Someone Else's Idea On The BCS BS, I like his ideas

[Lyn]

OK, one more time (for those of you who might not have seen this before):
MY NCAA DIVISION I-A PLAYOFF

OK, we all know the BCS is a pretty controversial way to determine a national champion, for the most part (at least this year, anyway). Well, I came up with a proposal for a Division 1-A tournament back in 1988 and submitted it to the NCAA, which seemed to like my idea. They said I should send it to all 118 member institutions and their administrations.

Anyway, I've modified it a bit and I would like to show you the fruits of my labor. It involves the final BCS standings, but only for seeding purposes after the first round. It also incorporates the traditional ties to the Big Four bowl games.

The automatic qualifiers for the 8-team field are the CHAMPIONS of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Pac 10 and Big East. There are also two at-large spots, of which the champions of the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and WAC are eligible (according to final BCS standings).

The four bowl games (Fiesta, Rose, Sugar and Orange) are all played on January 1, as was traditional in the past. The matchups are as follows:

ORANGE: ACC champion vs. either Big East champion or At-Large*--11am ET

SUGAR: SEC champion vs. either At-Large* or the Big East champion--2pm ET

ROSE: Big 10 champion vs. Pac 10 champion--5pm ET

FIESTA: Big 12 champion vs. At-Large*--8pm ET

* -- two teams from the same conference CANNOT play in a first round game

The four first round winners advance to the semifinals, to be played on the second Saturday in January. The four teams that advance will be seeded according to their final ranking in the BCS, with the top seed playing the lowest seed, and the second and third seeds clashing. The two semifinals will be played in one of the four bowl stadiums from the first round (on a rotational basis each year). One semifinal will be played in the afternoon and the other in prime time.

The two semifinals winners will then play for the national championship on the third Saturday in January, in prime time, at one of the remaining bowl stadiums (again on a rotational basis). Winner claims the crystal national championship trophy. Simple as that.

Based on this year's eight BCS teams, this would be the current setup:

FIRST ROUND, Jan. 1, 2005

ORANGE: Virginia Tech (9-2) vs. Pittsburgh (8-3)

SUGAR: Auburn (12-0) vs. Texas (10-1)

ROSE: USC (12-0) vs. Michigan (9-2)

FIESTA: Oklahoma (12-0) vs. Utah (11-0)

*--rematches within the same season are to be avoided in the first round, if at all possible.


SEMIFINALS, Jan. 8, 2005

PASADENA: Highest remaining BCS seed vs. lowest remaining BCS seed

TEMPE: Two middle seeds


CHAMPIONSHIP, Jan. 15, 2004

MIAMI: Semifinal winners


By the way, the other bowl games carry on business as usual. Under this system, the playoffs and bowl games co-exist in a happy medium.

[Suitanim]

The NCAA would never go for it...too many games is always the complaint, although 1-AA seems to have it all worked out. A more viable alternative is the BCS plus one. This was on Fox Sports recently, too, but it's not a new idea.

You keep your 4 major bowls in the BCS, and the winners play each other the following Saturday. It's that simple. #1 plays #4, and #2 plays #3, and the winners square off in the national championship the following week. It results in exactly one additional game for only 2 of the nearly 120 schools, a game which most likely would fall into the winter break anyway, so no big deal. Think the players will suffer from one more week to play in a HUGE bowl game? Think the 2 schools wouldn't be chomping at the bit to pick up all that extra revenue?

[Hammer67]

Originally Posted by Suitanim

The NCAA would never go for it...too many games is always the complaint, although 1-AA seems to have it all worked out. A more viable alternative is the BCS plus one. This was on Fox Sports recently, too, but it's not a new idea.

You keep your 4 major bowls in the BCS, and the winners play each other the following Saturday. It's that simple. #1 plays #4, and #2 plays #3, and the winners square off in the national championship the following week. It results in exactly one additional game for only 2 of the nearly 120 schools, a game which most likely would fall into the winter break anyway, so no big deal. Think the players will suffer from one more week to play in a HUGE bowl game? Think the 2 schools wouldn't be chomping at the bit to pick up all that extra revenue?

They have to do something. Every undefeated team deserves a shot...it's only fair. (Hello 1994 Nittany Lions!!!!)

[Suitanim]

I think the aforementioned changes answered all those objections...except the championship game thing.

That makes a difference in strong competitive conferences, but can easily be leveled out. Just make all team play 10/11 regular season games, including championship games