What follows is my plan to reform the college football postseason, to include a tournament. My goal throughout was to create a system that could actually be accepted by the current actors in college football (i.e. the conferences, the bowls, the bowl locations, the networks, and the fans).
I first published this plan last December on my personal blog. I republish it now so that it may be subject to scrutiny from more advanced football fans.
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The need for a tournament in college football is so obvious that I need not delve deeper into that question. But how might/should a tournament work? Many say that it is impossible for various reasons ranging from scheduling to stubbornness by the bowls and the conferences.
Wrong.
I present to you the best way to satisfy all parties involved: the fans, the teams, the conferences, and the bowls. Call it the Bowl Tournament Series, or perhaps the Tournament of Bowls.
Size/structure:- 8 teams. This requires a total of 7 games played over 3 weeks (4 quarterfinal, 2 semifinal, and the national championship game). The 4 major bowls; Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar; would host the quarterfinal games and the semifinals and championship game would rotate between those locations as well but would not have bowl names. The major bowl locations get more overall games each year and would thus have financial incentive to follow this system. Further, each named bowl matters equally in the first round of the tournament because the victor of each advances in the tournament.
Selection/bowl pairing:- The top 8 teams in the BTS rankings would be entered into the tournament. It's that simple. No exceptions. This would afford little argument for lack of fairness or saying that certain teams do not belong (e.g. what some people are saying about ND and Wake Forest this year).
- The tournament would not be seeded! This is the critical compromise of my system. Rather, the bowls would choose teams from conferences aligned with them (e.g. the Rose Bowl picking the winners of the Big 10 and PAC-10), but only if those teams are included in the top 8 of the BTS rankings. If there is not a conference champion available for a bowl, that bowl shall pick from the available teams, and multiple bowls needing replacements shall pick in an order that rotates each year.
- The key advantage of this is that the bowls could maintain much of the tradition they have held from the beginning of college football. They'd be giving up little more than they already give up in the BCS. This setup is ultimately better for the conferences as well. While they might resist because all of the 6 majors would not be guaranteed representation in the tournament, most years would see 4-6 represented and the financial incentive would actually be greater for the conferences. Yes, a conference is not guaranteed a spot, but it could also get more than 2 teams (as is the cap now) in the tourny and rake in more money that way. Also, the tournament's 7 games amounts to 2 more games than are currently played in the BCS. That's $30-40 million additional in funds to be spread around to conferences that advance each year.
Ranking:- The BTS rankings could work very similarly, if not identically, to the current BCS rankings. Incorporating some aspects of the BCS would ease the transition to the new Bowl Tournament System. I would, however, tweak the rankings to give the computers equal weight again. Also, I would include the AP poll on the human side in order to give the human side even more diversity. Finally, I'd narrow the selection of the computer models to ones that placed additional emphasis on strength of schedule.
Schedule:- Scheduling, actually, is not a challenge at all. The season would not have to be shortened and the conference championships could remain. Like this year, the final weekend of non-bowl football would include the conference championships and would need to be the first weekend in December. The tourny-bound teams would then get 3 weeks off to devote towards academic finals. The first round of the tournament would then be held in the weekend closest to Christmas. This year it would fall on Friday, Dec. 22 - Saturday, December 23. Play two bowls each of those days. This would put the National Championship game in the New Years week.
- The downside for players is that some of them will be playing very near to Christmas. But come on, it's not like they're free all break as it is now. Also, many sports play on holidays. For the fans it would be a major plus. Imagine having the tradition of watching college football on or near Christmas! Awesome.
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Thus, the Bowl Tournament Series would be a win-win system for all. Fans would get the tournament they have been crying for. Bowls would maintain their tradition and get increased revenue. Conferences would likely see an increase in revenue. Teams and players would have a fair system.
Labels: BCS, Bowls, polls
