BCS Playoffs?

[TBGKon]

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=dw...o&type=lgns

Just reading over this plan, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports sets up a playoff system that still involves bowl games. This guy definitely has it going the right way conceptually.

[BB61]

And that's the way it should be done. Honestly, any system beats the current system.

[OnWis97]

I've wanted that for years. The Hoops tourney is not the 65 best teams and the football one would not (or should not) be the 16 best teams. Every conference race would be interesting and the five best (and I'd use the BCS scoring for this) at-large would get in. I'd rather argue about the 5 vs. 6 of teams that did not win their conference than 2 vs. 3.

The regular season would still be very meaningful.

[McCall]

This is how I see it. However, where he says to go away from what I-AA does and play 2 rounds, take exams and finish the last 2 rounds after Christmas, I say do what I-AA does, to an extent. Play first 3 rounds, thru the semi-finals. Then play the Championship in it's usual early January.

But, ah-ha, a little addition. If you make it to the second round, you automatically play in a "BCS" bowl, or whatever it they would be called at that point. With a rotation, similar to how it is, each bowl in the current BCS would be a "place" game, i.e. Seventh, Fifth, and Third. However this would force two teams who did not win in the first round to have to play in a BCS (which I don't think would upset them) as there are currently Five games (including the Championship Game). So they can either have a computer decide which two would play for the Seventh place bowl game, or knock them back down to just Four games with the rotation of designation of First, Third, Fifth Places each year. This way, they all have a shot at the title, but if they lose, they still play in a BCS bowl game.

After reading this however, it seems it would be best to not designate the other bowl games a specific ranking, as to allow for traditional conference match-ups between teams who are not playing for the title. Example, if USC lost in the 2nd round and Ohio State lost in the Semi's, they could still meet in the Rose Bowl. In the same effect, it would probably be best to keep the five BCS games, and just have the two higher ranking teams to have lost in the first round play in the fifth game, with usual "not more than 2 teams from a conference" and other current BCS factors applying.

[Mac the Knife]

I like the 16-team format, but his method of essentially shoving the bowl games aside is flawed. Preserving the bowl games in a playoff would actually be pretty easy - just incorporate them into the first round. For example:

During the latter half of December, have those bowl games that won't be featuring teams in the BCS Top 16: your New Orleans Bowl, your Texas Bowl, your Humanitarian Bowl, etc.

Then, on December 31 and January 1, have an eight game bowl blowout as the first round of your national championship playoff. #1 could face #16 in the Sugar Bowl, #2 vs. #15 in the Cotton, #3 vs. #14 in the Fiesta, and so on.

Rotate the national championship game between five bowl games: Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton, and Fiesta. Play the second and third round games as a "Rose Bowl Semi-Final," "Sugar Bowl Playoff," or whatever. Then, have the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton or Fiesta Bowl serve as the national title game. Play the national title game on the weekend between the AFC/NFC Conference title games and the Super Bowl each year.

Unfortunately the only way to force a playoff onto the NCAA is for someone to come out with a very public, very lucrative offer to stage it. Rupert Murdoch and FOX would be my best bet for something like that: offering the NCAA $250 million a year for exclusive television rights to the whole shebang.

[hormone]

I like this guy's perspective. I don't see it happening though. I'm not sure big companies would rather have the city of Columbus make money than their name all over the Snap On Greasy Wrench Bowl or whatever. Also, the bowls need to either start earlier or start the season later. Let's use OSU for example (which I hate with a passion, but that's neither here nor there). They've been off for two weeks now. While other teams continue and play and maybe lose, they get thrust into the one or two spot. Now they get to prove their season after a 12 week bye at some sight in Alabama or something. Who has a 12 week bye before a championship? Who has a popularity contest determine who the final two are? It's time to do it like this guy said. Home games for the high seeds and one neutral game. It seems to work for the subdivision.

