The Plea for an Undisputed Champion

If I had it my way – A call for a true playoff in Division 1 FBS College Football – By Brian Meyer
Every year around October when the first batch of Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings comes out, the debate about college football supremacy begins. It is the only major sport (that anyone cares about) that does not have a true playoff system. Add to that the passion of rowdy (drunken) college kids that attend games across the country every Saturday; this leads to many passionate debates in bars, blogs, forums etc.
The BCS has certainly faced its fair share of criticism. Proponents argue, “Hey it’s better than what we had.” I suppose there is a fair argument to be made there. A traditionalist like me would probably disagree in the end. I was perfectly happy with the bowl system of yester-year. I love the bowls! They’ve been watered down no doubt, and the idea of playing on New Year’s Day isn’t as special as it was even five years ago, but there is something special about bowls to me.
I can certainly look at myself in the mirror and know that I am in the minority. Most casual fans cannot understand or grasp the idea of the system. The modern fan has been tailored to want closure with their sports. Over the past few years I’ve come up with my own system. I don’t know how the money thing would shake out (other than there are billions of dollars to be spread out to a lot of schools and sponsors and god knows who else). This is just my system that would preserve the bowl system that I cherish (kind of) and give the fans the closure they so desperately want every year.
First of all… if nothing else, the BCS is a tremendous ranking system. The problem with it is that the BCS as it stands today serves only one purpose; to determine #1 and #2. That’s it! 3 through 25 are irrelevant in terms of the “National Championship.” Every week when the BCS rankings come out though, it ranks out 25 teams. It’s a formula that takes the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, the Harris Poll, and an average of some of the major computer polls. It jumbles it all up and it comes out with a percentage. Then it spits out the rankings. I say that it is a great ranking system, because it is. It’s just not a good system to determine #1 and #2, for a variety of reasons that I could probably create 2 or 3 more blogs about.
So my thought is, we’ve evolved to this point, why not continue? One thing to keep in mind about the BCS… it is mainly run by groups of guys from your 6 major conferences. Those are the ACC, Big Ten (12), Big East, Big 12 (10), Pac 12, and SEC. The realist in me takes this into account, and therefore it isn’t as easy as saying “Top 8 in the BCS… have a playoff.”
The argument against a playoff (and a valid one) is that it may diminish the short regular season (which has little to no margin for error). I happen to agree with this. I love the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament as much as anyone, but it has made the regular season completely meaningless. UConn this year was an above average team throughout 4 months of the season, but got hot at the right time and won it all.
In football especially, there should be a higher premium on regular season success. Winning your conference after 8 or 9 games + a conference championship game in some cases, is a tremendous accomplishment, and should be rewarded. The idea that anyone of these BCS executives would leave out any of these BCS Conference champions is pretty silly. It just won’t happen, so the Big East (as of 2011) would still get someone to my big dance. With all of that said here is how my playoff system would look.
 12 Teams get in
 The 6 Conference Champions from the BCS Conferences would receive automatic bids
 The top 4 conference champions (based on the Final BCS Rankings) would receive 1st round byes. This places a premium on the regular season, particularly at the end of the year when teams are playing their rivals (Auburn-Alabama, Michigan-Ohio State, Iowa-Min… never mind)
 Unlike the structure of today, I would not restrict the amount of teams a single conference can get into this tournament. Right now each conference is limited to only two teams. I say if the SEC is great and has 3 teams worthy, then let them in.
 From this, I am simply giving out 6 at large bids for the remaining spots in the tournament based on the final BCS Standings. There should be no more whining from fans from mid major conferences like the WAC or Mountain West. It should be extremely easy to make this tournament for 1 or 2 of these types of schools, and then we can see if a Boise State is in fact good enough to hang with the big boys.
 Home games are given to higher seeds in the 1st 2 rounds of the tournament
 Conference foes cannot play each other until the semifinals, unless it cannot be avoided.
 Semifinal and Finals would be played at BCS sites, rotating every year. My suggestion would be to drop either the Fiesta Bowl or Orange Bowl sites, or whatever. Smarter people than me can figure that out, and I’m sure the profiteers will figure it out.
 Anyone else would go to bowl games as per the structure that we currently have.

That’s it. Pretty simple. Doesn’t diminish the regular season, and more importantly, doesn’t water down a playoff with potential chump teams that have 2 or 3 losses that do not deserve to be anywhere near this tournament. Everyone has a fair shot. So based on this system, this is how last year’s playoffs would have looked. Read this and then try to tell me that you wouldn’t cream yourself thinking about some of these potential match ups…
Who’s in…
1. Auburn – SEC Champions
2. Oregon – Pac 10 Champions
3. Wisconsin – Big Ten Champions
4. Oklahoma – Big 12 Champions
5. TCU
6. Stanford
7. Ohio State
8. Arkansas
9. Michigan State
10. Boise State
11. Virginia Tech – ACC Champions
12. UConn – Big East Champions

First Round
8. Arkansas vs. 9. Michigan State
5. TCU vs. 12. UConn
6. Stanford vs. 11. Virginia Tech
7. Ohio State vs. 10. Boise State
Quarterfinals
Ark-MSU Winner vs. 1. Auburn (SEC potential match up could not be avoided)
TCU-UConn Winner vs. 4. Oklahoma
Stan-VT Winner vs. 3. Wisconsin
OSU-BSU Winner vs. 2. Oregon

And then the final four teams play it out in the Semifinals and Finals. One undisputed champion!

I think anything more than 12 teams is too many in college football. Once you get outside of that you are talking about a lot of mediocre football teams. I hope you enjoy this, and if you’re a college football fan like I am, it’s hard not to think about things like this.