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.

Thanks For Watching

(Note: the following appears in the November 2007 issue of Unrestricted Magazine, a South Florida publication for whom I have written columns each month for over a year now. If you're ever in Miami, pick it up.)

Is anyone watching this?

Between the Orlando Magic, ESPN, and Sun Sports/FSN Florida, I've been working in front of a television camera for nearly 15 years now, and I've asked myself that question many times. Late nights, blowout games, rollercoaster ratings -- sometimes, it's easy to wonder if the time and effort is worth it. Every so often, however, I receive human reminders that yes, someone really is out there. This fall, two examples made this perfectly clear.

A few months back, I received an e-mail from a group of avid Chevy Florida Fishing Report viewers who had an idea for a fishing tournament. These loyal fans had met each other online at the Sun Sports fishing message boards, and they wanted to create a real-life fishing tournament that would allow them to meet and compete with each other. They contacted me in the hope that Sun Sports would get involved, but after much homework on my end, I reluctantly had to tell them that we lacked the resources they needed.

Rather than give up on the idea, these enterprising viewers forged ahead on their own. What they created was a fishing tournament, alright -- a "virtual" fishing tournament.

Using our message boards to spread the word, 30 to 40 viewers created a set of rules, an entry form, even their own website. Each participant fished his home waters for a specified period of time, photographed each catch, recorded sizes and weights, and then e-mailed those photos to each other. Winners were declared in several different categories. Again, Sun Sports had nothing to do with this -- it was purely viewer-driven, an organic, grass-roots effort, and it was incredible in scope. These anglers lived all over Florida and barely knew each other beyond the message boards, but they were drawn together by their common affection for the Chevy Florida Fishing Report.

In recognition of their devotion and ingenuity, I invited the winners of each category to come see the season finale of the Chevy Florida Fishing Report live, in our studio, in October. You'd have thought I invited them to the White House.

"Geeked" cannot describe the reaction. E-mails flew around the state as the ten lucky winners organized rides with each other and taunted their buddies who failed to win the "virtual tournament." When the season finale arrived, the studio looked like a carnival, as our guests posed for photos, asked for autographs, and acted like kids at Disney World. The invitation cost us nothing, but gave these loyal viewers something they'll talk about for the rest of their lives. To think I wondered if anyone was really watching.

Air Force Master Sergeant Tom Rados, on the other hand, is a college football fan. He's devoted to his Florida State Seminoles and believes strongly in the value of a playoff system for Division I football. Last year, Tom e-mailed me a detailed proposal for such a D-I playoff bracket, one that I found so interesting, and so well-researched, that I wrote several blog entries about it on the Sun Sports website. We later devoted an entire episode of Monday night's "Tailgate Overtime" show to Tom's idea, which we called "The Rados Plan."

Tom didn't see that show until several months later, however. Shortly before that show aired, Master Sergeant Rados was shipped off to Iraq. While Tom was overseas, his wife mailed him tapes of Florida State football games and our college football shows on Sun Sports -- including the "Rados Plan" episode of Tailgate Overtime, which apparently made him a minor celebrity when he showed it to his mates on post.

Tom isn't allowed to tell me where he was, what he was doing, or who was with him. He wasn't allowed to send me any photos that might indicate his location in Iraq, because, as he wrote in an e-mail, "You give the bad guys enough little puzzle pieces and they can get the big picture." I can assure you that Tom's assignment placed wins and losses on a football field into perspective, in my mind.

The good news is, Tom is back home in Fort Walton Beach with his wife and two daughters. The better news is, Tom came to our studio in late October to watch "Tailgate Overtime" live, on my invitation. We even put him on camera -- as we had done for the fishing guys – and allowed him to tell a little of his story. At the end of the night, I asked Tom and his wife if they enjoyed the experience.

"This was unbelievable," he said. "We've only been here for one night, and this is the highlight of the entire vacation."

Thanks, Tom. And thanks, "CFFR" viewers. Thank you for reminding me that someone is, indeed, watching. And thank you for making all this effort feel worthwhile.

December Madness?

It's long been my belief that when it comes to a true D-I college football playoff, money will talk. The only way to bring every conference commissioner, bowl organizer, and university president on board is to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a postseason tournament will make everybody richer.

