Give me your proposed 1-A Playoff System

[Sonny]

Many of you seem to want a playoff system for 1-A football. While it sounds good hypothetically... I think it will be difficult to implement and will kill the 80-year old bowl system.

Regardless, I want you to make your proposal here. Put some time and thought into before you post in this thread. Specify how it would tie into the current 1-A conferences & conference championship games.

I've yet to see a playoff proposal that would I support. But I'm open to suggestions.

[laxfan25]

Here is my highly thought out plan (OK, I took 5 minutes).

8 teams;
Winners of the following conferences that actually play real football get in;
SEC
ACC
Big 10
Big 12
Big East
PAC 10

The remaining two spots are selected by the tournament committee, a la basketball - just so we can get the appropriate level of grousing. Another option would be to always include Notre Dame, since they're always the best.

This gives us 7 games to be played on two weekends in December, followed by the championship game on New Years weekend. These games can be rotated between the bigger bowls - so they each get to host the Big One. You can still keep the Emerald, Pioneer Pure Vision, Papajohns.com Bowls, etc. - this wouldn't really affect the teams they typically get. You'd still have just as many bowl games - just that some of them would have teams that played in previous weeks. The building excitement factor would assure great turnouts each week.

Anyway, that's my thought...now, tear it apart!

[wheelz33]

i say keep the it to a 4-team playoff. you could either keep using the BCS, or select a BALANCED comitee to decide the 4 teams. BCS could be ok, who could really argue with the top 4 right now (OSU, USC, Michigan, Florida). The big bowls (Rose, Sugar) etc. can figure out how to divide up the games, and then you can keep the rest of the bowls for such lucky teams as New Mexico St and Florida St...

so basically it can be the and-1 system thats been tossed around. this keeps a premuim on the regular season, and isnt so exclusive that it detracts from the rest of the bowl games as much as an 8 or 16 team system would.

[OAKS]

I agree with a 4 game playoff system. Use the current BCS nonsense or add in something else. Some teams in the ACC were complaining about the championship game as it added one more game to the season and will increase wear and tear on teams and take away from their academic endeavors (whatever that means), so I doubt you're gonna have big teams wanting to play an extra 3 or 4 games in a season.

Since the BCS started, was there ever a time when 4 teams were truly being considered for the National Championship? If you implement it though, it's now going to be, who's #4 vs #5, not who's #2 vs. #3. I think you'll still have just as many arguments, but it might be slightly better than the current setup. So I say go with a 4 team playoff. You can make the 2 semifinals bowls if you want, or just make them 'semifinals'.

Keep the rest of the bowl games in place. The whole football nation isn't going to jump ship on that tradition if you have 2 more games to determine who plays for the national championship. There will still be plenty of money and sponsors who would love to have their name on a bowl. I mean, none of those teams are playing for the National Championship currently, so why have people not abandoned the bowl games already? That's my opinion, and I'm stickin to it.

[DanGenck]

Okay-

A 7 game regular season in conference play only.

Each conference has a conference tournament in which all teams are invited, making an 8th game for each team. The conference tournament awards a champion for each league.

The conference champions receive automatic bids to the national tournament. Each conference must maintain at least 8 teams to receive an at-large bid to the tournament.

Upside-

The length of the season would remain the same.

There would be a true tournament champion.

Student athletes could remain student athletes.

All teams get a fair shake at winning the championship.

Increased conference importance would be intense, making for an amazing conference tournament system.


Downside-

Lost revenue for home games.

Lost bowl game revenue for conferences.

Lost history from bowl games.

Only 1 team finishes season with victory.

Regular season conference games are not important (like basketball).

Extended travel for fans in tournament mode (Do bowls host games or do schools? If so, do the schools share ticket sales revenue? What if lower seed Tennessee has to play at higher seed Vanderbilt? That's a lot of lost money for both schools...)




I'm sure there are other upsides and downsides. But in my mind, this is the only viable system.

[wheelz33]

most viable or not, itll never happen for two reasons that you pointed out.

Lost revenue for home games.

Lost bowl game revenue for conferences.


money talks

[FLAK]

also loss of key out of conference rivalry games ie. USC-ND, ND-BC, anyone vs ND basically as well as the Florida teams, though most people seem to have completely given up on FSU being good again ...

I'm sure there are more cross conference rivalries that I probably am un-aware of, but that doesnt mean that those schools and fans wouldnt protest as well...

[Hackalicious]

Many of you seem to want a playoff system for 1-A football. While it sounds good hypothetically... I think it will be difficult to implement and will kill the 80-year old bowl system.

