Let's Get It On
Remember Tom Rados?
Sure you do.
Tom is the die-hard Florida State fan and playoff proponent who came up with a Division I playoff system that not only gives us a 16-team bracket, but incorporates the current bowl system as playoff sites. You may recall that we invited him on to "Tailgate Overtime" this fall upon his return from his Air Force post in Iraq.
In the wake of Bizarro College Football Season -- one in which five #1-ranked teams and five #2-ranked teams lost at one time or another -- the BCS result of Ohio State vs. LSU has been summarily criticized from all directions. If ever there was a college football season that cried out for a playoff system like Tom's, this is it.
You think anyone wants a piece of Georgia right now? Southern Cal? Florida? The hottest teams in the country have no shot at a "national championship" (and I place quotation marks around that because, although the NCAA conducts national championships in 32 different sports at the I-AA, Division II, and Division III level, including rifle, skiing, and women's water polo, Division I football is not and has never been one of those sports. All "national championships" in major college football are mythical, up to and including Florida last year. That's not opinion, that's fact. Look it up.).
Anyway, we could fix that with a playoff, if we wanted. You'll read a dozen versions of this in the next few weeks, but here's mine, using the primary tenets of the Rados Plan:
-16 team bracket, filled by 11 Division I conference champions and 5 at-large bids. The at-large teams are selected based on their BCS ranking after conference championship games are played.
-Those 16 teams are seeded based on three criteria, in this order: BCS ranking, overall record, and conference record.
-Opening-round games are played at the home field of the higher-seeded team one week after conference championship games (this year, that would be December 8th).
Under that criteria, here's the ladder of 16 teams in the 2007 Division I Football Playoff:
#1: Ohio State (Big Ten champ, 1st in BCS)
#2: LSU (SEC Champ, 2nd in BCS)
#3: Virginia Tech (ACC Champ, 3rd in BCS)
#4: Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ, 4th in BCS)
#5: Georgia (first at-large bid; 5th in BCS)
#6: Missouri (at-large, 6th in BCS)
#7: Southern Cal (Pac-10 Champ, 7th in BCS)
#8: Kansas (at-large, 8th in BCS)
#9: West Virginia (Big East Champ, 9th in BCS)
#10: Hawaii (WAC Champ, 10th in BCS)
#11: Arizona State (at-large, 11th in BCS)
#12: Florida (at-large, 12th in BCS)
#13: BYU (Mountain West Champ, highest remaining BCS-ranked team at 17th)
#14: UCF (Conference USA Champ, next highest BCS-ranked team at 30th)
#15: Troy (Sun Belt Conference Co-Champ, beats out FAU thanks to overall record)
#16: Central Michigan (MAC Champ, drops behind Troy thanks to one more overall loss)
Notable omissions: Illinois, Boston College, Tennessee (who played in the SEC Championship Game and lost), South Florida, Florida Atlantic (who beat Troy to share the Sun Belt Conference title, but loses out due to overall record). Sorry.
First round games, played at home field of higher-ranked team, Dec. 8, 2007:
Ohio State (1) vs. Central Michigan (16)
LSU (2) vs. Troy (15)
Virginia Tech (3) vs. UCF (14)
Oklahoma (4) vs. BYU (13)
Georgia (5) vs. Florida (12)
Missouri (6) vs. Arizona State (11)
Southern Cal (7) vs. Hawaii (10)
Kansas (8) vs. West Virginia (9)
Tell me you didn't say "ooooooh" when you saw Florida-Georgia as a first-round playoff game...in Athens.
How about Southern Cal-Hawaii? Missouri-Arizona State? Kansas-West Virginia? Isn't there just a little bit of fun in this? Never mind that the incessant carping from college football fans about the relative strength of one conference vs. another would be settled on the field. Hell, that's probably why the playoff system encounters such fierce resistance -- if sports radio hosts, columnists, talking heads, and fans couldn't argue over two teams that never play each other, what else would they do?
Second-round games would be played on December 15, 2007. The existing bowl schedule now comes into play. Those teams that lost in the first round are now free to accept bids to "non-playoff" bowl games. The rotation of "playoff" bowls and "non-playoff" bowls changes annually depending upon location (see below) and the money factor -- if a mid-level bowl presents an aggressive financial package, they get to be in the playoff rotation. This has the ancillary benefit of creating competition among bowl games and making everybody more money, which is the point of pretty much everything, right?
According to the Rados Plan, the second-round sites are based on location, akin to the "pod" system in the NCAA basketball tournament, in hopes of drawing a decent crowd. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the higher seeds won out in the first round.
Second Round - December 15, 2007
Ohio State (1) vs. Kansas (8) - Motor City Bowl, Detroit
LSU (2) vs. Southern Cal (7) - Texas Bowl, Houston
Virginia Tech (3) vs. Missouri (6) - Chik-Fil-A Bowl, Atlanta
Oklahoma (4) vs. Georgia (5) - GMAC Bowl, Mobile
Again, we're placing these teams in locations that might be attractive to fans of both schools. Meeting halfway. The second-round bowl sites would change year to year based on the financial package that the bowl committees present and the teams that are still alive in the playoff.
So let's say the higher seeds win again. Now we're into the "BCS" bowls, the National Semifinals, to be played on December 29th, as we give the kids two weeks off for the holidays (and use those 14 days to whip the fans into a media-spun frenzy):
National Semifinals - December 29, 2007
Ohio State (1) vs. Oklahoma (4) - Fiesta Bowl, Glendale
LSU (2) vs. Virginia Tech (3) - Sugar Bowl, New Orleans
The "BCS" bowls would rotate year to year, to make sure that no team gets a crazy home-field advantage (like LSU in this scenario). So, if the higher seeds win again...
