Short rant to get it off my chest

That's why I want the rankings to have absolutely no part in selection, seeding, or anything else. If some maazine or website wants to put out a ranking, do like ESPN's power rankings for the NFL. Fun to read, compare, and debate with friends, but completely irrelevant to the sport.
Any system that uses any type of human opinion will be flawed. End of discussion. That is why I'm trying to come up with my new system.

 

Folks, forget getting every conference to 12 teams--that's going in the wrong direction. I say eliminate the bottom 30 or so teams in 1A till you get to 72 teams. Then realign to 8 nine-team conferences--make it geographic so that the smaller schools can afford the travel. Every team plays 8 conference games and 3 non-conference games for an 11 game season. The NCAA then assigns one home game and one away game using a lottery. If the NCAA says LSU plays at Utah, then LSU plays at Utah. The 11th game can be a rent-a-win or a traditional rival (but since conference would be geographic, only a few of those games would be OOC.) All OOC games would be completed before the conference games start.

Playoffs would start approx 2 weeks after the end of the season. Only the conference champions would qualify for the playoffs. BCS standings (modified to a 50-50 computer/human polls formula*) would be used to seed the teams, but as I said, only conference champions would get in. This makes the OOC games irrelavent for getting in, but very inportant for seeding. The first round would be the Saturday before Christmas at the top 4 teams home stadiums (reduces the travel requirements for fans)--again, if the seeding means LSU plays at Utah, then LSU plays at Utah. The second would be New Years Day at 2 sites, chosen by a bidding process similar to the site selection for March Madness. The National Title game would be the following week on a Monday night.

(*Computer polls would be used, but the formulas would have to be available so that everyone could actually do the math. More than one computer poll would be used because each computer ranking designer has a different priority for creating their formula. See the Billingsley open letter to the media. However, some type of ranking system has to be used to seed since, unlike the NFL, the schedule doesn't allow for anybody to play enough teams to compare conferences any other way.)

It's a great plan and should be obvious. Of course it has no chance of happening because college presidents detest competitions.

GEAUX TIGERS

 

Not sure why you feel I'm going in the wrong direction. I think you're eliminating too many teams. To get down to 72, you'd have to eliminate 47 schools. More than twice the number I would need to get rid of. Besides, I like the conference championship games that are available with 12 team conferences. I kinda like the idea of the NCAA scheduling one game for each team every year.
However, do you really want computers deciding who gets home field advantage? Using your example, lets say LSU and Utah are to meet in the playoffs, do you want a computer to say we have to play over there when a legit points type of tiebreaker like the one I suggested says that we actually EARNED it? That could potentially change the outcome of the game. By still using the computers, we're not fixing the problem, we're just shuffling it around.

 

I think 72 is the right number because 1) the math works well, 2) I'm tired of the "haves vs have-nots" argument, 3) I want some OOC games so that some type of conference comparison can be created and 4) if you look at the bottom 47, they are filled with the likes of ULL, ULM, & FIU, who have no business being in the same league as LSU.

My problem with conference championship games is that they create unneeded rematches. Look back at 2001: why should Tenn have to beat LSU twice to get in?

While your points system has the advantage of being easy, it may not have enough fidelity to compare conferences that do not play against each other. I would have to see it in action and I do think you have to use end of year numbers to seed.

GEAUX TIGERS

 

A few years ago the SECCG helped a 1-loss team get into the BCS NC game alot more than it could do now, so it was worth the risk for the conference. The quality win point and the higher importance of the computer rankings in the BCS calculation made it worthwhile to pit the 2 best teams in conference against eachother to give the winnner a boost in the BCS rankings.

Now, the human polls are 66% of the BCS and the voters would be (IMO) reluctant to move the #2 team down based on what the #3 team did in a championship game. The computers would take notice but that wouldn't be enough to make a difference in the final BCS rankings.

So now the SECCG can really only be a hindrance to an SEC team making the BCS NC game. An undefeated team playing in it is only there to validate their rankings and a 1-loss team won't receive the same benefit as in the past.

 

Ok, which 3 teams get kicked out of the SEC? Now before you answer Miss St., Ole Miss, and Vandy, think back just a few short years.
Miss St was where Arky is now. Hell, not much before that, we were where Vandy is now.
So I'll ask again who are you kicking out and why?
With my system of 8 12 team conferences, the SEC, ACC, & Big XII stay as they are (12 teams each). Add 1 team to the Big Ten (if not, name the 2 teams you're kicking out) Add 2 teams to the Pac-10 (if not, again you have to kick somebody out), and 4 teams to the Big East (that's the easiest one, all you have to do is add the 4 Independants). What I'm asking, is which teams are you kicking out of the big conferences and why. Remember that the power in these conferences ebbs and flows, and you can't destroy rivalries withh your moves.

Now we're at your number of 72. I agree we need to get to 8 conferences, which is why I propose creating 2 more with the top 24 Mid-Major schools out there. It's easy for you to say there are too many now, but look at it like this.

In '04 Utah beat the Big East Champ in a bowl
'05 Fresno took USC to the wire
' 06 Boise is going to get a shot at one of the Big Boys.
Every few years, the powers in the mmid majors shift. Not long ago, Marshal was the team nobody wanted to play. So with your plan, alot of these schools who have proven that they could hang with the top dogs would now be eliminated. So instead of haves and have nots, you're just kicking them out completely?

 

Edited. Thanks.

 

MikeD is right. SoS played a much bigger role in the BCS formulas when we made our championship run then they do now. The whole point in letting the computers decide was so there was no bias. Now, with the human polls counting for over 50% of the formula, the bias is built right back in.

I say that all conferences designated as 'BCS' should have a championship game. It would not be hard at all to recruit one or two teams to the PAC-10, BIG-11, and /or Big Least so that it could be split into 2 6-team divisions. Conference that failed to comply within 2-3 years should have their BCS status revoked.

Problem solved.

 

Well, if you look back to OU in 2003 they played in their CG and lost but still went to the NC. Old news, I know, but this is why I agree with nutriaitch on the "no voting" theory. Twice in a row OU went to the NC game and lost big because of media hype influenced voting. How do we know OSU is #1 this year? Because the media and the BCS says so? Sorry, the system is just biased and extremely unfair to all conferences. Just my opinion. :geauxtige