The Answer: Fixing the College Football BCS Playoff Mess

[roxybeast]

The Answer: Fixing the College Football BCS Playoff Mess
By B. Isbell 12/12/07

Eureka! I have “the” Answer. After years in the laboratory, countless studies, concocting and mixing the ingredients through thousands of trials and errors, at last: The Answer to the NCAA College Football Division I BCS Playoff National Championship!

This is highly proprietary national secret stuff here, so please don’t tell anyone except maybe the NCAA, BCS selection committee members, college football coaches, members of the AP, Jeff Sagarin and the other computer-ranking gurus, all sports media, and anyone else who might listen, particularly if they have any influence whatsoever.

The Answer lies in a two-step BCS Playoff system. Hush now, let me explain.

Back in the day, Lee Corso’s day for that matter, there was no BCS, just bowl games. And not that many. And they all had names like Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton. No corporate this or that bowls. And those four were THE big four. No Fiesta then. Shortly thereafter the Peach and Gator bowls came along. But all these bowl games were played either December 31st or January 1st. The Sun Bowl on Christmas day, with the Blue-Gray All-Star game. Then the Alamo and Citrus bowls. The Holiday bowl earlier in the schedule. But that was it. Really. There was no BCS. Perhaps some of you are too young to remember … and this means you Herbstreit! Then all hell broke loose!

The NCAA and the bowl committees loosened their standards and decided to allow corporate sponsorship and naming of bowls, which yielded all sorts of strange bowl naming phenomena. My all-time favorite: The Poulan Weedeater bowl, which no longer exists. Now we have the GMAC bowl, the Papa John’s bowl, the Champs Sports bowl, the Meineke Car Care bowl, and the Capitol One bowl (which used to be the Citrus bowl I think, it’s so hard to keep up anymore). The Peach bowl became the Chick-fil-A bowl, which used to be the Chick-fil-A Peach bowl, but gradually the corporation won and they just dropped Peach from the name altogether. Way to go Atlanta. Then there’s the Outback bowl, which is really the Outback Steakhouse bowl, and the Alamo bowl, which is really the Alamo Rental Car bowl, but they just thought we’d forget these bowls are sponsored by corporations if they shortened the name to only include the first word of the corporation’s name instead of the whole name. Like we wouldn’t notice. Of the other bowls, most still refer to their original name include some corporation name prior to the bowl’s name, like the “Tostito’s” Fiesta bowl, etc., etc. At least the MPC Computers bowl changed its name recently to the Humanitarian bowl. We can all support humanitarian causes hopefully. Maybe more folks will attend. Al Gore would be proud.

Then along came the BCS. This was the NCAA’s and bowl committee’s answer to stave off the public’s growing thirst and demand for a playoff system, … and, well, to “save the bowls.” A bloody compromise. And not a particularly good one. Since the BCS came to be, there have been years where frankly the two best teams in the country after all the bowl game dust settled simply never played each other. To be sure, it’s a slight improvement over the old system where after the bowls were done a vote determined the national champion and there were actually two polls (the AP and UPI/Coaches) which not so un-often yielded two separate national champions. To be fair, in most years the BCS does yield an undisputed national champion, but not every year, and I suppose that’s the rub. The public wants (and frankly deserves) one champion. One undisputed all-the-bragging-rights-and-spoils winner. No question. No argument.

The current BCS system picks the top 12 teams in the country and pairs them off in the major bowl games through a combination of the sportswriter’s choices, the coaches choices, computerized rankings, and finally the choices of the selection committee based on won-loss record and strength of schedule. The problem is that there is no playoff. The top 2 teams are paired off and the rest, well, they get to play in a BCS bowl game. Yippee. Not that it’s not prestigious and all, but they know going in that they have absolutely no chance to be champion, whatsoever, period, And some of the spots are reserved to certain conference champions whether they are actually one of the 12 best teams in the country or not, go figure. And in years like the current one, determining who among all the one and two loss teams are actually the best two in the country is simply a matter of educated guesswork. LSU has 2 losses, but is in the championship game, while other talented schools with only one loss are left out in the cold. Georgia is in the BCS picture despite not even making their conference championship game or even winning their division in the SEC. And 12-0 Hawaii certainly has reason to complain.

Enough already. We need a fair solution. An undisputed national champion. We need a playoff. We need an answer. I have one. And, amazingly, it does not involve either scrapping the BCS altogether or emasculating the importance of the bowl games. It preserves the historical significance of certain major bowls while also giving due weight to dominant major conferences. It also gives the other bowls, other conferences, and all worthy Top 10 teams a fair chance of competing and playing a significant role.

Here’s the proposal: Only the Top 10 teams in the country at the end of the season make the BCS, not 12. We simply don’t want a team not in the Top 10 winning the national championship. We determine the Top 10 teams in much the same way as the BCS currently does based on final rankings in the AP and Coaches poll, final computer rankings, overall won-loss record, strength of schedule, and BCS committee selection. We guarantee spots in the BCS picture to the conference champions of the six major dominant conferences: the SEC, the Pac-10, the Big 12, the Big 10, the ACC, and the Big East. But as to all 6 of these automatic spot conference champion teams, they are subject to losing their automatic spot if (1) they do not finish the season in the Top 10 or (2) have more than 2 losses. I doubt that the winners of the SEC, Pac-10, Big 10 or Big 12 are going to finish outside the Top 10 and/or have more than two losses, and I think the historical polls will bear out that this is indeed a rare occurrence if it has ever happened.

