My Proposition

Bowl games or a playoff? That is the question. Folks have been debating the topic for years. It's a battle over tradition, money, and what's right for the sport we love. College football has been around forever and there are many time-honored traditions. When people talk about college football tradition, they talk about bowl games.

Every other level of college football, as well as every other sport within the NCAA, has a playoff system of some sort. Historically, bowl games have earned large sums of money and brought lots of attention to the schools that participate and the cities that host. Many argue that a playoff system would jeopardize the integrity of the FBS regular season and generate less money for the schools involved. I beg to differ. I think we can have our cake and eat it too.

There's no way to satisfy everyone. When any outfit makes a substantial change like this there needs to be compromise. I love the bowl games and appreciate the great traditions that go along with them. But the bottom line is that just about every year there is at least one team with a legitimate argument as to why they were snubbed by the pollsters. Seven of the top eight teams today are from a "BCS conference" and each has one loss. Three of these seven are from the Big 12 and took turns beating one another. How can anyone say that one is better than the next? You can guess - but you never know for sure.

The only fair way to figure things out is to play the games on the field. Today the BCS National Championship Game is a virtual two-team playoff. If the two teams in the championship happen to be the only two undefeated teams, all is well. The problem is that this is rarely the case. College football's top division needs to implement a playoff. And I have an idea of how to do it, while still preserving the cherished bowl games.


Before introducing my plan I would like to set some guidelines.

My first thought is that the current twelve game regular season is a fine number. Three or four non-conference games and eight or nine conference games is perfect. In almost every case, this kind of schedule provides the public with a clear of idea of which team is best in each league.

Something I would like to eliminate is the presence of conference championship games. This year's SEC Championship proved that an 11-1 Florida team was, indeed, better than a 12-0 Alabama team. But if the playoffs had started last week, prior to this game, both teams would have been among the top four seeds in a playoff anyway. If fourth-ranked Florida had been ranked, say, twenty-fourth and won, should they be SEC Champs? These games do little good for the polls and are merely an opportunity for the conferences that play them to rake in more money.

Speaking of superfluous games, too many teams participate in the postseason today. There are currently thirty-four bowl games. If university presidents and league commissioners are so concerned with the integrity of the game when it comes to the bowl game/playoff argument, what does thirty-four bowl games do for the sport? Besides earning huge money through bowl payouts, television contracts and tourism, this number of games does nothing but hurt the credibility of the great bowl tradition. Who wants to watch Notre Dame and Hawaii - a combined 13-12 this season - in the Hawaii Bowl? Will you be watching Northern Illinois and Louisiana Tech - a combined 13-11 - in the Independence Bowl? I didn't think so. The FBS brass cannot deny the insignificance of these games. If you think they're anything but paydays, you're out of your mind.

When it comes to automatic bids for conference champions, there should be no place for it in today's BCS system and absolutely none in any kind of playoff format. I believe that about twenty teams are better than Cincinnati, the 2008 Big East Champs. Yet they find themselves playing in the Orange Bowl this postseason versus Virginia Tech, another undeserving BCS conference champion. It's crazy that either one of these teams is playing in a BCS game while, for the second year in a row, at least one Big 12 team is being excluded from the mix due to ridiculous rules.


My plan is pretty simple: I propose an eight-team playoff. The eight seeds shall be decided by an average of two human polls - no computers or crazy formulas. Both the Coaches Poll and AP Poll have produced unbiased, regionally-balanced rankings for decades. If the people that are closest to the action can't accurately rank the nation's best, no one can. I understand that with any limit - four, eight, sixteen, etc. - there will be backlash. But if a team can't make it to the top eight by season's end, do they deserve a shot at the title?

The current BCS system is comprised of four "major" bowls: Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta. Each season, one of these four bowl destinations also hosts the BCS Championship Game. I like the idea of rotating championship locations. But there's a twist. I would like to include the Cotton Bowl in my rotation. It annually hosts a Big 12-SEC matchup (although that wouldn't be a guarantee in my system) and is loaded with a rich history.

In my FBS Tournament, the first round games would be played at four of the five major bowl destinations. The Final Four - the semifinals and Championship Game - would then take place at the fifth location. Since the Orange Bowl is the host of this year's Title Game, it can be the site of our Final Four.

Besides the eight teams that make the tournament and play in the major bowls, I would like to keep an additional 8-12 bowl games. This gives other winning teams a chance to play one final game. It would probably be best to keep the oldest, most tradition-rich bowls such as the Capital One, Holiday, Gator and Sun, among others. I'm not overly concerned with which non-tournament bowls remain, but it would be a nice way to include other winning schools for a job well done. I just think that flooding the bowl schedule with 6-6 or 7-5 teams takes something away from bowl season.

Below is an example of how the FBS Tournament's first round games would look if my format was applied this postseason. Remember: the seeding is based on each team's average Coaches/AP rank.

Cotton Bowl:
#1 Florida vs. # 8 Texas Tech
Fiesta Bowl:
#2 Oklahoma vs. #7 Utah
Rose Bowl:
#3 Texas vs. #6 Penn State
Sugar Bowl:
#4 Alabama vs. #5 Southern Cal

In this scenario, the Cotton and Sugar Bowl Champions would then face one another in one semifinal before eventually facing the winner of the Fiesta and Rose in the National Title Game. Since I don't like the idea of conference championship games, let's look at the first rounds games if Florida hadn't beaten Alabama and Oklahoma hadn't notched another win over Missouri.

Cotton Bowl:
#1 Alabama vs. #8 Texas Tech
Sugar Bowl:
#2 Florida vs. #7 Utah
Rose Bowl:
#3 Texas vs. #6 Penn State
Fiesta Bowl:
#4 Oklahoma vs. #5 Southern Cal


After seeing my hypothetical FBS Tournament brackets, compare the actual BCS bowl matchups. Which games would you rather watch? Which system makes more sense to you? For me it's a no-brainer.

There doesn't have to be any argument. You get the best of both worlds: the bowl games within a playoff, while many other legitimate bowls can still be played. The season won't have to extend into the spring semester and the most games any team will play is fifteen. Plus, all the games can still be played in fair-weather sites to keep game-changing elements out of the equation.

If a group like the Rose Bowl Committee insisted on making sure their game was played on New Year's Day to keep with tradition, it could be worked out. Scheduling could be flexible and while customs such as bowl tie-ins wouldn't be guaranteed, the tournament committee could try their best to accommodate rival conferences.

The current BCS contract is up in 2010 and we're not very far from making something like this a reality. It can happen. We just need people that are dedicated to what's right for college football.