The Only Way To Find A True Champion...

[winghaz]

Great idea, but I'd cut it down to eight teams.

[mjrbaseball]

I think 16 teams would work best.

There are 11 Division I-A conferences, so take the 11 conference champions. Add in 5 wild cards: the 5 non-champions (including independents) with the best overall records. That's your field of 16.

No selection committee. No polls. No questions. It's all decided on the field.

[jrh31584]

8 conference champions, 8 at-large teams, all chosen and seeded by selection committee. 1st and 2nd round games are played at the same sites, as are semifinal and championship games. Also, the season would be shortened such that conference championship games would be Thanksgiving weekend. Here's how it may look this year.

Tempe Regional

Dec. 1

#4 West Virginia vs. #1 Southern California

Dec. 3

#3 Georgia vs. #2 Ohio State

Dec. 10

WVU-USC winner vs. UGA-OSU winner

Miami Regional

Dec. 1

#4 Fresno State vs. #1 Miami

Dec. 3

#3 Texas Tech vs. #2 Louisiana State

Dec. 10

FSU-UM winner vs. TT-LSU winner

Dallas Regional

Dec. 1

#3 Notre Dame vs. #2 Penn State

Dec. 3

#4 Florida vs. #1 Texas

Dec. 10

ND-PSU winner vs. UF-UT winner

Atlanta Regional

Dec. 1

#3 Oregon vs. #2 Virginia Tech

Dec. 3

#4 Texas Christian vs. #1 Alabama

Dec. 10

UO-VT winner vs. TCU-UA winner

Seminfinals from Pasadena

Dec. 27

Tempe winner vs. Miami winner

Dec. 28

Dallas winner vs. Atlanta winner

National Championship from Pasadena

Jan. 2

Semifinal winners

Here's how the seeding worked:

1. Took 8 teams which were the highest ranked from their conference in the BCS ratings.

2. Took next 8 highest-ranked teams.

3. Ranked these teams from 1-16.

4. Teams 1-4 were given #1 seeds, 5-8 given #2 seeds, etc.

5. Teams were placed in regionals so as to prevent matches between teams in the same conference or who had played earlier in the year for as long as possible.

I used the sites of this year's BCS bowls for 4 of the 5 locations, and added the Cotton Bowl arbitrarily. Other cities may bid for the rights to host playoff games.

[mjrbaseball]

8 conference champions, 8 at-large teams, all chosen and seeded by selection committee.

Why only 8 conference champions when there are 11 conferences?

If a conference isn't good enough for the championship, it shouldn't be playing Division I-A in the first place. But the very fact of being in I-A makes it eligible.

[tohasbo]

Here is an updated one.

This time instead of the conference winners, the top 16 from the Atlantic and Central time zone teams and the top 16 in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, based on Jeff Sagarin's ratings.

let me know what your opinion is on a 32-team field!!

[rockchalk]

Hmm, oddly familiar

Sorry, no sour grapes or anything, just posted this last week...Maybe I should've gotten myself one of them there fancy bracket maker thingys

[VitaminD]

Here is an updated one.

This time instead of the conference winners, the top 16 from the Atlantic and Central time zone teams and the top 16 in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, based on Jeff Sagarin's ratings.

let me know what your opinion is on a 32-team field!!

Is this after an 11-game season or a 12-game season?

Conceivably, you play 12 games in the regular season. Plus your conference championship equals 13. Plus 5 rounds of playoffs equals 18.

Cue the standard "protect the student-athlete'" spiel whenever you're ready.

32 teams is at least 2 rounds too many. San Diego State? Boston College? I'm all for Cinderellas but this is pushing it way too far. With March Madness, teams play 2 rounds in 72 hours, and 4 games in 9 games (Thu./Sat., Thu./Sat. of next week) so it all gets compacted into a couple of weekends. You can't have football teams playing more than once a week, so this would drag on interminably.

Boil it down to 8 or 12 legitimate title contenders, you could make it work. But the season can't go this far into January.