Prior to each season, the BCS committee and NCAA will determine based on their dominance, strength of schedule, number of ranked members, and number of members with winning records, which 6 conferences will receive automatic bids for their champions. That way, should things change significantly in 25 or 50 years and the MWAC becomes dominant and the Big 10 becomes a lesser also ran, it can be addressed. So literally, the ability of each Division I conference to receive an automatic bid for their champion is in their own hands and can be improved as their teams become stronger.

With 6 automatic conference champion bids that leaves 4 at-large bids, and possibly more if one of the 6 automatic champion bid teams is not in the Top 10 and has more than two losses. These at-large bids should be awarded to the strongest possible remaining teams in the country. Those that finish the season in the Top 10, with the best won-loss record (particularly if undefeated or only one loss), with the best schedule strength, and competing in the strongest conferences. Here’s the kicker: extra points in this selection process or a special tie-breaker should be given to teams that meet these criteria and are also conference champions or have the winner of the Heisman Trophy. (After all, fans really do want to see the winner of the Heisman competing for the national championship where possible). This also makes sure that strong teams from lesser conferences have a fair and realistic chance of making the BCS playoff system.

OK, down to the playoff. Once the Top 10 teams are selected for participation in the BCS playoff system. The BCS committee, in conjunction with the participating bowl committees, will pair off the BCS participants to compete in the selected bowl games. My recommendation would be that 4 major bowls – the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange – are always among the BCS bowls. Further, and this is interesting, I would propose that the 5th and final BCS bowl be awarded to the highest bidding bowl of all the other bowls assuming they meet BCS and NCAA pre-season qualification requirements for the bowl and its host city, which might include adequate hotel space and tourism factors, average bowl attendance, historical significance of the bowl, average TV ratings, the ability to schedule or re-schedule the bowl to be held on or after January 1st and not in conflict with the other 4 BCS bowls, and importantly that their payout to the teams and NCAA at least equal or better the money offered by the lowest-paying of the four other BCS bowls. This would allow all the remaining bowls (and their host cities), and their corporate sponsors, a fair and reasonable chance of hosting the 5th BCS bowl game every year, increasing tourism to their city, corporate ad revenue, and the prestige of their bowl. One final caveat, as to this 5th BCS bowl, it must be awarded to a different qualifying bowl/city each year. That way one of the remaining bowls can’t monopolize the system.

As to determining which of the 10 BCS teams play in which of the 5 BCS bowls, instead of pairing #1 v. #2 as now happens, the pairings would be determined on what would yield the best possible games, with an eye towards expected historical match-ups and generally trying to pair the #1 team against the lowest or a lower ranking team – ie. #1 v. #10, #2 v. #9, #3 v. #8, etc., although not quite so strictly required. For example, the Rose bowl would still feature the winner of the Pac-10 against the winner of the Big 10, even if their rankings did not fall so neatly into line. And the Sugar bowl would still host the SEC champion. And either the Orange or Fiesta would host the Big 12 champ. That way, neither the Rose, nor Sugar, has to settle for the 2nd best team in the conference instead of the conference champions, because the conference champion has been moved the BCS title game. The current system undermines these bowls and their importance.

Finally, the best and strongest two teams of the 5 remaining winners would be paired off in one final National Title BCS Championship game. This game should be scheduled on the Saturday night more than two weeks, but less than 3 weeks, after the last of the 5 BCS bowl games is played. The BCS selection committee would determine and announce the top two teams on the Sunday following the last last of the 5 preliminary BCS bowl games, giving both teams participating in the national championship game two weeks to prepare. Which also would allow two weeks for travel arrangements and hype.

The two participating finalists would be determined by the BCS committee according to their overall won-loss record, strength of schedule, final rankings in the polls and computer rankings, with the caveat that the final two teams must be the champions of their conference. The NCAA division I champion should be able and required to win their own conference before being allowed to become national champion. If, however, only one of the five winning teams in the 5 preliminary bowl games is also the champion of their conference, then the committee shall determine the best of the remaining four winners to face them in the championship game, with the caveat that the conference champion need only win once, while the non-conference champion participant would have to beat the conference champion participant twice back-to-back. To the extent necessary, the second game would be held in the same city/bowl on the Monday following the original Saturday night championship game. (Some accommodations could be made for ticket holders to the first game that couldn’t attend the Monday re-match, if possible, or if they were unable to use those tickets they could either turn them in for re-sale or resell their tickets themselves). There’s your answer.

The winner of the NCAA division I college football BCS title would have to beat at least two of the Top 10 teams in the country and be the champion of their conference, or if not, have to beat the best team in the country twice back-to-back. Undisputed best. End of discussion. No argument. No complaining about fairness or finality. No doubt.

And it’s so, so simple to implement. We already have a National Championship BCS game scheduled after the last of the bowl games. We just need to move it back. Further, by not automatically pairing off #1 v. #2 in the first round, like we do now, we give each of the 5 BCS bowls more importance and a significant role in determining the champion. All of these games become more exciting, more interesting, more vital to the process of determining a champion. This might actually increase TV ratings and corresponding ad revenue, and the revenue and future business to the corporate sponsors. Further, each of the Top 10 participating BCS teams has a legitimate chance to win. If they didn’t win their conference championship, then their lower chances are their fault, but they still could play the role of spoiler and still have a chance to win if most the conference champion teams lose. Every bowl and every team becomes significant.

And not only do we “save” the bowl system, we make it a vital and exciting part of the process. It’s a win-win proposal to determine the national championship winner.

You got’ta love it!