[McCall]

On mine, I need to clarify that ALL BCS bowl games would be played after Christmas, in between the semi-finals and title game. The tournament thru the semi's would be completed before Christmas, designations would then be set, and then the BCS bowls would begin around New Year's or so as is now. So you have basically like it currently is, although a fair tournament was used to determine who's playing the in the ultimate game and who's qualified to play in the rest of the BCS bowl games.

[Luigi74]

I like this plan alot but I would like to see semi-final game's at a neutral site but not a bowl. Have one half of the bracket be the East Region and the other the West Region, have the game's at say FedEex Field for the East Bracket and U of Phoneix Stadium for the West Bracket. Some of the bowl cities would have playoff games but they could still host a bowl either before of after depending on when they run the playoff.

[charger77]

Any system that puts Central Michigan University in the National Championship picture is fine by me!

Fire Up Chips!!!

Dan

[pcgd]

I like this approach alot and its one I've always thought could work.

I like the others would include the "BCS Bowls" As the semi final games and have the first 2 rounds be "home" games for the top seeds. And you could sell the rights to the national championship game if you'd want. It could be the Allstate National Championship, and just rotate the games around the BCS bowl locations, just like now.

Then leave all the bowls alone. He's right, they don't figure into anything and they serve for fans of teams that have 6 or 7 wins to take a little trip. No harm no foul.

You still can have the final rankings based on performance in the playoffs and in the bowls.

Its so simple, and its a gold mine. I don't understand the difficulty in getting this done. It would eclipse March Madness for sure IMO.

I'm not a huge fan of including all conferences, but its not the end of the world. Does Illinois or Tennessee really deserve to play in the National Championship puzzle this year? Not really. I like the "tune up" factor and the "upset" factor.

Also the break before the Semi finals would be good for the teams, for school, and for travel purposes.

Also I think you'd want to somehow give the away schools a cut of the proceeds from the first two rounds. But financials could be worked out...

[FiddySicks]

Why don't you have a playoff system, and when teams lose out of the playoffs they are seeded into bowls according to how far they made it in the playoffs?

[BaltimoreFan]

I don't think this would work for the NCAA financially (something alot of people don't think about). Otherwise they probably would have already done it years ago. It's been talk about almost every season. I'm sure that the NCAA has explored many options to see if it would work. It's a great idea, but I don't think it will happen any time soon.

[pcgd]

I don't think this would work for the NCAA financially (something alot of people don't think about). Otherwise they probably would have already done it years ago. It's been talk about almost every season. I'm sure that the NCAA has explored many options to see if it would work. It's a great idea, but I don't think it will happen any time soon.

How could it NOT succeed financially? How much money does March Madness make?

think of the revenue from advertising! The schools get money from home games, sponsorship dollars from the semi-final bowls, sponsorship dollars from the first 'true' national championship, gate reciepts, playoff shirts.

The bowl lovers have come up with the "Every week is a playoff" arguement. This year proves that that's just not true. Because of having to go undefeated, you have to play the Youngstown States of the world to hope for the National Championship. Imagine if Ohio State vs. Texas was the norm instead of a rarity. Teams would want to prep for the playoffs and would start scheduling tough opponents. The effect of one loss would be reduced. But you better not lose again. With 16 there is some wiggle room, but not too much. You'd probably only get a couple 3 loss teams and most likely, those would be from the SEC or Pac-10's of the world.

Plus, all the ADs keep their bowls that give them the payday every year.

[WJMorris3]

I'd almost like to see a 24-team playoff, with conference champions given no worse than a 16 seed. Continuing with the BCS standings, allowing only four teams per conference, and not allowing teams from the same conference to meet until the quarterfinals, would give us the following.