To his credit, that's exactly what University of Florida president Bernie Machen is trying to do.

Before we take another leap into this maelstrom, let's agree on some terms: it really is all about the money. The counter-arguments to a college football playoff -- the potential irrelevance of regular-season games (including the possibility that a team might rest starters or otherwise put it in cruise control once a playoff berth is secure), the logistical challenges of incorporating the current bowl structure into a tournament, plus the myriad complaints about abandoning tradition, etc. -- all have merit. Go ahead and peruse Brian's College Football Resource site for a passionate and detailed argument against a playoff.

Now, once you've assembled all of those counter-arguments, ask yourself this: what's the real worry about a playoff? Not for fans, media guys, and bloggers, but for those who have the power to make it happen -- the aforementioned conference commissioners, bowl organizers, and university presidents? What are they worried about?

Money.

"Lessening the impact of regular season games" translates into "we might not sell as many tickets." Bowl organizers who lament the fact that a playoff would prevent bowl teams from spending a full week or two in their town (true) are terrified about the lost hotel nights and reduced local spending, which in turn hampers their efforts to sell local sponsorships. Concerns about a fan base traveling from playoff site to playoff site? Same thing. Tougher travel = fewer fans = less money. You can't link every complaint to dollars, only most of them. Hate to sound cynical, but this is a business.

Understand that I'm not supporting one side or the other -- yet. I'm simply reducing the argument to its most powerful driving force. Which is what Dr. Machen of UF is doing on Thursday at the Southeastern Conference's spring meetings in Destin, Florida.

As he told the Tampa Tribune, "There may be -- and you won't know this until you test it -- $100 to $200 million that's not on the table" under the current bowl/BCS format. He points to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, which costs CBS $545 million per year (!) to televise, compared to the Fox Bowl Championship Series contract's annual value of $83 million (redundant full disclosure: Fox is the parent company of Sun Sports. And may I add that Rupert Murdoch is not only a handsome man, but a snappy dresser and a pretty good dancer).

In other words, Dr. Machen plans to argue that we're all gonna make a ton of dough with a playoff. Not only has this argument been offered before, there was, at one time, money "on the table," according to that same Tampa Tribune article. College football fans may dimly remember a plan from a Swiss outfit in the late '90s that called for a 16-team playoff (later reduced to 8 teams) and a payout of between $2.5 and $3 billion dollars.

It's worth noting that the Swiss company, International Sports and Leisure (ISL), once held the marketing rights to soccer's World Cup, a fairly decent tournament in its own right. However, ISL is now out of business, partially due to charges of corruption. So maybe we should take that historic "offer" with a healthy grain of salt.

Anyway, "cash on the table" did not and has not resulted in a playoff yet. Resistance is fierce, particularly from influential figures like Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, who told the Tribune, "a hundred million dollars is not going to sway us when $2 billion didn't." To add a pile of intrigue to this story, Machen has suggested that if the Big Ten and Pac-10 are so vehemently opposed to altering their historic ties with the Rose Bowl, perhaps they should sit this one out.

Machen: "My approach would be that the other conferences and schools would devise a playoff system, and we'll see if the Big Ten and the Pac-10 can stay outside of it ... With a lot more money on the table and a true playoff system, they're going to say 'Sorry, we're going to Pasadena?' We'll see."

Zoicks. How about a Steel Cage Death Match, two falls, TV time remaining?

It's important to note how the central question of the playoff debate has shifted over the last couple of years. At one point, it was "can we do it?" -- the logistics seemed overwhelming. Machen, and others, have slowly pushed this conversation in the more relevant direction -- "should we do it?"

Of course we can do it, as I've written here before. Logistics are no longer a serious hurdle. Even if you despise the various playoff models -- including the soon-to-be world-famous Rados Plan from Ft. Walton Beach's very own Tom Rados, the staunchest Florida State fan in the entire United States Air Force -- the simple addition of the BCS Championship Game last year has created the possibility of at least a "College Football Final Four." A mini-Madness, if you will.

Would that be enough to satisfy playoff proponents? Is it inclusive enough? Will access to the promised land be granted to the Boise States and Louisvilles of the world, those programs who have clearly demonstrated the ability to compete with the traditional powers on the field, but are held down by conference ties? Probably not, but the point is, it's possible.

