Each of the Div 1 conferences get an automatic spot, so that's what, 11 spots, then 5 at large. Voila, playoffs. I think you'd have very little argument here. The major conferences would get their 6 auto spots and probably all of the at large spots.
how would you determine those at large? By the way, I want a playoff. I think it would be great for the game.
OK .. Posted this on another thread, but it belongs here. with additions. I don't like the "playoff" scenario. ... and here's why. College Football is not like Pro Football. Pro Football teams are essentially All Star teams put together from the best of the best at the college level. As result, they have depth that can take the rigors of the season. An injury doesn't hit a pro team like it does a college team. Move to College Football ... injuries create a lot of big IFs! For example .. if Sam Montgomery would have been playing DE against AU, what impact would have that had on the outcome???? Just think, Montgomery and Nevis on the same line would have created a different dynamic. McCalleb may not have made it outside in that scenario. Newton may not have been as free to run in that scenario .... bottom line, injuries at the college level completely change the contest. ... and injuries are more prone in the bigger teams. In a playoff scenario, you'd take a team that played cupcakes all year long, has zero injuries, etc ... and they come to the playoff against a team that has fought off Goliaths all year long, and limps into the stadium. Essentially, you have one teams 1st string playing the other teams 2nd string. A valid argument can be made that if cupcake team played against the goliath team when it was healthy, the cupcake team would likely be slaughtered. A "National Champion" should be based on the entire year's worth of play, not just a simple tournament. That is what the Bowl System is trying to accomplish. That is why the schedule and the records of the teams you play are considered. Granted, its not perfect, but it at least tries to create a matchup betweeen the two teams who've played the best all year against the most worthy opponents. A Playoff simply cannot do that! A Playoff in college football is not lining up apples to apples in space and time. In a playoff scenario, you could very well take a team like Boise and turn it into a recruiting super champion, simply because they'd be guaranteed to be in the Playoff every year .... and the entire year's sched would be just eleven practice games against weaker opponents to polish up for the tourney .. entering in with a polished game .. and absolutely no injuries. Such a scenario would also make College Football more about the "conference" and less about the individual teams. You'd be setting up the potential for all the good players to go to just one good team in a conference in the effort create a team that best represents the conference. While a playoff, like what we see in the Sweet 16 in College Basketball is tempting .... Football and Basketball are two totally different animals. You won't see a Football team play 3 games a week ... it just doesn't lend itself to it. In fact, a good football team playing in a tough conference is lucky to make it to the end of the years in one piece playing only 1 game a week. So .. there ya have it. I vote no on the playoff scenario.
That part of it, unfortunately, would be subjective like the NCAA basketball tournament. People would complain about 16 and 17, but that would be better than complaining about 1 and 2. Nobody ever doubts the results of the basketball tournament. The team that wins it wins it.
Division II, Division III, and high school football does it every year. Isn't Division I college football just a bunch of high school all star teams??
Why not just have the top 4 teams play in the bcs bowls and the 2 winners play in the champ game in the last bcs bowl. You still have the bowl games. You have the bcs bowls swap out every year on who gets the 3 big games and the ones left out that year play their traditional teams as if it were any year minus the teams in the championship series bowls. The bcs still has the say on who those top 4 are so everyone is fighting like hell every week to make the top 4 like they fight to make the top 2 now. Have the computers worth 1/4 the coaches poll 1/4 the ap poll worth 1/4 and like another poster noted have an Internet poll worth 1/4. This would make an unified title. Could be 1/3 computers 1/3 coaches and 1/3 ap polls. Division championship not a factor except in how people make their choice when they vote. With the ap and bcs together we would have an unified title.
The actual way that the rankings are done become a bit less important as the number of teams in the playoff increase. My strong preference is to use a ranking system that is purely objective, based solely on the on-the-field results of the current football season - taking into account strength of schedule, opponent strength, and margin of victory among other factors. The below is just an example of one way various playoff systems could be structured - I'm OK with other variations, but this seems like a way of addressing some common issues involving travel, existing bowls, players playing too many games, etc. 4 team playoff: #1 vs. #4 in one BCS bowl, #2 vs. #3 in another, the winners play a week later. 6 team playoff: Top 2 teams get a bye week, #3 vs. #6 in a bowl near/on Christmas, #2 vs. #5 in another bowl near/on Christmas, winners go on to face #1 and #2 using the 4 team playoff system described above. 8 team playoff: Top 4 teams host bottom 4 teams in first round of playoffs. Then the 4 team playoff system described above is used. 12 team playoff: Top 4 teams get bye week, teams #5-#8 host first round against #9-#12. Then the 8 team playoff system described above is used. 16 team playoff: #1-#4 get two bye weeks, #5-#8 get one bye week, #9-#12 host #13-#16, then the 12 team playoff system listed above is used. Note that at some point (maybe the 8 team playoff, maybe the 12 team playoff), I believe that undefeated teams deserve to automatically be included regardless of their ranking. Most of the time they'd be including anyway under most ranking systems.
The difference between the playoffs you mentioned above and Division I college football, is the strenth of sched is equal across all 5A schools!! Kids don't have a choice where they go to school. In fact, the "probability" of any team being great in highschool, Proffessional, Div II and Div III is pretty much equal. It is this equal probability that makes the highschool, Pro, and likely Div II and Div III playoffs work. This is Not the case in Division I College Football! There is too much name recognition. Who wants to go and play at LaTech when you can go and play at LSU???? Right off the bat you have a bias introduced into your alleged "playoff". All of the good players will gravitate to the same 10 teams every year. To an extent, they already do under the current Bowl System, .. but it would become 100X worse in a playoff scenario. A "playoff" in Division I college football would become a very boring affair within about 8 years [two cycles]. You'd see the same 8 teams every year. A playoff would destroy the energy that is college football. I hold my ground .. I oppose it.