(17) Arizona State at (16) Central Michigan, winner at (1) Missouri

(24) South Florida at (9) Oklahoma, winner at (8) Southern California

(20) Clemson at (13) Brigham Young, winner at (4) Georgia

(21) Oregon at (12) Hawaii, winner at (5) Kansas

(18) Illinois at (15) Troy, winner at (2) West Virginia

(23) Texas at (10) Boston College, winner at (7) Louisiana State

(19) Tennessee at (14) Central Florida, winner at (3) Ohio State

(22) Wisconsin at (11) Florida, winner at (6) Virginia Tech

All games from the quarterfinals on would be played at neutral sites.

Incidentally, the earliest matchups of conference foes:

ACC: Boston College vs. Virginia Tech, semifinals

Big East: South Florida vs. West Virginia, finals

Big Ten: Wisconsin vs. Ohio State, quarterfinals

Big XII: Oklahoma vs. Missouri, quarterfinals

Pac-10: Arizona State vs. Southern California, quarterfinals

SEC: Tennessee vs. Florida, quarterfinals

[McCall]

I like this approach alot and its one I've always thought could work.

I like the others would include the "BCS Bowls" As the semi final games and have the first 2 rounds be "home" games for the top seeds. And you could sell the rights to the national championship game if you'd want. It could be the Allstate National Championship, and just rotate the games around the BCS bowl locations, just like now.

Then leave all the bowls alone. He's right, they don't figure into anything and they serve for fans of teams that have 6 or 7 wins to take a little trip. No harm no foul.

You still can have the final rankings based on performance in the playoffs and in the bowls.

Its so simple, and its a gold mine. I don't understand the difficulty in getting this done. It would eclipse March Madness for sure IMO.

I'm not a huge fan of including all conferences, but its not the end of the world. Does Illinois or Tennessee really deserve to play in the National Championship puzzle this year? Not really. I like the "tune up" factor and the "upset" factor.

Also the break before the Semi finals would be good for the teams, for school, and for travel purposes.

Also I think you'd want to somehow give the away schools a cut of the proceeds from the first two rounds. But financials could be worked out...

This actually seems to kind of take some of the highlight away from the other BCS bowls. By only making them "stops" through the tournament, you could have a team winning multiple bowls, thus, making the bowl nothing more than a stop along the way. By playing the tournament, and then sending the final 2 to the championship, and distributing the others to the rest of the BCS bowls, it basically works the same as now, where some teams could end there season with a win and a bowl championship, which could really be a great experience for a team. Like the Fiesta Bowl last year, it wasn't a championship and the two teams knew it, but to them, it was they were playing for the championship of the particular BCS Bowl, which helped to garner the excitement. If it just becomes another stop on the path to the title game, it takes some of that away from it.

[McCall]

This is what I posted in the other thread about re-doing conferences altogether, that was originally made in the Concepts Forum. The jist of it mainly applies to this and the determination of seeding:

Rather than re-doing conferences, I'd say just make it so that the big conferences have to play teams in other big confereces. So it'd be whatever conference games they play, and all non-conference games would have to be from another big conf. Designate big, mid, small. Like the current BCS conferences would be the big, and so on and so forth. Then whoever wins those conferences championships would be automatically in the top 6 seeds of the tournament. The Mid-Majors would be set a certain range of seeds, and same with the smaller schools. Leave some open for a few at-large bids. This forces teams to play a tougher schedule through the regular season, and helps quiet any qualms about some high ranked teams playing a much softer schedule than other teams that they think should be ranked higher.

Set up similar to this:

Major Conferences: ACC, Big XII, Big East, Big 10, Pac 10, and SEC.

Mid-Major Conferences: COnference USA, Mountain West, WAC.

Minor Conferences: Mid-American and Sun Belt.

Independents:

-Notre Dame grouped with Major Conferences, should they have a good enough record and ranking to make an At-Large bid, they'd be guaranteed one.

-Army and Navy grouped with Mid-Majors

-Western Kentucky. I'm not sure which they would better fall under, Mid-Major or Minor. I'll let someone else judge that.

Tournament Seeding:

>Major Conferences Champions would get Seeds 1-6 or 7, depending on Notre Dame and where their ranking should designate them being seeded.