So forget "can we?" With enough money on the table, and a guarantee that every stakeholder will get a piece of the pie, we can. Instead, ask "should we?"

I, for one, am at a crossroad.

My egalitarian nature wishes for a true "all comers" Division I football tournament. Pointing to the aforementioned programs like Boise State and Louisville (and South Florida, and Toledo, and Utah, and about a dozen others), there's a part of me that wants to see it decided on the field. I love underdogs; I love it when "traditional" powers are compelled to ride something other than reputation. As we've discussed around here many times, the gap between the haves and have-not's in D-I football has never been closer. There are a lot of good teams out there, but they're playing for a very limited number of berths in upper-tier bowls, many of which were devised when America had maybe five great college football programs (and three of them were Army, Cornell, and Yale). Maybe it's time for the postseason to catch up with the regular season. For that matter, maybe the largest, most powerful athletic programs in the NCAA -- major college football teams -- should catch up with their fellow student-athletes and actually decide a true national champion. I've written it before: the NCAA conducts national championships in more than 80 sports, male and female. Division I college football is not one of them. Doesn't that seem breathtakingly ridiculous?

Plus, despite the naysayers, I believe that a playoff could produce some hellaciously fun 3-14 or 5-12 matchups (and the possibility of a coasting team in a power conference getting upset in the first round by a scorching team from a weak conference bugs the crap out of some fans of some of those power conference teams, which, in my perverse world, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside).

But...

Saturdays in Tallahassee are a blast. Same with Gainesville, Norman, Columbus, Happy Valley, Death Valley (both of 'em), Tuscaloosa, Eugene, Madison, and dozens more college towns. If we know we're playing it off at the end of the year, do we lose that electric game day atmosphere? Is the urgency -- the buzz and hum of the pregame, the sheer terror at the prospect of an upset, the joyous bonding of 90,000 relative strangers singing a goofy fight song in victory, the very identity of college football -- removed?

Something else -- bowl games are fun, too. This January, I actually got the chance to attend a college football game live and in person, a true rarity in my business. It was the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, pitting Arkansas against Wisconsin. Tailgating and seeing friends and neighbors while hollering like an idiot about two teams that mean nothing to me -- that was quite a release for a TV guy who is locked in a studio from August through December. It was about ten times better for the thousands upon thousands of Hogs and Badgers for whom Orlando was the carrot at the end of a long season. Is there anything wrong with playing well in your conference and enjoying a working vacation someplace (hopefully) warm and inviting in January?

No, there's not. Not a damn thing. It doesn't crown a true national champion, but how much does that matter? And to whom? If we create a playoff, who are we creating it for? Fans? Players? Alumni? Or television? Money talks. What will it say?

And the final, most important question: We know we can, but should we?

I haven't decided on an answer yet. But at least we're discussing the correct question.

Evenly Divided

Our "Selection Monday" episode of Tailgate Overtime, wherein we laid out a Division I football playoff bracket based on a model sent to us by a faithful viewer, drew a few e-mails from the college football nation, including a couple that offered similar homegrown D-I playoff theories. Most of the models called for no more than eight spots in a D-I playoff, unlike the 16 that we laid out on the show.

Here's my problem with an 8-team bracket: there are 119 teams currently playing Division I football, from Air Force to Wyoming, with a handful of independents sprinkled in between 11 conferences. The talent level, financial commitment, and track record of teams in these 11 conferences vary widely - there's an enormous difference between Florida International in the Sun Belt and Florida in the SEC. Yet, the NCAA considers them "equals," in the sense that both are Division I football programs.



Equals? Yeah, ummm...no.





In my view, if we're going to have a true Division I national champ, we have to take every Division I program into account. That means automatic bids for every Division I conference champion -- 11 bids, right off the top. Throw in 5 at-large bids to round out the field, and there's your bracket of 16. If we separate the "power" conferences from the weaker sisters - as many of the 8-team models require - we're no better than the current BCS format, a subjective list of criteria that produces a subjective title game, with no real basis for calling itself the "national championship."

