A Real Bowl Championship

The BCS Playoff system is ridiculous.  First of all, you have to have degrees in mathematics, statistics, and rocket science just to understand the ranking system.  If you’re like me you’ve given up on totally understanding the system.  That aside, what upsets me is the Bowl Selection process and ultimately how the champion of college football is determined.  Granted, USC and OU are going to play a dynamite Orange Bowl game that lives up to all of the hype that surrounds it.  But at the end of the day, will that ultimately determine who the best team in college football is?  I don’t think anybody at Auburn thinks it does.  Furthermore, by some miracle Texas is playing Michigan in the Rose Bowl instead of Cal, this marks the first time since 1919 that there was not a west coast team in the Rose Bowl.  Understandably, Auburn and Cal are upset, and they’re right to gripe.Last year, USC was the odd man out, standing on the sidelines while OU and LSU duked it out for the title of BCS champion.  Throughout the year the argument against USC was strength of schedule; countless sports commentators and radio shows cited the Pac-10 as a weak conference.  That perception makes Cal’s emergence in the top ten this year even more poignant–clearly this is not a weak conference.  Yet this year Auburn sits in a nearly identical situation, while everyone points out the weakness of the SEC.

Any team that goes undefeated for an entire season in NCAA division 1-A football has achieved something notable.  Therefore, as long as those unbeaten teams have beaten at least one ranked opponent, they deserve a chance to play for the championship.  College football desperately needs a legitimate playoff system that can both eliminate this controversy and still afford the BCS its precious end of the year cash cow.

This year, 28 Bowl games will be played between December 14th and January 4th.  Most of them won’t matter a lick.  Seriously, does anybody care about the outcome of the Silicon Valley Bowl featuring Troy vs. Northern Illinois?  How about the Motor City Bowl, which pits bitter rivals Toledo vs. Connecticut?  And then we have Notre Dame vs. Oregon State in the Insight Bowl–now that’s television to fall asleep to!  What’s worse, this system does not clearly define who the best teams in college football are.  

So here’s my plan: a three round, eight team playoff picture that adds an additional two games to the schedule.  This system promises phenomenal ratings and a clear champion for college football.  Here’s how it breaks down: Take the top eight teams in the BCS and seed them for the playoffs.  The playoffs can be setup with the current bowls involved; also, the bowl games could be rotated just as the current system is set up, so that all games can get a piece of the pie.  Based on the end of the year rankings here is what my hypothetical First Round of the playoffs would look like:

Please allow me to project.  

In the first round, the amped up Va Tech Hokies storm into Pasadena to face the heavily favored #1 ranked USC Trojans.  Despite the fact that USC beat Va Tech in the first game of the season, and that the Rose Bowl is essentially a home game for the Trojans, this is a promising game.  Although the Hokies will put up a valiant fight to the finish, they will barely lose to USC.  

In the next game, David Green of Georgia will put forth a strong effort, playing through the pain of a fractured thumb.  But his accuracy isn’t quite right, and the running game is essentially shut down by OU’s swarming defense.  The Sooners win this match up going away.  

Another exciting match up in round one sees unbeaten teams Utah and Auburn down in the swamp at the Gator Bowl.  Utah will spend most of the first half adjusting to the muggy climate but will hang tough.  Auburn will get ahead early, but in the second half the Ute’s passing game comes alive.  Auburn’s usually stalwart secondary will get picked apart by Utah quarterback Alex Smith.  Staging the first upset of the playoffs, Smith solidifies his position on Heisman ballots.  Utah will win on a last second field goal.

Cal and Texas will bump heads in the Cotton Bowl.  In spite of virtual home field advantage Texas ultimately will be unable to stop the balanced offensive attack of Cal.  This will be the highest scoring first round match up.  It will also be the most punishing, as both of these teams employ a run first strategy.

The second round sees familiar rivals Cal and USC in the Sugar Bowl.  This is a real battle.  Both teams, weary from the first round, come back to duke it out.  Their familiarity with one another produces one of the best games of the entire playoffs but  USC eventually outlasts Cal.  

In the Fiesta Bowl Utah enters as a heavy underdog to powerhouse Oklahoma.  Despite their best efforts, Utah is unable to stay with the Sooners.  The deciding factor is depth.  Starting OU tailback Adrian Petersen leaves the game in the second quarter with a sore shoulder, but Oklahoma outlasts Utah on the shoulders of Sooner Quarterback Jason White.

So in the Orange Bowl championship game, we see the same match up as in reality: Oklahoma versus USC.  

Without Adrian Petersen the ground game for Oklahoma struggles, but a more than capable passing game begins to eat away at the Trojan secondary.  The real story of this game is Oklahoma’s defense.  The hard hitting secondary quickly rattles the young receiving core of the Trojans.  SC offensive coordinator Norm Chow manages to keep the game close with a great second half game plan, but in the end a fresher Oklahoma team wins in the waning seconds.

Is this exactly how it would go down?  Of course not–this is all hypothetical.  But just think about all of the great football we would have seen throughout the playoffs.  Imagine the prospect of truly eliminating the debate over the best team in college football.  In terms of monetary gain, all you have to do is look to the NFL for the proof of what a balanced, exciting playoff schedule can do for ratings.  The Superbowl consistently is one of the most anticipated and closely followed events in all of television.  

In the meantime, all of the other non-essential 21 bowl games could be played.  So those of you hungry to see Northern Texas and Southern Mississippi square off could still be satisfied.  Will there still be teams that get a raw deal?  Probably.  But nothing like the screw job administered to Auburn and Cal this year.  Nothing that compares to the wrong done to USC last year.  

College football needs a playoff system badly.  When the BCS was instituted in the late 90’s it did quite a bit to solve what was wrong with NCAA football, but it failed it take the final step and setup an indisputable system by which a champion could be determined.  Last year in NCAA men’s basketball, UConn was the best team without question or debate.  Why?  Because they won every game in the tournament at the end of the season.  Until college football develops some sort of playoff system controversy will always exist.

Until every legitimate team gets a shot at the title, there will be no true champion.