National Championship Game - January 5, 2007
Ohio State (1) vs. LSU (2) - Rose Bowl, Pasadena
Meanwhile, the two losing teams from the National Semifinals could play each other in a "consolation game" to determine the 3rd-ranked team in the nation. In this scenario, that could be the Orange Bowl, but obviously, that 3rd-place game would have to rotate each year.
That work for you?
As Tom has pointed out to me many times, this system takes no longer than the current bowl schedule. In that sense, it works. However, here's why it doesn't work:
In order for any playoff system to be fair, as is the case in the NBA, NFL, NHL, I-AA football, and various other sports, the teams eligible for playoff spots must be considered "equals." Every team has a shot at making the postseason. As we all know, Division I football programs are not created equal: the Sun Belt, for example, lacks the talent, depth, facilities, and financial commitment to compete top-to-bottom on an annual basis with the SEC, or any other BCS-level conference. However, the NCAA stubbornly lumps every Division I conference into the same pot, measuring them against each other as a field of 119. As the playoff discussion has moved forward on this blog and elsewhere over the last couple of years, that fact has emerged to me as the single biggest hurdle to a true D-I playoff.
It's not the money, or the old bowl system, or the scheduling. It's the logistics of determining the field. If you use any sort of BCS-type ranking to set your bracket of 8 or 16 teams, that's no different or better than the current BCS itself: an arbitrary set of criteria that plucks existing power teams from existing power conferences. No, to create a true playoff, you must reward conference champions from every D-I conference, as this model does. But we all know that ain't fair -- not to the champions of the lesser conferences, and not to the power programs (like Illinois, BC, and Tennessee above) that would annually be shut out.
The solution? Not sure there is one, but I'm still leaning towards promotion and relegation. Split D-I football into an upper and lower division, with opportunities for teams to move up or down based on the above criteria of talent, depth, facilities, and financial commitment. The European soccer model. That's the best way, as I see it, to create a real D-I playoff.
Beyond that? Enjoy the BCS. You may get your plus-one, but in the meantime, all we can do is dream.
posted by Whit Watson at 10:55 PM
6 Critiques:
Some of those opening round games look like some of the season openers. Ohio State vs. Central Michigan? LSU vs. Troy? VT vs. UCF?
We've already seen Florida-Georiga.. which.. I think if you were to do this, you'd have to do something like the NCAA does with basketball, and make it so you can't face a conference opponent in the first round.
Games on December 15 away from home? What about exams? Turnaround time for fans, host sites, etc.
To have a fair playoff system IMO (and I'm not really pro-playoff), I think you do need to split D-1 again. It needs to be conferences with equal #'s of teams and the regular season needs to be an equal # of weeks, and it needs to be shorter.
12/10/2007 1:39 PM
To not have Illinois involved in this, who thoroughly beat the number one team in the country on the road, and who has only 3 losses like Florida, would be inexcusable.
UCF? Troy? Central Michigan? Nice try, though; but it just wouldn't work for me.
12/12/2007 8:19 PM
Mike:
I hear you and understand...as long as *you* understand that without automatic bids for conference champions, any playoff system is a farce. Excluding D-I conference champs in a playoff would produce a "BCS Playoff" champion, but not a true D-I champion by the definition of 'playoff' and 'Division I.'
Hell, maybe I'm the only one who cares...I'm falling more and more in love with the idea of promotion and relegation as we go along.
12/12/2007 8:32 PM
As the author of the system, I really do understand with those above that some really good teams get left out. But I am the same way with College B-Ball, when I see (for example) FSU in the ACC who did what the NCAA said to do and get the 10th hardest schedule in the nation, defeat the #1 team, take on the ACC and come away with a winning record and left out... meanwhile the 16 seed teams who all got drubbed by #1 seeds would never have beaten FSU.
Someone is ALWAYS going to get left out, but with the current system 117 teams get left out. Only two teams get a chance to battle it out.. and if (IF) Hawaii comes all the way to SEC country and defeats Georgia in SEC haven - a team that Richt was defending as deserving a shot at the NC... they would be undefeated and the only reason they would see the trophy is because it is there--waiting for 1 loss OSU and 3 loss LSU to claim it.
So shorten the season, get rid of the meaningless games and just ask Michigan how badly they would want to play UCF or Troy of Central Michigan in a D1A playoff (Anyone from Boone, WV will tell ya that it could be anybody's day)
12/14/2007 6:21 PM
rather than a 16 team playoff, why not concentrate on what can be done under the current system. a plus-one that satisfies the Rose Bowl and Big Ten is easier than it seems. Just send the Pac10 and Big Ten Champs to the Rose and then decide if it should be a semifinal game. If they are 1,2 you split them up, but other than that every year they go to the Rose. if they are a semi, seed the next two highest teams in another BCS bowl and let the semi winners meet in the title game. if the Rose isn't a semi then another BCS bowl gets to host a semi with teams that aren't the Pac10 Big Ten Champs. In order to keep 4 at large berths and the mid-major conference autoberth system you'd need another BCS bowl. let it rotate through the Sugar, Fiesta and Orange. For preserving its matchup, the Rose only gets two games every 4 years, while the other bowls will get an extra game almost 3 out of 4 years. add 10 days between the semis and title game to let fans make travel arrangements and you should sellout. Tv ratings would be insane and the bowl season would only be 5 days longer than it currently is. it's not the awesome 16 team playoff, but it's better than what we have now, and could be implemented overnight. if you want more details, i have them, this is just an outline. i'm looking forward to some criticism.
12/15/2007 11:41 AM
I guess we should all get in a non-BCS conference which is a bottom-feeder so we can win our conference and be included in the play-offs like UCF. Whoop-e-e.
12/21/2007 1:52 PM
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