Ticket, Please

It took a monumental networking effort, but I pulled it off.

I got tickets to Tuesday's Capital One Bowl in Orlando.

No exaggeration -- these were the toughest tickets in town. It's worth noting that I've been to the Cap One/Florida Citrus/Tangerine Bowl about a dozen times before -- I was there for the 1984 game when Georgia tied Florida State, the 1991 game when the halftime performance of the Cal band was the highlight of the day, and the 1980 game when Boomer Esiason led Maryland into battle against Florida. In all cases, I was more or less a kid -- sometimes literally, sometimes a "college" kid on Dad's one-day scholarship -- and I never had to go through any gymnastics to get the tickets. I just went.

Last year, I "just went" on the invite of a lawyer friend in Orlando who had a tent in the hospitality area on Tinker Field. It was Wisconsin-Arkansas. Again, the bands were the best part of the game. Well, Wisconsin's band, anyway. My wife and I had such a great time, we asked for a return invitation this year.

Riiiiiiight. That was all well and good until Florida got the bid.

Every Gator, would-be Gator, and part-time Gator in the Sunshine State was on the prowl for tickets this time around. It was easier to get BCS Championship Game tickets last year than it was to get Cap One Bowl tickets this year. But I'm in. Can't tell you how, but I'm in. And yes, I'm paying for the tickets. No free rides when Florida plays in O-town.

Enjoy your bowl season, and Happy New Year.

Fearless Predictions '08

Got an e-mail today that claims that as of December 31st, Sun Sports and FSN Florida will have aired roughly 1,060 original productions in calendar year 2007. That includes game broadcasts for six professional franchises, two major college partners, high school championships, and over 150 original studio shows, plus whatever else I'm forgetting. And no, it only *seems* like I hosted all of them.

Anyway, about that time for the annual list of Fearless Predictions. I've done this a few times before on the blog, and sometimes I'm dead-on -- in December of 2005, for example, I correctly predicted that Florida's only loss in 2006 would be on the road at Auburn. In November of last year, I picked the San Antonio Spurs to win the 2007 NBA Finals. Neither was exactly a stretch, but I get to brag on them nonetheless.

Of course, I whiff as often as I hit. In that same December 2005 entry, I predicted that the Miami Heat would get knocked out of the 2006 NBA Playoffs in the second round. Result: they won the whole enchilada. I also predicted that Sergio Garcia would win a major in '06 (wrong) and that UCF would make it a close game against the Gators when they met at the Swamp (final score: 41-0, Florida). Win some, lose some.

Not to be deterred, here's the list of Fearless Predictions for 2008. Don't bet the mortgage on any of these, but if they come true, remember where you heard it.

1. At some point in the next calendar year, Bill Parcells will become the head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

2. By the end of 2008, the Florida Marlins will either A. announce a definitive plan for a new stadium or B. announce a definitive plan to move out of South Florida.

3. The University of South Florida will win a Big East title in football, thus completing my "Big Five" theory.

4. The Tampa Bay Rays will not finish last in the American League East (I try this one every year. Call it wishful thinking).

5. The University of Miami's men's basketball team will receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Florida Gators will not -- but they'll have a ton of players on the SEC's All-Freshman team.

6. Bobby Bowden will still be coaching the Florida State Seminoles in 2008, and Joe Paterno will still be coaching at Penn State.

7. Tim Tebow will not win a second Heisman Trophy. However, Percy Harvin might.

8. The Orlando Magic will approach 50 wins in the regular season, make the NBA Playoffs, and win their first-round series. The Miami Heat will stage a torrid second-half rally but finish just shy of the postseason. Eastern Conference champion: Boston. Western Conference champion: San Antonio. NBA champion: San Antonio, again.

9. The Florida Panthers will snap their six-year streak of missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In truth, this is one of the easiest predictions on the list. The NHL's Southeast Division is there for the taking. Heck, the Cats might even win the thing (the division, not the Cup -- stay tuned).

10. Kevin Smith of UCF will lead the nation in rushing, again. He'll become a first-day NFL draft pick in 2009 and serve as a shining example of a player who returned for his senior season and made it count.

11. Florida International University will win more than one football game. That's as far as I'm prepared to go at this time.

12. Florida Atlantic University will repeat as Sun Belt Conference football champs, scoring at least one ridiculous upset along the way -- I'm looking hard at the 2008 season opener at Michigan State.

13. Tiger Woods will win two majors in 2008. I'm leaning toward the Masters and the US Open, which is a "home game" for Woods at Torrey Pines in his native California. The British Open at Royal Birkdale is a toss-up -- the last two British Open champions on that course were Mark O'Meara and Ian Baker-Finch. In keeping with the recent tradition of apostrophes and/or dashes in the surname, the 2008 British Open champ at Royal Birkdale will be Sean O'Hair, Nick O'Hern, or Per-Ulrik Johansson. The 2008 PGA Championship is at Bloomfield Hills in Michigan, so I'll give it to Florida resident and car freak Stuart Appleby or Miguel Angel Jimenez, whose nickname on Tour is "The Mechanic."

14. My handicap will never be as low as I think it should be.

15. I'm going to lose those final ten pounds, learn how to play a musical instrument, take up yoga, write the Great American Novel, become a better father and husband, and accomplish all those other New Year's resolutions that we make after one too many adult beverages. No, really, I mean it. Check back with me in 2008.

In the meantime, have a restful holiday.

Just Checking In

Miss me? Doubt it.

The last two weeks have been a marathon. A slog in deep mud.

The undertaking was the Florida High School Athletic Association's football Finals, eight high school championship games in the span of 8 days. This year, for the first time, Sun Sports and FSN Florida televised all eight games live. That doesn't change the level of preparation necessary to get them on the air -- it simply raises the bar in terms of anxiety and worry. It also wore us out.

After burying myself in prep work for those eight games over the last two weeks, plus writing two one-hour bowl preview shows for UF and FSU, plus scripting a one-hour episode of "Tailgate Overtime" for Monday night, I went on camera tonight and promptly pulled a brain fart -- I went on the air and twice mentioned that UCF is playing in the Liberty Bowl in Birmingham. The Liberty Bowl, as several UCF fans pointed out, is in Memphis.

Yeah, I'm pretty tired.

Let me get through the tapings of those two bowl preview shows and I'll attempt to regroup. With a map.

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.