>Mid-Majors, along with At-Large Majors (and even an At-Large Mid-Major or two), would be distributed throughout the 7 or 8 (depending on ND) through 14 seeds (this meaning Notre Dame could be seeded as low as 14 if deemed good enough to get into the tournament, but not a higher seed).

>The 2 Minor Conferences would automatically get the 15th and 16th seeds.

So here is how mine would look at the moment. You can't make it unless you either play for your conference championship, or finish second in your conference, in the case of those that don't play a title game, like the Big 10, Big East, Pac 10, etc. In mine, I'm using that, combined with CURRENT BCS rankings to determine the seeds. Like for example, LSU and Tennesse play for the SEC, but I'm listing LSU as the champs for now based on a higher BCS. Teams like Georgia and Kansas, although ranked in the top 5, don't make it because they aren't playing for their conference title, so Tennesse and Oklahoma get those conferences second bid. 7 thru 8 are simply seeded by those who qualify as "2nd place" or Mid-Major Champs and how they fall in the current BCS:

One Half of Bracket:

1. Mizzou (Big 12 Champs) vs 16. One of the two Minor Conf. Champs

8. Boston College (2nd Place ACC) vs 9. Hawaii (WAC Champs)

*5. USC (Pac 10 Champs) vs 12) Tennessee (2nd Place SEC)*

4. Virginia Tech (ACC Champs) vs BYU (Mountain West Champs)

Other Half of Bracket:

2. West Virginia (Big East Champs) vs 15. Other Minor Conf. Champs

7. Oklahoma (2nd Place Big 12) vs 10. Arizona State (2nd Place Pac 10?)

*6. LSU (SEC Champs) vs 11. Illinois (I believe they finished 2nd in Big 10(?)*

3. Ohio State (Big 10 Champs) vs 14. Central Florida (Conference USA Champs)

(By Conference Finish combined with current BCS, Tennesse would be #11 and Illinois #12. However this would put LSU and Tennessee playing each other in the first round. So for the sake of the example, I simply swapped them for now. A determination for a similar occurence would need to decided on.)

For the sake of the example, I used all the Major 2nd Place finishers as At-Larges. In all actuallity, if there is a 2nd Place team that wouldn't really have a high enough ranking to make the tournament, an At-large from a Mid-Major could be substituted. In theory, since conferences would only be allowed 2 teams in the tournament, this would be the only other option. Unless they were to allow for, and no more than, a 3rd team from a Major Conference into the tournament.

If Notre Dame were to recieve a high enough ranking to allow them into the tournament, depending on how well they did, theoretically, they could be seeded anywhere from 1 to 14.

[infrared41]

How could it NOT succeed financially? How much money does March Madness make?

Well first off, Central Michigan, Troy, and UCF aren't quite the draw that Texas or any of the other big names that would be left out of the playoff are. So you have three or four first round games that are going to be lopsided blowouts and no one is going to watch them. So there is problem number one.

I have been to the first round of three different NCAA Basketball tournaments. 80% of the games have a lot of empty seats. The March Madness money is made from TV and CBS ain't buying the rights to the 12:00 first round game in Boise between UCLA and (insert directional 16 seed here.) CBS is paying for the primetime games and the Final Four. Do you think CBS would still buy the rights to the tournament if they knew that every year a team like UCLA or UNC or Duke etc. was not going to be there because teams like Drexel or St. Louis have to take their spots? The point is that in a 65 team tournament you can afford to let the little guys in. It's a different story in football. There is no way any network will lay out the kind of money The NCAA will be looking for just to televise USC hanging 70 on some MAC school and four variations of that same theme in the first round every single year.

Playoff advocates look at it from a competitive standpoint instead of from the perspective where the real decisions are made. A playoff isn't about being fair to C-USA or The MAC, it's about the dollars. Any playoff won't include the mid-majors. Any playoff will be a lot like the current BCS. If a Boise or Hawaii plays lights out all season they might get a bid but it won't be guaranteed. There is no way a network is going to sign on to a playoff where every year 4 or 5 spots are taken by Troy or CMU instead of LSU or Georgia.

