A College Football Playoff?

Most college football fans know we don’t want the BCS anymore.

So if we want a playoff, the questions arise: how many teams? How will it be set-up? Will the bowls be involved?

I’ve gone through some potential proposals. I had an interesting 10-team playoff idea sent to me, I’ve looked at 12-team, even as many as 16 teams. So to help me decide which number might be best, I looked at the past three years’ final BCS standings to see where the cutoff would be for teams that should be considered for a playoff.

2009
1 Alabama
2 Texas
3 Cincinnati
4 TCU
5 Florida
6 Boise State
7 Oregon
8 Ohio State
9 Georgia Tech
10 Iowa
11 Virginia Tech
12 LSU

What should be the cutoff: After the 8th team, Ohio State. However, you could also make a good argument for Georgia Tech’s inclusion.

2008
1 Oklahoma
2 Florida
3 Texas
4 Alabama
5 USC
6 Utah
7 Texas Tech
8 Penn State
9 Boise State
10 Ohio State
11 TCU
12 Cincinnati

What should be the cutoff: After the 9th team, Boise State. I don’t think Ohio State has that compelling of an argument after its loss to Penn State.

2007
1 Ohio State
2 LSU
3 Virginia Tech
4 Oklahoma
5 Georgia
6 Missouri
7 USC
8 Kansas
9 West Virginia
10 Hawaii
11 Arizona State
12 Florida

What should be the cutoff: After the 10th team, Hawaii (looking back we know Hawaii was not quite BCS-caliber but at the time we didn’t). This was a crazy season, as a two-loss team won the national championship. The top 10 all consists of teams with 2 losses or less. However, when you get to 11 and 12 you get to three loss teams, which dilutes the pool too much.

My endorsement: 10 teams
It is tough for me to choose between an 8 and 10 team playoff. But I’m going with 10 teams because it allows 7-10 to play itself out on the field and prevents a deserving 9th place team from being left out. Plus it means more meaningful December college football.

- First round games will be played at campus sites.
- #7 will play #10 and #8 will play #9. Seeds 1-6 will all have first-round byes. #1 will face winner of 8 v. 9 and #2 the winner of 7 v.10.

- This year’s first round matchups would be:
o #9 Georgia Tech at #8 Ohio State- Fri. Dec. 18, 8 PM
o #10 Iowa at #7 Oregon, Sat. Dec. 19, 8 PM

- Quarterfinal games will be played no sooner than five days later, also at the home stadium of the higher seed. This will ensure that fans will not have to travel for potentially three straight weeks to different parts of the country, especially during the holiday season.

- This year’s quarterfinals (with my predictions) would be:
o #8 Ohio State at #1 Alabama- Thu. Dec. 24, 8 PM
o #5 Florida at #4 TCU- Thu. Dec. 24, 3:30 PM
o #7 Oregon at #2 Texas- Sat. Dec. 26, 8 PM
o #6 Boise State at #3 Cincinnati- Sat. Dec. 26, 3:30 PM

- Seminfinal games will consist of two current BCS bowls. Each of the four BCS bowls will be a national semifinal twice every four years. The third year it will be the national championship game. The fourth year it will not be included in the BCS Playoffs. It will have first choice of any teams not included in the 10-team playoff and the time/date of the game.

- This year’s national semifinals (with my predictions) would be:
o Orange Bowl- Alabama vs. TCU- Fri. Jan. 1, 8:30 PM
o Fiesta Bowl- Cincinnati vs. Oregon- Fri. Jan. 1, 4 PM

- Each BCS bowl will be the national championship every four years.
o The 2009 BCS National Championship at the Rose Bowl
#1 Alabama vs. #3 Cincinnati, Mon. Jan 11, 8 PM

Imagine the fun of heated college football during the weeks leading up to New Year’s Day. Then you get two national semifinals on New Year’s Day. Once again, meaningful games will be brought back to the first of the year. This playoff system gives us some mouth-watering potential matchups. You could have rematches between Florida/Alabama and Oregon/Boise State and traditional teams facing off with Ohio State against Alabama. And most importantly, the computers only set the rankings. The top two teams and ultimately the champion are decided through games played on the field, the way it should be.