Instead of having just a BCS championship game, do two BCS semi-final games around the traditional New Year's bowl time. Then have the winners play in a national championship game the next week. These all could be played in traditional BCS bowl games.

If that works out, you could do extend it to an 8-team playoff and do quarter-final games at the end of the regular season, before the Christmas break. The losers could go on to play in other traditional bowls.

This all would entail adding one week on the season of 8 teams, and co-opting two more bowl games for a playoff.

[LAXDawg14]

i think there will always be a problem with this even if there is a play off
heres a thought:
instead of people argueing who is #2 and #3 and should play in the championship game if there are #1-4 teams then there moght be another arguement of who is #4 and who is #5
same with a 8 team playoff

i dunno that just my opinion.....
any comments?

[wheelz33]

i think there will always be a problem with this even if there is a play off
heres a thought:
instead of people argueing who is #2 and #3 and should play in the championship game if there are #1-4 teams then there moght be another arguement of who is #4 and who is #5
same with a 8 team playoff

i dunno that just my opinion.....
any comments?

while true, it becomes harder to argue that you deserve you belong in the playoff if you cant crack the top 4, and especially the top 8. for instance, this year, florida is #4, LSU is #5 in the BCS. assuming florida wins the sec tittle game, LSU would have a hard time arguing they are more deserving then florida, considering they lost to the gators this year 23-10. i didnt look back at past years, but hopefully the argument is about the same, making me look smart...

[Kyle Berggren]

If we're going to declare a National Champion, we'll always argue about who was left out 2-3, 4-5, etc. It's not basketball, 65 teams aren't going to battle it out. So you guys are correct, but can we accept that there will be that controversy? or is having 4 teams in there much better than the 2?

[KnoxVegas]

A ten game regular season is sufficient for any conference in this country. Eight games in conference, 2 OOC games a year. Plus a conference championship game.

Take the 11 conference winners plus five at-large teams (so Notre Dame can get chosen. That is if they have not sucked that season like say, 1993-2004). Have a big selection show a la CBS in March and not the dog and pony show that Fox's BCS show will be this weekend.

The other minor bowls have 101 teams to choose from and are still going to get their Big 10 #5 vs. ACC #6 (so Iowa and Florida State will get to go to a bowl games. It's ok, calm down!)

Once the teams are seeded, the playoff begins. Four weekends to be played beginning the first weekend of December (since there is only a 10-game regular season, the conference championship games can be played as earlier as Thanksgiving, if not the week before). The first weekend has eight games over two days. Start the first two games at noon ET and start cranking them out. The opening round sites, and subsequent round sites, will be determined by rotation. That way everyone makes out. The current Big Four sites (Glendale, Miami, Pasadena and New Orleans) could rate as the final round site, or add new ones.

The championship game would be played New Year's Day at 9pm ET on a major network. Sell the sponsor of this whole thing to a company like Nike. We need a playoff, yes. But I believe that corporate America does not. More money is made off of the debate than to the solution would. Kinda like large pharamaceutical companies view health care.

[Waldo]

A double elimination tournament that begins on labor day weekend and concludes around Jan 1 with a month break after game 12/13 depending upon conference alliance.
Everyone gets 6-8 home games, and those eliminated from the tournament are allowed to play in a bowl game during the month off for those still in the tournament.

Oh wait that's the current system. Works for me.

[OAKS]

BCS official open to some kind of mini-playoff system

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2724819

After hearing that OSU hadn't played in what, 50 days? And UF in like 30, I think it would help in that regard as well. A week off, maybe two, might not affect a team too much and might give them time to recover more, but not playing for 6 weeks is just not going to be helpful.

Anyway, I know people are going to just say 'well, what about who is #5?' but I think the real question is, what's a good cutoff for the lowest team to have a real shot at going wire-to-wire and beating a team ranked ahead of them in every round? Would Boise State really be able to beat Oklahoma, then USC, then OSU for a National Championship? I think the top 4 is a pretty good start, and maybe going to 8, but it's just not going to be that realistic for a 16 seed to run the table 4 straight games.

It would be interesting to take all the NCAA sports with playoffs and see what the lowest seeds have been to win it all, and with what frequency that happens.

[Sonny]

A four team playoff is the only one I think might have a shot at working for all parties involved. But the university presidents (the only decision makers that really count) are against a playoff, so it's probably a pipe dream.

but who would have been the top four teams this year: OSU, UF, Michigan, USC? Are you going to leave an undefeated Boise State or a one-loss Louisville out of the mix?