So anyway, that's how you could lose money on it and that's one reason why Wetzel's plan won't work.

It's real simple kids. When you think college football playoff you gotta think money and ratings not fair and balanced. Find a way to keep the mid-majors quiet about not getting automatic bids and you'll have taken the first step towards seeing this thing become a reality.

[rams80]

I'll point out that they can somehow get the networks to buy a package that doesn't even guarantee one traditional power will be playing for the title...

*whistles*

What makes you think it would be so hard for them to sign on to such a playoff?

[See Red]

I don't want a playoff that has any more than four teams. Part of the appeal of college football is that the regular season counts... more than any other sport, in fact. I loved the fact that six or seven years ago I'd watch a Florida State/Miami game in week one or two of the season, knowing that one of these teams National Championship aspirations would go on life support if they lost. I think you're doing an incredibly injustice if you're putting a team like Central Michigan in over a team that has an actual chance. Firstly, nobody would watch the game.

I say four teams, but a conference gets no more than one team.

[pcgd]

How could it NOT succeed financially? How much money does March Madness make?

Well first off, Central Michigan, Troy, and UCF aren't quite the draw that Texas or any of the other big names that would be left out of the playoff are. So you have three or four first round games that are going to be lopsided blowouts and no one is going to watch them. So there is problem number one.

I have been to the first round of three different NCAA Basketball tournaments. 80% of the games have a lot of empty seats. The March Madness money is made from TV and CBS ain't buying the rights to the 12:00 first round game in Boise between UCLA and (insert directional 16 seed here.) CBS is paying for the primetime games and the Final Four. Do you think CBS would still buy the rights to the tournament if they knew that every year a team like UCLA or UNC or Duke etc. was not going to be there because teams like Drexel or St. Louis have to take their spots? The point is that in a 65 team tournament you can afford to let the little guys in. It's a different story in football. There is no way any network will lay out the kind of money The NCAA will be looking for just to televise USC hanging 70 on some MAC school and four variations of that same theme in the first round every single year.

Playoff advocates look at it from a competitive standpoint instead of from the perspective where the real decisions are made. A playoff isn't about being fair to C-USA or The MAC, it's about the dollars. Any playoff won't include the mid-majors. Any playoff will be a lot like the current BCS. If a Boise or Hawaii plays lights out all season they might get a bid but it won't be guaranteed. There is no way a network is going to sign on to a playoff where every year 4 or 5 spots are taken by Troy or CMU instead of LSU or Georgia.

So anyway, that's how you could lose money on it and that's one reason why Wetzel's plan won't work.

It's real simple kids. When you think college football playoff you gotta think money and ratings not fair and balanced. Find a way to keep the mid-majors quiet about not getting automatic bids and you'll have taken the first step towards seeing this thing become a reality.

In this plan, You's have 8 first round games at the top seed's home field. Those are always going to be major stadiums that have an outstanding fan base. 105,000 people showed up to see Ohio State put a smack down on Youngstown State. It was Something like the 18th largest crowd ever at the horseshoe. I don't think you'd have any empty seats for a playoff game.

They'd be prime time games. 4 Friday, 4 Saturday. (or 2 Friday, 6 Saturday) ESPN and ABC could partner up, all night games or Saturday afternoon games. 2 double headers. Switch back and forth at home.

Noon weekday games halfway across the country don't draw fans in in any sport. The St. Louis Cardinals had some trouble getting people to the opening home playoff game in 2004 that was noon on a tuesday. But when you plan once a week on a weekend night, that gets people to travel.

I'm sorry, if someone can't sell a college football playoff to advertisers and networks, they shouldn't be selling anything.

I'd also think in a season where we saw something 12 or 13 unranked teams beat top 5 opponents, we'd think twice in assuming every first round game in a system like this would be a layup.