My 16 team playoff and BCS bowl games...

[seshomoru]

For nothing more than looking at a potentially very interesting tourney. All 11 conference champs make the field with the seeds and 5 at large bids determined by the BCS standings. The first and second round games are played at the home of the highest seed. The semi-finals and championship are played at "neutral" locations.

1LSU (SEC)
16 Ark. State (Sunbelt)

8 K-State (at large 5)
9 Wisconsion (Big10)

5 Oregon (Pac12)
12 USM (CUSA)

3 Stanford (at large 2)
14West Virginia (Big East)

3 Ok.State (Big12)
14 N.Illinois(MAC)

6 Arkansas (at large 3)
11 TCU (Mountain West)

7 Boise St. (at large 4)
10 Clemson (ACC)

2 Bama (at large 1)
15 La Tech (WAC)

The four major bowl games would still be played as usual. They would have the freedom to pick who they wanted, but here would be my suggestions. I've put the final BCS ranking of the teams in parenthesis.

Sugar: (9) South Carolina vs. (12) Baylor

Orange: (16) Georgia vs. (11) Va. Tech

Fiesta: (14) Oklahoma vs. (17) Mich. State

Rose: (13) Michigan vs. (19) Houston or (20) Nebraska

</p>

 

[sleepy dawg]

We get it.

 

[patdog]

My 8-team playoff is much better and every single playoff game would be a game that people would be excited to see. Most of your first round would be complete blowouts. My plan gives every team in the country a chance (by guaranteeing a bid to the highest rated conference champ outside the top 5), but if that's still not considered good enough, then modify it to guarantee1 of the 2at-large bids to any conference champ that finishes 12-0 with at least 1 win against a team from the top 5 conferences and no more than 1 I-AA win. If a Sunbelt/MAC/WAC team can't go undefeated, they don't even come close to deserving a playoff spot.

 

[Jackdragbean]

Keep the majority of the bowl games and just add 1 more. Top 4 teams play each other. Afterwards, the championship game to see who the best really is. People keep their bowls and on normal years, you can normally choose the best 4 teams.

 

[patdog]

And, to be honest, that would give us an unquestioned champion and would be a huge improvement over what we have now. I don't think there's much doubt the BCS is matching up the 2 best teams in the country, but I can understand Okie St. and maybe Stanford at least having some argument that they should be included. With a plus one, they would be.

 

[00Dawg]

Stick the Cotton in the BCS, and let 2 of the BCS bowls host the Football Final 4 on New Year's Day. National championship gameheld a week later inone of the other BCS stadiums (so fansof one team aren'theading to the same location a week later).

 

[Incognegro]

of course you'd say your 8 team playoff is better... you came up with it and you're going to partial with it.<div>
</div><div>I like my idea for a 16 team playoff which would still use a BCS-esque poll (under the pretense they do the computers right for once). Basically, the thought is that we still have AQ and non-AQ conferences. The only problems I do see with 16 and 8 week playoff schemes is that there essentially can't be any bye weeks, and I think it's only fair for the top 2 teams that had to play for their conference championship (if they have one) deserves a bye.</div><div>
</div><div>If they do decide that a bye week would be fair for those teams, then I'm more for modifying my 16 playoff to fit a 14 team scheme which would essentially be set up like so:</div><div>
</div><div>Bracket 1</div><div>Seed #1 (1) LSU* - Bye</div><div>paired with</div><div>Seed #8 (8) Kansas State vs Seed #10 (10) Wisconsin*</div><div>
</div><div>Seed #6 (6) Arkansas vs Seed #12 (12) Baylor</div><div>paired with</div><div>Seed #4 (3) Oklahoma State* vs Seed #14 (23) West Virginia*</div><div>
</div><div>Bracket 2</div><div>Seed #3 (2) Alabama vs Seed #13 (15) Clemson*</div><div>paired with</div><div>Seed #5 (4) Stanford vs Seed #11 (11) Virginia Tech</div><div>
</div><div>Seed #7 (7) Boise State vs Seed #9 (9) South Carolina</div><div>paired with</div><div>Seed #2 Oregon* - Bye (they get a bye by default because even though Bama is #2, they did not play for their conference championship game and Oregon not only played, but are the next highest team to have played an extra game)</div><div>
</div><div>This year... All of the teams that at least deserve a shot actually get one. The only ones that I think do not deserve one that are included are West Virginia, Clemson and Virginia Tech, but even still, there are some pretty decent match ups to be had with this set up. The only teams I can think that will have a legitimate gripe about being left out are TCU, Georgia and Michigan State, but that's just how the ball bounces.</div><div>
</div><div>Regardless if I think this is a legitimate setup, there will still be people who find fault with it; however, I really haven't seen one that I felt did these teams justice yet other than this one (but hey.. I'm biased).</div>

 

[JackShephard]

of all scenarios. Just look at this year. There are more than 4 teams with legitimate shots. there would be a slew of teams complaining about being left out.