While the "all D-I teams are equal" logic is flawless, it's nine miles from reality. As any fan knows, not all Division I conferences are created equal, and neither are all Division I football programs. Though the NCAA considers them both "Division I," there's no way that Eastern Michigan can compete on a regular basis with Michigan. Then again, you would have said the same thing about Rutgers as recently as two years ago. Hold that thought.

Of those 119 Division I teams, how many have a legitimate shot at cracking the top 25 in a given year? If you take school size, football budget, ability to recruit, noteriety, and historical records into account, I can give you about 50. And of those 50, maybe half can make a serious, annual run at a national title.

Less than half, actually. I counted 22. I won't tell you which ones, but here's a hint: they're not in the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt, or WAC. What if, rather than fighting it, we simply acknowledged the fact that there's a dramatic discrepancy between the 119 Division I programs, and we quit pretending they're all on equal footing?

What if we split Division I programs into two subdivisions, one filled with teams that have the resources and commitment to compete for a national title, and one filled with schools that don't have the same assets? For the purposes of this argument, let's call them the Playoff Division and the Bowl Division.

Every D-I program plays a standard schedule, keeping current conference ties intact. However, the 50 teams in the Playoff Division (that number could change - stand by) are also playing for one of the 16 berths in the Division I bracket. If they miss the playoff, they can still accept bowl bids, which also happens to be the goal of teams in the Bowl Division.

Here's the catch: every year, based on their success or failure on the field, teams may be moved up into the Playoff Division or down into the Bowl Division. That's right, my fellow Americans - I'm talking about promotion and relegation, the model employed for years in European professional soccer leagues.



Is this wanker serious? Pour me a Guinness.





The trick would be to establish criteria by which teams move up and down. Simple win/loss record won't do it, because all 119 D-I teams obviously don't play each other every year (and everybody has hot years and cold years), but winning over an extended period of time would be rewarded. Perhaps we'll add a financial requirement to membership in the Playoff Division - schools must spend a certain amount of money on football to even be considered. Once we establish the criteria for moving up or down - and that's the tough part - the number of Playoff Division teams and Bowl Division teams would likely fluctuate from year to year.

Imagine the attention you'd bring to college football when a power program (Florida State, Miami) teeters toward demotion, while an upstart (Rutgers, Boise State) fights for promotion into the Playoff group. A two-tiered system in D-I would accomplish several goals: give us a true national champ, keep the bowl system intact, and reward teams that improve themselves on the field, while denying "power programs" the outlet of coasting on reputation. But it all keys on a universal admission that all Division I programs are not created equal.

If a playoff cannot work within the current Division I structure, maybe we change the structure. As it stands, a Division I playoff is our little Kobayashi Maru, a no-win scenario. Perhaps we should heed the example of Admiral James T. Kirk and change the conditions of the test.



Kirk out.

Division I Football Playoff, Realized

Can it work?

Logistics are no problem, as you're about to see. The real reason why a full-fledged Division I football playoff system will never come to pass lies in the root of all evil: Bread. Bank. Scratch. Shekles. Moolah. Benjamins. Net-net. Cash mo-nay. In other words, dollars, the very thing that created the BCS in the first place.

Simply put, the current bowl system is far too lucrative for local organizers, teams, stadiums, radio/TV rights-holders, hot dog vendors, etc. to blow it up in favor of a true playoff ladder. Now, if current bowls could somehow be incorporated into a playoff system - well, that's one inch closer to possible. But still unlikely.

Which brings me, again, to Tom Rados.

I've written about Tom before. He's in the Air Force, lives in Fort Walton Beach, and is currently stationed in Iraq. He's also a serious college football fan, and last year, he sent me his proposal for a D-I playoff system, which I outlined in that previous blog entry (probably worth a read, if you're still curious by this point). His model was based on 2005 results; on Monday's "Tailgate Overtime" show on Sun Sports, we applied the Rados Plan to 2006.

In case you're too lazy to jump back to the previous entry, here's the outline:

-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 9th).

Notes: this system requires an 11-game regular season as opposed to 12, which is immediately a stumbling block. Bowl games that are not a part of the playoff system - the "lower-tier" bowls - go off as scheduled, but bids are not extended until the end of the opening round. Teams that lose in the first round may still go to a lower-tier, non-playoff bowl game.

