With the awesome win over the Utes on Saturday, and the #19 BCS ranking, I have been doing a little thinking about a playoff scenario and this is what I've come up with. I know a lot of this isn't new, but I haven't read all that's been written either.

Please feel free to offer ideas, criticism, etc.

I would propose a 16 team playoff system. I would propose two BYE weeks during the season so that most teams would stay at about 11 or 12 games a year. This also doesn't extend it further than it already is.

Here are my main points:

1) Each conference champion (11) receives an automatic berth. Seeds 1-11 based on ranking.

2) The top ranked Independent school gets an automatic berth (provided they have a winning record).

3) Four or five at-large bids (must have a winning record). These are seeds 13-16. If the Power Conferences are so powerful and so superior, they won't have trouble dispatching a higher seeded team from a "lower" conference. These at-large teams would be chosen by an NCAA committee - not a consortium of powerful, anti-trust Power Conference commissioners. Each conference has one seat on the committee. This 11 person committee would gaurantee that a tie would never occur if any voting every took place.

4) First Round Bowls: Alamo, Poinsetta, Gator, Capitol One, Houston, Chick Fil-A, Insight, and Outback. Four of these games would be played on Dec 14 or 15, and the other four on Dec. 15 or 16.

5) Second Round: Holiday, Sugar, Cotton, and Las Vegas (played around Dec. 21)

6) Third Round: Fiesta and Orange (played around Dec. 28)
7) National Championship game: Rose (played around Jan 4)

* I would propose that the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, and Rose rotate yearly.

Leave the other bowls intact (as second tier bowls)

By doing this several things happen.

a) The current bowls don't die.
b) Substantially more money is generated than currently is.
c) Every Div-1A team in America has a chance to play for the National Championship.

d) Fairness, opportunity, and equity is brought back into the picture.
e) Teams would have no longer of a season and the NC would only play 14 games.

I am sure that this needs to be tweaked, and if I had a PDF compiler I would put my brackets in .pdf format for attachment, but I don't.

Anyway, I would love to hear thoughts, suggestions, ideas. I love the creativity and the knowledge that is on this board!

Go Cougs!

Jeff Ray
Lehi, Utah

Good idea. My issue is giving automatic bids to conference winners. It should be the top 16 teams, end of story. Do you really believe the Sun Belt or C-USA conference deserves automatic bids? Look at teams that will not (or potentially will not) be conference winners: Georgia/LSU/Florida/Tennessee, Missouri/Kansas/Oklahoma, USC/Arizona State, Boston/College/VT, or even other non-BCS schools. I really don't think that weak mid-major conferences should have an automatic bid. If the MWC does not have a top 16 team they do not deserve a bid, just like the ACC did not deserve an automatic bid when Florida State, who had 4 losses, played in the Orange Bowl in 2005.

Remember 1994? BYU, Utah, and CSU were all top 16 and I don't think it would be fair to have kept any of the 3 out of the playoffs. It should be top 16.

Personally I think a playoff should only be 8 teams- especially to start out. There are a lot of arguments about students and how they'd be playing etc.
An 8 team playoff only = 3 more games than normal and only 4 teams would be playing an extra week with 2 of those playing 2 extra weeks.

If that works out, there will be less reluctance to go to a 16 game or we might find that 8 really is enough.

This year I'd like to see:
1. Missouri
2. West Virginia
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
5. Va tech
6. USC
7. LSU
8. Hawaii (if they beat Washington)

1 v 8
Missouri v Hawaii

2 v 7
WVU v LSU

3 v 6
OSU v USC

5 v 4
Ga v Va Tech

I think whoever won this would put to bed who the best team in the country was, there'd be no more "well we lost 2 in triple overtime" or "they played a weak schedule"

I love BYU and bleed blue, but we can't lose to UCLA and Tulsa and expect to be deserving of BCS love this year. We didn't earn it.

I appreciate the comments, and they are all valid points. My main reason for giving automatic bids to conference champs is to eliminate (as much as possible), the reliance on biased human polls. If a system could be worked out that was less opinion based, I would be all for that.

Thanks again for the comments. It is a fun topic to banter around.

Jeff Ray
Lehi, Utah

ND/BYU wrote:

Good idea. My issue is giving automatic bids to conference winners. It should be the top 16 teams, end of story. Do you really believe the Sun Belt or C-USA conference deserves automatic bids? Look at teams that will not (or potentially will not) be conference winners: Georgia/LSU/Florida/Tennessee, Missouri/Kansas/Oklahoma, USC/Arizona State, Boston/College/VT, or even other non-BCS schools. I really don't think that weak mid-major conferences should have an automatic bid. If the MWC does not have a top 16 team they do not deserve a bid, just like the ACC did not deserve an automatic bid when Florida State, who had 4 losses, played in the Orange Bowl in 2005.

Remember 1994? BYU, Utah, and CSU were all top 16 and I don't think it would be fair to have kept any of the 3 out of the playoffs. It should be top 16.

If you think a playoff is still afar off then you'll think my issue/idea is an eternity away. I would like to see the NCAA add 11 teams and realign the conferences into 8 conferences each with 16 teams with obviously 2 divisions in each. Let the conference championships act as game one of the playoffs. And then take the 8 Champions into a three week playoff after that. Still keep the bowl games for the sake of reward both monetarily, entertainily (Sounds like a James Bates/Todd Christensen word huh?) and as a reward for good teams to get two or three weeks more practice. The other thing I would do is within each conference I would allow for division realignment from year to year based on finish from the previous season so one division never grows significantly more difficult than another within the same conference.

Chances of something like this ever happening...0!

GO Cougs!!!

at this point I would give anything just for a plus one scenario.