8 teams would be almost equally as bad. How would you pick the 8? you couldn't include all conference champions so you would still have teams like Boise, TCU, USM/Houston, etc. being left out. At least with an auto bid to the tournament, winning the MAC/WAC/CUSA etc would actually mean something. Everybody would have a fair shot.

I also agree that it's not likely to happen any time soon, so I would take a plus one over what we currently have. But it's like the BCS vs. pre-BCS. Neither are worth a crap, but BCS is slightly better than what we had before.

 

[patdog]

and there's no undefeated team out there other than LSU. If we had a plus one, it would be real easy to tell anyone feeling left out to STFU and take care of their business and then they might have some complaint (or they might be in the plus one). I also wouldn't have any problem telling Boise, Houston or USM to STFU in my 8-team playoff. When your schedule is as weak as there's is, you'd damn well better go undefeated if you want to have a chance at a title. College football is about the only sport where the regular season isn't almost meaningless. We need to keep it that way.

 

[patdog]

That's a lot of what makes message boards fun. I think we all agree that a 4, 8, or 16 team playoff would be better than what we have now. The current system does a pretty good job of matching up the top 2 teams, but there are usually at least 1 or 2 other teams that have some legitimate room to complain. And the current system almost always gives us a couple ofreally badmajor bowl games.

 

[Incognegro]

Even though I'm a big supporter of the idea of a playoff, even I have to admit that a playoff doesn't always match up the two best teams. The BCS (theoretically) is probably the best way to match the two best teams for a "championship" game without instantiating a "best of" series format which just isn't realistic for football. However, I don't think it's the fairest way which I'm sure a large amount of people will agree with.<div>
</div><div>You're also right that it does make conversations more interesting, but... is that really a good thing though?</div>

 

[kired]

16 is too many in my opinion. I'd be fine with simply taking the top 8 based on BCS ranking, with the only rule being that you can't take more than two teams from any one conference (sorry Arkansas, but you already lost to two teams ahead of you).

You're never going to satisfy everyone so don't even try. And if for no other reason, I'd just like to see the matchups. Stanfordvs. LSU or Ok-St vs. Bama... those would be great games to watch. If you can't get in the top 8 (or top 4 w/ plus 1) then you have no reason to complain --- you likely either lost a game or you play little sisters of the poor every weak.

 

[JackShephard]

Oregon is still in the conversation too, since they beat Stanford. I didn't see Stanford putting LSU on their schedule. There are legitimately3 or 4teams who could claim the 4th spot. you want to punish Boise/TCU/USM/Houston for not scheduling well, but you don't want to reward Oregon when they do.

Like I said, plus one is better than nothing, 8 is better than plus one, but if I had my choice I'd pick 16 over them both. plus one is my least favorite scenario, but still better than what we have.</p>

 

[Incognegro]

when people say 16 is just too much. How is it too much when it's just 1 more week than an 8 team? If academics is the real question, for the most part... these playoffs happen for schools who are done with finals, and not only that but Basketball and Baseball play way more games than a 16 team playoff would have. I just never got that argument.

 

[patdog]

Or 64 teams since that's only 1 more than 32. At some point enough is enough. Some of us think that point is 8 and some think 16. The people that count think 2 is enough. Here are some of the reasons I think 8 is plenty.

1. In college football every regular season game means something. I don't think 2 loss teams deserve a playoff unless they win their conference. And I don't think minor conference winners deserve a shot unless they go undefeated or are the top-ranked minor conference winner. This gives plenty of opportunity for every minor conference team to control its own destiny at the beginning of the season without diluting the playoff with a bunch ofteams that couldn't have a prayer of even finishing .500 in a major conference.
2.It'svery difficult to fit 16 games into the schedule without shortening the regular season (not gonna happen) or extending the season until almost February.
3. The first round of a 16-team playoff would be mostly boring blowouts. We get enough of that on Labor Day weekend. In an 8-team playoff, almost every game would be a compelling matchup.
4. It's much easier for the fans to get to all the games in an 8-team playoff than a 16.

