BCS Endorses A 4-Team Seeded Playoff Model

[Bemular]

Consensus reached on playoff

CHICAGO --

"The BCS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick on Wednesday endorsed a seeded four-team playoff model for college football that would begin for the 2014 season."

 

[CalamityX11]

So it finally happened....

interesting. I hope this year we have 4 very solid squads to make this work. I'm a pro playoff supporter so I hope this works.

 

[imac_21]

So it finally happened....

interesting. I hope this year we have 4 very solid squads to make this work. I'm a pro playoff supporter so I hope this works.

I hope we have 3 obvious choices and 3 that are clearly 2 steps below. The pro-playoff people have been treating as some utopian answer and I'd like them to have to swallow that in year 1.

 

[MHSL82]

I hope we have 3 obvious choices and 3 that are clearly 2 steps below. The pro-playoff people have been treating as some utopian answer and I'd like them to have to swallow that in year 1.

That's mean! All they wanted was to make the most amount of money regardless of consensus champions. Jerk!

 

[CalamityX11]

I hope we have 3 obvious choices and 3 that are clearly 2 steps below. The pro-playoff people have been treating as some utopian answer and I'd like them to have to swallow that in year 1.

 

[NinerSickness]

The biggest problem I've heard about this is that it sounds like division winners will get preferential treatment (at least that's what I heard on the Radio today). Hypothetically, Alabama might not have made the 4 team playoff system.

 

[clyde_carbon]

Thank God. Not a perfect system, but it's better than what they have now.

 

[NinerSickness]

If they use the BCS ranking system & don't go by division winners, then I'm fine with 1 extra game to decide the Champion. I definitely think they shouldn't ever add any more games (or teams) though. If your team isn't ranked in the top 4, then I'm fine with the BCS ignoring them. Like Clyde said, it's not a perfect system; but there is no perfect system.

 

[Kinzu]

I don't see this helping much. It's an improvement but only minor. I'd rather see them cut out few out conference games from the regular season and introduce tiered playoff system. It needs to be at least 16 teams chasing after the Title. Then take the next 16 teams and put them in a their own bracket and so on. They could put this together and feature the top 64 teams in college football over the course of December and into January. The major BCS bowl sites could rotate hosting the championship game for each bracket. You end up with 4 title games in January where all the teams playing earned their spot.

You can say the idea of teams not in the top 16 bracket would not be important or ignored, but I disagree because football is just to big. If you're school ended up in one of those brackets you would be following it like your team was going for the national title. It also gives the NCAA a chance to feature all their top programs for the year, and it gives some lesser schools having a good year a chance to shine.

It would only take 4 weeks to do a 16 team tournament. They would only need to cut 2 games out of the regular season schedule to keep teams on the current one. I think fans would be ok with 2 less regular season games for a longer and more meaningful post season. It would even make the end bowl games bigger. The start of the tournament should have top 16 teams featured in prime time games. The rest of them could fill out the Tuesday-Saturday schedule to make it a week long event. They could even get away with dragging out the first round over 2 weeks to ensure every game is on TV.

I would make the first 2 games be played at the home teams stadium. That would be great for those schools and their fans. The top 8 game is played at a neutral site which could be locations of current bowl games, and then like I said the title games at the BCS bowl sites.

I don't see how this system would not make college football even more money than they already do. It gives them about 60 meaningful games leading toward a goal and building drama every week for the final month of the season. It would not be March Madness but it would be close.

 

[deep9er]

four teams in the National hunt is good, there will be two less teams arguing they should've gotten in. so from a competive standpoint, agree four teams should be adequate to determine a national champion. i can't imagine there will be a 5th and 6th team with a STRONG case anyway?

but i doubt it'll remain at four and sometime down the road, it'll expand to eight. the reason is obviously dollars.

for the idea of brackets, my first thought is they might as well just leave other teams to fill existing bowl games? but again, just my first thought. some bowl games will cease (and they should), but the better supported ones might as well keep the tradition?

 

[Jikkle]

Agreed that it's not perfect but a good compromise.

And I agree with Sick that it should just go top 4 BCS and not divisional winners. The whole point is to have the best teams vying for the championship regardless of what division they come from.

 

[mem49er]

Agreed that it's not perfect but a good compromise.

And I agree with Sick that it should just go top 4 BCS and not divisional winners. The whole point is to have the best teams vying for the championship regardless of what division they come from.

I'm at work and too lazy/busy to read the article. Do you guys really mean division or do you mean conference?

 

[NinerSickness]

I'm at work and too lazy/busy to read the article. Do you guys really mean division or do you mean conference?

Conference. Thanks for the correction.

 

[mem49er]

Conference. Thanks for the correction.

NP, just making sure we're on the same page.

 

[deep9er]

agree it should just be the top 4 in the rankings, and not use Conference champions. even if the top four ranked is from the same conference (SEC?), so be it.

after thinking about it more, isn't college football gaining a LITTLE more parity year over year? isn't this why we see teams like Boise St and TCU ranking high? maybe it should be eight teams because the 5th and 6th ranked teams might be legit?

 

[RobertPhD01]

agree it should just be the top 4 in the rankings, and not use Conference champions. even if the top four ranked is from the same conference (SEC?), so be it.

after thinking about it more, isn't college football gaining a LITTLE more parity year over year? isn't this why we see teams like Boise St and TCU ranking high? maybe it should be eight teams because the 5th and 6th ranked teams might be legit?

I would agree with this 8 and no more!!

 

[wartyOne]

Conference. Thanks for the correction.

The problem with Alabama's inclusion this year, is they neither won their division, NOR their conference, yet despite being the third best team in the SEC, they were given an invitation to play for the BCS championship.

And this new system won't be any better than the nonsense that college football has been calling a "postseason" for the last 60 years. If a team like TCU or Boise State (before they went to BCS conferences) goes undefeated, they're magically going to finish fifth instead of third now. Bank on that.

 

[NinerSickness]

If a team like TCU or Boise State (before they went to BCS conferences) goes undefeated, they're magically going to finish fifth instead of third now. Bank on that.

If they don't alter the BCS ranking system, I'd be fine with that happening. No system is perfect, but the BCS ranking system is the best one if you don't change the criteria from year to year IMO. At least this way those schools have twice as good a chance of getting in as before.

 

[Kinzu]

I'm fine with the top 4 conferences having their champions in this tourney as long as we don't have to consider it a national championship game. The #1 team under this scenario should still be decided by votes and the computers. It's more than likely always going to be the winner of that game, but I can seen situations in which a team not playing in this tourney ends up the national champion. Think about an SEC team ranked 15-25 getting into the tourney because they won the conference title. That team then goes on to win the whole thing while someone like Boise St goes undefeated.

Then again I don't that can happen as if I remember right the conferences can only put their champions in the top 4 if they are ranked high enough otherwise I think a team like Boise St can slip in.