Should BCS Be Replaced By Playoffs? -- Guynemer's Proposal

[Drake Tungsten]

I kind of like Ming's idea. A playoff that doesn't make the regular season irrelevant...

Interesting.

[Ming]

That's all I want... a chance for all those that have proved themselves on the field during the regular season to have a chance for it. The current system doesn't allow that. There is going to be an undefeated team this year who won't get that chance... and I think that sucks. (now after saying that, watch all those teams lose a game)

[rah]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I guess you don't find the prospect of a two or even three loss team winning the national title to be as distasteful as I do...

I would find that distasteful also. But if you set a rule that all 8 teams selected can't have more than 1 lose. Then the national champion would not have more loses than any other team in the field.


Never mind, didn't see all the other posts stating the same thing.
started writing before a meeting then came back.

RAH

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Scary its like they share the same mind or are twins or something.

[Deity Dude]

A couple points here:

Any team that goes undefeated did as good as they possibly could. For that team not to have a shot at the National Championship, because of percieved schedule strength or how sportwriters/coaches view them is ridiculous. Why even bother playing the season if it is determined ahead of time you can't be the champion.

Schedule Strength: To use this is a copout. If you're Bowling Green, see how successful you are at scheduling Michigan in a home and away series. They won't do it.

Polls: It reminds me of institutionalized racism; A group of people decides another group is not worthy, not based on objective standards of performance but on prejudicial feelings about their relative worth and the relative worth of their peers.

Who's to say Bowling Green doesn't have the best team in the country until someone beats them. (I personally don't think they are BUT I also thought the St Louis Rams would beat the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl last year. I doubt the Patriots would have been ranked in the top 10 last year in pre-playoff polls.)

I would make one modification to your system. Instead of 12 teams I would do 16. Both methods requires 4 weeks of playoffs but a 12 team playoff would allow certain teams a bye which again would lead to an unequal format. The controversy of 2 conference champions with same record, one seeded 8th (only needs 3 wins to win it all) and one seeded 9th (needs 4 wins to win it all) serves no purpose. Plus 16 teams would allow more to participate.

As for people that complain about too many games, I have a simple question. Who said ending the season and then taking 4 weeks off before the title game is preferable to playing a playoff during that off period? (i.e. the season wouldn't be any longer, there just wouldn't be a 4 week bye) Furthermore, the number of extra games would be minimal (4 teams would play 1 extra game 2 teams would play 2 extra games and 2 teams would play 3 extra games)

16 teams would address the inevetible split ups of conferences that would take place (big 12, sec and others would certainly split into conferences instead of divisions to guarantee a spot)

16 teams would leave more room for error. With only 1 wild card team, 1 loss could still very well knock you out. Without the instant replay rule in college, there would be too high of a risk of a gross error robbing a worthy team from participating. (Anyone remember when Colorado won the National Championship because they scored a touchdown on 5th down)

Plus with 12 teams, as unlikely as it sounds, an undefeated team could still miss the playoffs. Suppose 2 independents went undefeated or an independent and 2 teams from the same conference went undefeated.

As for how to pick the 7 non-conference champions. I would have a committee (yuck) with a representative of each conference and 1 independent choose them.

Now if it seems like I have a bias to small schools who "don't deserve" to go to the big dance you're wrong. I went to Michigan State and the rest of my family went to Michigan. Since they are in the Big 10 they always have a shot.

[DanS]

Good show. My side is doing better than I thought. 25% of the vote.

[rah]

but heading down

[DanS]

I fully expect to have about 5% of the vote, once/if ND leapfrogs Miami in the BCS.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Interesting arguments for both sides Of course, the undefeated team issue will likely be moot - I expect at least 4 of NC, Ok, Mia, VT, Ga and ND to lose before Xmas. It's funny how that always seems to happen.

How does this sound:

8 team playoff. All 1-A undefeated teams qualify (it's quite unlikely that there'll be 8 of those), plus the top teams in that aren't already qualified.

You'll probably have at LEAST the top 5 or 6 poll teams in this system, plus 2 or 3 undefeated small conference teams.

Seed the teams by poll ranking. OK, MAC champ, you feel that you belong? Oklahoma or Miami will be a good test of that.

Play 7 games, elimination, crown a playoff winner.

Better?

The bottom line is money, as many have said. This system ensures that there will be 7 big money games and that the regular season is an issue. If you don't make the playoff, you should have won all your games. I don't see many 2-loss teams getting in this way, unless they have very tough schedules.

Scheduling, incidentally, can be a bit of a crapshoot. I would have thought in August that Miami had a killer schedule with Fla, Fla State, Tennessee and VT. Who knew that the first 3 would all have off years this year? Despite best efforts, a schedule that looks easy can turn out hard, and vice versa.

One problem for the purists: Teams can't realistically be expected to play more than once a week. The playoff will have to start around Xmas, or else finish around the time of the NFL conference title games. And either way, you won't see all the big games within a 4 day window around New Years, the way we do now. I'll miss that.

[Andrew1999]

I'd like to see a slightly larger playoff of 16 teams (11 conferences + 5 wildcards.) Notre Dame and the other indies would have to go for one of the wild card spots. I just like rewarding conference champions--that's one part of the existing system I think is worthwhile.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
This sounds like a good proposal. Need to cut back the number of regular season games back to 11 period. And no conference championship games.

I think the should have conference championship games, that way we have an extra 11 teams who could win the national title.


ACK!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I hear you re: conference champions, but what about those that are 8-3? I wouldn't support those teams being there, especially if it's not a major conference.

Plus, 16 teams means 4 weeks of playoffs. That's too much for me. We're getting to the point where just about anyone who's half decent, makes the playoff (hello, NHL)

[Ming]

I think that 8 teams is more than enough, and would only add three games for the two teams that go to the championship. I don't think there are 16 teams that really can claim that they are the best.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Ming
I think that 8 teams is more than enough, and would only add three games for the two teams that go to the championship. I don't think there are 16 teams that really can claim that they are the best.

Agreed.

Actually, I don't think there's 8 teams who can claim to be the best (probably in most years, there won't be more than 3), but we'll let in the undefeated small conference teams to be practice fodder for the Nebraskas and Michigans and Miamis et al...

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Why shouldn't they? Because they aren't as good? Don't they deserve a shot at proving us wrong?

You want to prove that you deserve a shot? Go to Miami or Nebraska and beat them in their house. It's as simple as that. I don't see why we should reward teams who hide out in horrible conferences...

Except, in your strength of schedule scenario, Miami or Nebraska won't play a team that could hurt their strength of schedule.