 

[klerushund]

I don't care what "championship" they won. Northern Illinois, USM, Arkansas St., & LaTech don't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with those other teams.<div>
</div><div>It's trading one inequity for another. You say it's not fair that those teams can't play for the national title. It's just as inequitable to give the CUSA, WAC, etc. automatic bids when other teams, like MSU for example, have to play murderer's row just to win their division. I'd rather keep the BCS for 50 years than reward crap conference "champions."</div><div>
</div><div>I'm fairly certain that Ole Miss, who was dog-vomit bad this year, would have won C-USA.</div>

 

[Incognegro]

I do agree that enough is enough, but the only point that I was making is that usually the ones that say 8 is enough I think that saying one more week isn't pushing too much. I don't think that you'll see too many people want to push for a 32+ playoff, so that's the only reason I use that argument. As far as your points<div>
</div><div>1. Who's to say that a playoff system won'treinforcetougher scheduling? Who is to say it won't promote softer scheduling? The only thing we do know is that right now, the BCS rewards teams who have notable records with weak scheduling. Houston was 1 game away from a BCS bid. Virginia Tech got in over Boise, Baylor and Kansas State. The regular season might mean something and one can even debate it would still mean something with a playoff as large as 16, but no one should be able to deny that the regular season is still diluted and that is a massive problem.</div><div>
</div><div>2. That really depends on when you decide to host your playoffs. An 8 team playoff is a 3 week affair. A 16 team (or even my 14 team scenario) is only 4. The current BCS title game is slated for a December 9th showdown. That's 4 weeks from this coming Thursday which is the same length of time it would take for a 16 team playoff to conclude if we're under the assumption that they play all the way through. Even if they wanted to give an extra week for both teams to fully prepare between the semi-finals and the finals, that is only an extra week which would still be in the early parts of January. The regular season would not need to be shortened, and February doesn't have to see any football.</div><div>
</div><div>3. This is a point that is difficult to argue for or against. Even in the current BCS format, we still are subject to blowouts even when we think we have potentially good matchups. That even includes the title games. For all we know, some years the first round for all or most of the games could be slug fests and other years, all but one would be blow outs. That's why, for my 14 team idea, I feel that it would limit a majority of those blowouts as a large portion of the first round matchups look good (on paper).</div><div>
</div><div>4. How so? Again, that depends on how it's set up. If the only game that is on a neutral field is the title game and the higher seeded (or ranked) team has homefield advantage... I don't see how fan attendance would suffer from 16 vs 8 especially considering that not all of the away fans will be expected to make the trip to their opponents anyway. The only time I think fan attendance has a chance of suffering is if the proposed idea of, which I've seen mentioned plenty of times, holding the semi finals on 2 of the 5 BCS locations and the championship game would be on 1 of the remaining 3 is set in place. That would be way too much travel if you ask me.</div>

 

[kired]

I don't care how the scheduling works out - I just think after 12 regular season games + conference championship games, we normally have a pretty good idea who the top3 or4 teams are. I just don't see any reason to put a team that's obviously notone of the best teams in the nation in a playoff. Do teams like West Virginia, USM, Oklahoma, Georgia(or whoever would be seeded 8-16) really deserve a shot at this point?

Some years 8 (or even 4)may be too many... but I think in all years 16 would definitely be too many.

 

[Incognegro]

The only things I can really say at this point is that it depends on how the playoff is set up by that point. I personally don't think that all conference champions should get an invite and that something similar to the current AQ/nonAQ setting would be needed. Because of how low USM and Georgia would have finished, there's a good chance they wouldn't have been invited.<div>
</div><div>Also, as far as saying all years 16 would be too much... last year would have been a pretty good argument that 16 would have worked. If I recall correctly (and remember..think back before the actual bowls played out), there were 3 Big 10 teams tied for first and Michigan State was left out of the BCS, Alabama would have been on the verge of getting in the playoffs and the way the playoff is set up would determine if they got in or not, and there were many other teams in the top 16 that may have actually made a name for themselves.</div><div>
</div><div>If they made the requirements even more simple and did away with AQ/nonAQ status and only accepted the top 16 teams period, then really that might indeed be the most fair solution. If that were the case, then if a team did indeed win their conference but was ranked outside of the top 16, then just give them the berth for the highest paying bowl game for that conference since I still think we should have a bowl system to go along with the playoffs.</div><div>
</div><div>The more I think about last year, I do think that the top 16 teams pre-bowl selection all had a legitimate shot.</div>