A number of years ago, I worked with a guy who had this great quotable that has stuck with me ever since I first heard it. It may not have been original to him, so I will not give you his name. That and the fact that he might not want to admit that he knows me. Regardless, he would often say that “people are masters at creating confusion for their own benefit.” On an almost daily basis, I find this so true. If you don’t believe me, call nearly any government office and ask for anything that might be slightly out of the ordinary.
I once went to a DMV to get a letter saying that my driving record had an error on it and was corrected on a certain date. I needed this, on request from a municipal judge, so that I could defend myself against a driving citation that was nothing but pure horse squeeze. It literally took me 6 weeks, 4 visits to their offices and over 2 dozen phone calls just to get 1 person to type up a 3 sentence letter and fax it to me. It really didn’t have to be this difficult. Ultimately, it was the 1st department I spoke to that provided the letter, but chaos and confusion is the norm for some of these places, and you have to wonder why. It has to be because someone benefits. On the other hand, a bit of unnecessary confusion can be interesting and fun. I am a huge fan of Rube Goldberg, which as you know was absolutely brilliant at developing incredibly complex systems to accomplish the simplest of tasks. But as fun as this is at times, it has no place in college football.
I mentioned in a recent article that I was not a fan of a playoff system. I am also not a huge fan of the BCS. I’m a bit old school. I don’t mind using the polls to select a national champion because it’s a bit of a paper championship anyways. I’ve always placed more stock in winning a conference championship. It’s as objective as it comes, because you’re playing everyone in your conference, or at least your division and you’re having to beat the other division champion. There is nothing subjective about it. Even when there are ties for a division championship, there are at least a number of levels of objective criteria you go through to select your champion before flipping the coin. In that article, I made the argument that even in a playoff system, at some point, seeding will likely have to look at the polls. There are just way too many teams for a full blown playoff on the national level. However, in spite of my playoff pessimism, I also mentioned in said article that I have given some thought as to how a playoff might work, while balancing how to address the major concerns with a playoff. I also mentioned that I would let you in on my maniacal thoughts in a future article. This is that article.
Let me start by first making something perfectly clear. For someone as opinionated as I am about this, I have done stunningly little research. What I am about to write, I swear to you by every fiber of my being (and there is a lot of damn fiber in my being) that I have not copied, borrowed, stolen or liberated any of these ideas whatsoever from anyone else. That is not to say that others haven’t had similar ideas that I have or that those people haven’t written about their playoff solution. They might have, and if you did and you’re reading this, props to whoever you are. All I’m saying here is that I haven’t read it or heard it. If I had, I would give you the credit. And speaking of such, even though I don’t really want a college playoff (even this one), if you decide to pass this idea around, please refer them to our website and tell them that some guy who did a poor job researching the topic has some idea as to how a college playoff might work.
Alright…on with the show.
First, there are going to have to be some fundamental changes in schedules in every FBS conference, and every team that wants to be eligible to compete in the playoffs will have to be part of a conference. Due to non-conference schedule requirements for mid-major conferences, independent programs will likely be left in the dust anyways, so Army, Navy, and Notre Dame are going to have to commit to a conference. Now, on to the nuts and bolts of the season.
Regular season schedules will be trimmed down to 10 games. Oh the humanity!!! A maximum of 4 non conference games will be permitted, none of which will be against FCS teams if you want to be playoff eligible. Now for the slightly tricky part. The FBS is already unofficially divided into “major” conferences and “mid-majors”. It’s time to make that official. The major conferences will consist of the ACC, the Big 12, the Big Ten, the Pac 10 and the SEC. Due to conference realignment, I am operating under the assumption that the Big Ten and the Pac 10 will be instituting conference championship games in the next couple of years once everyone has stopped moving around. I’m also going to assume the Big 12 is able to pull two programs into the fold from mid-major conferences such as Houston, TCU and SMU which would be logical choices. This will allow them to keep a conference championship game. The mid-majors will consist of the Big East (yes…technically a downgrade, but argue with me that they don’t deserve it), Conference USA, the MAC, the MWC, the Sun Belt, and the WAC. For mid-major programs, all of your non-conference games will need to be against one of the majors. Yes, I know the schedule change will throw the revenue models off for some programs, particularly FCS programs, but in the long run this means more revenue for the mid-major programs that are currently getting the short end the stick economically.
Ok, the regular season is over, so now what? As I mentioned earlier, we are going to assume that the 5 major conferences are all having a conference championship game. As for the mid-majors, right now the MAC and Conference USA are the only ones who have a championship game. The other 4 conferences do not. This is relevant because my plan would take the conference champion from all 5 major conferences and place them in one of the 8 spots in the playoffs. The 6 mid-majors would alternate each season to play a combined conference championship game. For example, the Big East champion would play the Sun Belt champion, where the winner would get a place in the playoffs. Whether Conference USA and the MAC will continue to have it’s own championship game to determine who goes to the combined conference championship game is best left up to them. Since there are 6 mid-major conferences, there would be 3 combined conference winners that would be placed in the playoffs with the 5 major conference champions. The 8 teams would play in a 3 week playoff beginning the 2nd week of December and finishing on New Year ’s Day.
Simple enough in theory, but what about bowl games? What I would actually propose is using the bowl system for the playoffs in a similar fashion as the BCS, with an effort to keep conference affiliation with certain bowls. What this would require though, is for the dates of certain bowls to move, since I would actually propose using the current BCS bowls as 1st round games. The Orange Bowl would be the round 1 game featuring the ACC, the Fiesta Bowl will include a Big 12 team, and the Sugar Bowl will feature an SEC team. The Rose Bowl, which has traditionally been the Pac 10 versus the Big Ten, is going to have to rotate each year. One year it will be the Pac 10 and the next it will be the Big Ten. Otherwise, those two major conferences are going to be pounding on each other each year, while the ACC, Big 12, and SEC get mid-major opponents in the 1st round. Of course, we could break conference affiliations altogether and make it totally random as to who you’re playing in the 1st round. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings, especially since this is all theoretical.
After the 1st round, you are looking at two more weeks and only three games. These games will be held in venues that are bid on by host cities, similar to how the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is held. This would separate the playoffs from the other bowl games, where they could by and large remain intact and unchanged. In doing it this way, bowl revenue will stay virtually the same as will most bowl affiliations with conferences. As to revenue models for the playoffs, I would actually like to see equal revenue sharing for all three rounds of the playoffs distributed to each playoff team. This obviously means more for the mid-majors, which should help offset home and home series sacrifices and travel associated with the modified non-conference schedule.
Look, there are holes in the system. Maybe it’s because I haven’t thought about it enough. Maybe it’s because my heart isn’t in a playoff system. Who knows? Additionally, this is pretty much dependent on mid-major programs cooperating and Army, Navy, and especially Notre Dame getting in on the act. Also, what about flexibility in major/mid-major labels? What if one of the major conferences takes a slide? Can a mid-major become a major conference? All great questions, and all above my pay grade. These are just ideas, observations, and a whole lot of “what-if” thrown in for good measure. What I do believe, is that this idea is at least easy enough for us simple folks to understand, puts objectivity completely in the drivers seat by taking the polls out of the equation, and prevents a long post season, unlike some other systems that have students playing well into the next term. It’s simple, and much easier to understand than, say, a Rube Goldberg waffle iron. Hmmm…now that would be intriguing to see!
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