UGA president Michael Adams has come out in favor of an eight-team playoff. I think 8 would be the right number, especially if it would placate the four current BCS bowls by having them host the quarterfinals. He could get his brother Douglas in the act and have him write The Hitchhikers' Guide to January Madness ;-).
You could go with 16 teams, with all eleven I-A conference champs and five at-larges getting bids, but there would be quite a bit of road kill in the first round. Central Michigan-LSU, Troy-Ohio State and Central Florida-Virginia Tech (the 2-15, 1-16 and 3-14 match ups if we did it this year) could get decided really quick, although UCF did give Texas all they wanted in September.
You'd also have a glut of eight first-round games; do you play four on Friday night and four on Saturday? Two on Thursday, two on Friday and four on Saturday?
Here's my original proposal from 2002. It looks pretty good and could be taken as a model.
(1) Turn the four BCS bowls into the quarterfinals of a national
tournament. Keep the remaining bowls, since they don't play into the
national title anyway. They're the NIT for football.
(2) Seed the teams 1-8,2-7,3-6,4-5. Where possible given the
seeding, place the teams in their traditional bowl spot (i.e. placing
the Southeast Champ in the Sugar Bowl, the PAC 10 or Big 10 champ in
the Rose).
That looks good, but I might offer an addendum that a lower seed shouldn't be allowed to have a home or proto-home game in the first round. For instance, if a 9-3 Miami is the seventh seed, it shouldn't be allowed to play #2 Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl, or a #6 seeded LSU shouldn't be allowed to play #3 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.
(3) Seeding will be based on something like the current BCS model. I'm open to tweaking, but the general model's OK.
(4) The six power-conference (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big Twelve,
Pac 10, Southeast) champs get automatic bids and the two highest ranked
remaining teams get the at-large bids. The bowls don't get to choose a
11th ranked Notre Dame over a 7th ranked Directional State for the
ratings and good-traveling alumni.
(5) An exception to #4-any undefeated team gets an automatic bid.
Call this the Marshall-Tulane rule. OK, I have degrees from two MAC
schools (BS CMU, Ph.D. Kent State); I have a soft spot for the
mid-majors. If there are three undefeated teams outside of the power
conferences, the top two ranked ones go.
I have an update to #5; I want to change that to use the current BCS rule where a mid-major in the top 12 (or the top 16 but better than one of the automatic bids) gets an automatic bid. This year, Georgia and Hawaii would get the two at-large spots. Utah and Boise State showed in past years that they could win a first round game in our tournament, even though Hawaii got plastered by Georgia this year.
Here's how the seeding would look for 2007-
Rose Bowl (1) Ohio State vs (8) Hawaii
Fiesta Bowl (4) Oklahoma vs (5) Georgia
Sugar Bowl (2) LSU vs (7) West Virginia
Orange Bowl (3) Virginia Tech vs (6) USC
(6) Play three of the four bowls on New Years Day as a triple-header
(Fiesta 1PM, Rose 4:30PM, Orange 8PM) and put the fourth (I'll suggest
the Sugar) on New Years Eve.
All the other New Years Day bowls will move to other days.
That makes New Year's Day's real "Must See TV" for the sports fan, and makes it a major event.
I don't care for the new method, where they dribble out the BCS bowls, with the Rose and another bowl on New Years, another on the 2nd and another on the 3rd. That, along with the overdose of games in the early part of New Years Day, where things feel like a good Saturday afternoon during the season rather than a major event, need to be overhauled.
The old-school New Years Day had the Cotton Bowl go about 1PM, the Rose about 5 and the Orange and Sugar about 8:30. Time for some retro, except the Fiesta becomes the new Cotton.
(7) Play the semifinals the Saturday of the NFL conference finals,
usually the third Saturday in January, at two pre-determined neutral
sites. Tampa and St. Louis for starters?
(8) Play the finals the next Saturday at a pre-determined neutral site. RCA Dome in Indy for starters?
This will raise revenue, since sports fans will lean towards
watching all seven of the games. The bowls will have more revenue than
the old system ,since each of the four games is a factor in the
national title. Right now, the typical fan might watch the title game
and the game that his favorite conference champ is in, but the other
two games will have lower ratings since they're just a football game.
The plan gives a clear champion. It changes the bubble equation so
that teams #9 and #10 are griping about being left out, not teams #3
and #4.
The one downside is that it will extend the season a game for four
teams and by two games for a pair of teams. This is happening at the
beginning of a semester rather than at towards the end where the Final
Four play five or six games over three weeks. That seems a reasonable
price to pay for the advantages of the tourney.
The NCAA Football tournament will have more viewership than the current BCS, for every game will mean something. It won't detract from other bowls, since they don't have any bearing on the title anyway. It will extend the season a bit for four teams, but that is a reasonable price to pay to get a champion.
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