A Decent Proposal

The eternal, ongoing debate concerns the need for a playoff in the highest level of college football. At this point, the only opponents of a playoff system are college presidents, BCS conference commissioners, and some athletic directors and coaches. Many coaches (such as Urban Meyer) are warming to the idea of a playoff. Media members and fans have been on the playoff bandwagon for years.

The primary argument used against a playoff is the amount of missed class time around the end of the semester and final exams. That is a bunch of Barry Switzer (B.S.). Divisions I-AA, II, and III play four to five weeks of playoffs, ending right around finals week. The missed class time arguments do not wash.

The unsaid argument revolves around money. The BCS generates a large amount of money. The BCS is not controlled by the NCAA, but by the bowls and the six BCS conferences. The six BCS conferences accumulate a large percentage of the money generated by the BCS. An extra BCS game was created, and increased access offered to non-BCS conferences, as a way to avoid a lawsuit from the non-BCS schools. This is the reason for the extra rotating BCS championship game, beginning this season. Any playoff system would be controlled by the NCAA. It would generate a larger amount of money, but the BCS conferences would receive a smaller portion of that money. The power conferences would rather have a larger portion of a smaller pie.

A college football playoff would serve two purposes: 1) To determine a champion, and 2) to maximize revenue for the member schools.

My proposal calls for a 16-team playoff. Each of the 11 Division 1-A conferences would have an automatic qualifier, just as in the NCAA basketball tournament. There would then be 5 at-large teams.

Why 11 automatic qualifiers? 1) Each conference would receive a share of revenue from the playoff, so each conference should participate; 2) It provides an easier first-round opponent for higher-ranked teams; and 3) It adds the once-in-a blue moon chance at a David-beats-Goliath upset, the element that makes the NCAA basketball tournament great.

5 is a good number of at-large teams, because there are really very few teams capable of winning 4 playoff games in a row to win a national championship, and these are teams that would be capable of doing so. It also places a value on the regular season, as a 6th place team in a power conference would not be in the NCAA football playoff, as they would qualify for the basketball tournament. There would normally not be a team with less than three losses in the playoff as an at-large team.

What about Notre Dame? They would not get an automatic bid. They would be forced to strongly consider joining a conference. The Big Ten and the Big East would be forced into a bidding war to offer the Irish the best deal, if ND felt the need to join a conference. ND could squeeze a sweet deal out of either of these conferences, making up for their lost BCS money. A Big 10 championship game could make up for that. This year, they went 10-2, and are 11th in the BCS rankings. They would be the last at-large team under my proposal. They might not get that lucky every year.

The first two rounds would be played on home fields. This maximizes revenue, and keeps fans from having to travel to more than two bowl-like games in neutral locations. It would be next to impossible for large numbers of fans to follow their team to four bowl locations in consecutive weeks in one season. The semi-finals and finals would be mega-events played in neutral sites, determined by a bidding process.

Television rights would be sold to the highest bidder. Coverage on the first two weekends would be regionalized, but supplemented with pay-per-view coverage of games not broadcast over-the-air in particular regions, similar in form to ESPN Game Plan or CBS Mega March Madness.

A playoff for this year would be as follows (seeds are based on BCS rankings):

Troy (16, Sun Belt champ) at Ohio State (1, Big Ten champ)
Auburn (9, SEC at-large) at Boise State (8, WAC champ)

Wake Forest (12, ACC champ) at USC (5, Pac 10 champ)
BYU (13, Mountain West champ) at LSU (4, SEC at-large)

Notre Dame (11, at-large) at Louisville (6, Big East champ)
Houston (14, Conference USA champ) at Michigan (3, Big 10 at-large)

Oklahoma (10, Big 12 champ) at Wisconsin (7, Big 10 at-large)
Central Michigan (15, MAC champ) at Florida (2, SEC champ)

The first two rounds would take place the weekends of December 8-9, and December 15-16. Games would be played on Friday night and all day Saturday, with no games competing with the NFL on Sundays. There would be a break during Christmas weekend, and the semifinals would be played on Monday, January 1, in a neutral location-either a dome or a warm-weather city. The semifinals would be a mega-Final Four-type event, played as a doubleheader on New Year’s Day. The winners would play in another city on January 8, the day of this year’s BCS championship game.

Games would be scheduled for maximum television exposure, and for minimum overlap with NFL games.

This proposal promotes all that is great about college football, maximizes revenue, and protects the integrity of the regular season. It also determines a champion on the field.