Friday, November 10, 2006

BCS or PLAYOFF

When the new Bowl Championship Series rankings came out this week, the debate began as to whether undefeated Louisville is more deserving to play in the national championship game than a one-loss team with a tougher schedule. Everyone has an opinion as to which two teams should be playing for the national championship, but let's face it – there is no totally correct answer to this question. Or should I say that the correct answer is that the BCS system really never can give us a correct answer.

It’s almost like a multiple-choice exam where the correct answer is the one that is closest to the actual answer. If you’re confused with that analogy, welcome to the BCS.

So I started thinking, what if we were having a playoff at the end of the season? What would the discussions be like today? We would not be wondering who were going to be the top two teams at the end of the season, but who the top eight teams (in my playoff scenario, anyway) would be. Shoot, every undefeated and one-loss team in the country – and their fans – still would be in the hunt for a national championship. Talk about enhancing the value and protecting the integrity of the regular season.

I decided to put together an eight-team playoff based on last weeks BCS standings, which, of course, will change by the end of the season. No offense to basketball, but I called it December Delirium (I get that a lot of the games are in January, but the Final Four often is in April and that hasn't stopped the "March Madness" label).

Here are some of the considerations I took into account:


I took the top eight BCS schools and seeded them strictly by ranking.
I used the four BCS games and three other ones randomly selected as the sites for each playoff game (the games could be rotated among bowls just as they are now).
I tried to pick a weekend or holiday to play so every game could be shown on prime-time TV and to give each team a week off between games.
All the other bowls still would be played throughout the holidays just like they are now (kind of like basketball's NIT).

So without further fanfare, I give you …

1 comment:

mjgregersen said...

Hey Coop, I think the BCS works as long as there are only two undefeated teams that finish 1 and 2 in the polls. However, that rarely happens. A lot of time you get one undefeated team and a bunch of one loss that teams that are fighting for that position. And your poll position is also based on when you lost that game, the earlier the better. I think a playoff system of some kind would work out pretty good. But what the BCS does give is a Champion of the best two teams- most of the time. A playoff system might allow a lesser team to sneak in and win the championship- much like the cards in baseball this year. They were like 3 games over .500 to finish the season but got hot in the playoffs. So, bascially, I don't know if they are any good answers but a playoff system would give us more great college football games and I always like that. Go blue.

Jayme