selling tickets? Would fans that travel to bowl games be able to attend both games? Nope, not all of them. But that opens up tickets for fans that couldn't make the other game.
Here is how i rank the the various systems we've either seen or has been previously discussed (with 1 being the worst, and 5 being the best): Pre-BCS system - 1 Current 2-team BCS system - 2 some years, 3 others My 4-team playoff system - 4 My 6-team playoff system - 5 An 8-team playoff system - 4 A 10-12 team playoff system - 3 A >12 team playoff system - 1 Once you'd get past 6 teams, I think it'd just get a lot more cumbersome (number of games, travel issues that's been mentioned, etc.) with not much more of a benefit - most teams ranked that low have lost at least one or two games).
Even Terry Bowden can figure this out with ease.. Read the article below for details on the graphic.... He is using today's BCS rankings as an example and explains how to rotate the games for the lesser bowls to get in on the act every so often. > Link <
That would work, and would be superior to the 2-team system we have now, but I don't really like having non-conference champions making it. Cut it down to 4 or 6 teams, conference champions only, and it'd keep the regular season as an extremely important element, make winning your conference ultra-important, and give us an exciting 3 or 5 game playoff series.
So you're leaving out an unbeaten conf. champ? How is this any better than Auburn getting left out in '04? You're telling Rutgers "better luck next year" because we didn't expect them to be this good when the season began, so we had them unranked in the preseason. That's the only reason they weren't in the top 10 before last night.
Sure this system would have worked in '03, and '04 for those teams, but like I posted earlier, you have no fair way of picking the 4th team. In each of those years, there was more than one team that were equally deserving, but not enough slots. You chose them based on rankings, which is what the playoff system should try to avoid. Settle it on the field and not with a computer. Also, the point I'm trying to make is being missed. No one has offered a plan that allows for the unexpected. Now to poke a hole in your 6-team playoff plan. Rule 1 you have to win your conference correct? So in '04 an 8-4 Big East champ Pittsburgh goes in ahead of 10-2 UGA because the Big East is a joke? How legit is that system? No one outside the state of Pennsylvania would be happy with that scenario.
Well, like I said, I'd start with a 4-team playoff, and see how it works... a 4-team playoff is a less drastic change from a 2-team playoff we have now, and thus hopefully easier for the university presidents to accept. My preference would be for a 6-team playoff, with #1 and #2 earning a bye week. Now, the BCS rankings could be tweaked to give undefeated conference champions some sort of extra points that would guarantee them a spot in the top 4 over any non-undefeated conference champions, then Rutgers wouldn't be left out at all, and the team that Rutgers would leap over will have at least one loss, so it's harder to drum up sympathy for them. Or, teams can be encouraged to play tougher OOC games (Rutgers played Howard, Navy, North Carolina, University of Ohio, and Illinois - those teams have a combined record of 19 wins and 28 losses so far this season, and they aren't really known as football schools to begin with) by knowing that they need to both win their conference and finish as one of the top four conference champions. (I know Auburn was criticized and penalized in their 13-0 season for a week OOC schedule, but their conference schedule, like all SEC schedules, was much tougher than any schedule Rutgers faces). But no system will be perfect... too many teams, too many variants among the conferences and teams. But 2 teams in a one-game playoff is too small, and increasing the number of teams improves things, up until there are too many teams. So that's where the debate needs to be... is 6 teams the best solution, factoring in all of the major concerns? Is 8?