Also, for this 2006 model, we're assuming that the higher-ranked teams will win out. That means, for example, that Florida beats Florida State this week, then beats (lower-ranked) Arkansas in the SEC Championship game. It's just a model, and a simple method of filling out the 16-team bracket.

Got it? Here we go:

Saturday, December 9th, 2006

1 Ohio State (Big 10 Champ)
16 Middle Tenn. State (Projected Sun Belt Champ)

8 Notre Dame (at-large)
9 Texas (Proj. Big 12 Champ)

5 West Virginia (at-large)
12 Georgia Tech (Proj. ACC Champ)

4 Florida (Proj. SEC Champ)
13 BYU (Proj. MWC Champ)

That's the top half of the bracket. Again, every game is a home game for the higher-seeded team (which gives the 8 higher seeds one more home game, which will make them happy...however, it will do nothing for the 111 remaining D-I schools that use the 12th game as a moneymaker. Mmm.)

Bottom half of the bracket, played on the same day, December 9th:

6 Wisconsin (at-large)
11 Boise State (Projected WAC Champ)

3 USC (Proj. Pac-10 Champ)
14 Ohio (Proj. MAC Champ)

7 Louisville (Proj. Big East Champ)
10 Arkansas (at-large)

2 Michigan (at-large)
15 Houston (Proj. C-USA Champ)

A note on Arkansas as the 10 seed: it could be LSU or Auburn in that spot. We're assuming chalk, so Arkansas, the (currently) lower-ranked team, loses to Florida in the SEC title game and tumbles in the BCS standings. LSU and/or Auburn might jump Arkansas if that happens, but to keep it simple for the model, Arkansas gets in as an at-large team.

Also note that under our criteria, Rutgers gets snubbed. Plus, of the Arkansas-LSU-Auburn troika, two of those teams will miss the bracket. Playoffs are cold, huh?

Okay, so let's assume, for simplicity's sake, that the higher-ranked team wins in the first round. Bowl bids are not extended until after the first-round games are complete, and those teams that lost in Round One can still accept a bid to a non-playoff bowl game. The bowl games that are used for Round Two may elect to bid on a game that features a regional draw. The BCS bowls are not yet in play - those come later.

Round Two: Saturday, December 16th, 2006

1 Ohio State
8 Notre Dame
Music City Bowl, Nashville, TN

5 West Virginia
4 Florida
Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, FL

6 Wisconsin
3 USC
Holiday Bowl, San Diego, CA

7 Louisville
2 Michigan
Motor City Bowl, Detroit, MI

See how this works? Think "pods," as in the NCAA basketball tournament. Middle-tier bowls get playoff games that double as decent regional draws - Jacksonville gets the Gators, Detroit gets Michigan, San Diego gets Southern Cal, and Nashville gets, well, a bowl game about 4 million times more attractive than Minnesota-Virginia. While these "playoff" bowls serve as Round Two, the non-playoff bowls are doing their thing with any of the other bowl-eligible teams, including the eight that lost in Round One, if they desire.

Now, the BCS bowls come into play in the national semifinals and national championship game. Just like the old BCS, the title game rotates among the four top-level bowls each year, so every four years, each BCS bowl game will host one national championship, two national semifinal games, and one "BCS game" that differs little from the current system - that fourth game will pit the two best teams that didn't make the playoff ladder, or (in this model) perhaps the two highest-seeded teams that LOST in the opening round.

Round Three: Saturday, December 23rd, 2006
National Semifinals

Florida vs. Ohio State
Orange Bowl, Miami, FL

USC vs. Michigan
Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA

...and the "second chance" BCS bowl, which we're filling with the top-ranked losers from round one:

Texas vs. Arkansas/LSU/Auburn
Sugar Bowl, New Orleans, LA

Personally, I prefer the idea of a fourth BCS bowl each year that takes the top two teams who failed to qualify for the playoff bracket under our criteria. Using 2006 as the model, that could end up being Rutgers vs. Wake Forest, for example. The "second chance" theory of taking the top two first-round losers sorta flies in the face of a "playoff," doesn't it?

And finally:

Round Four: Monday, January 1st, 2007
National Championship

Semifinal Winner #1 vs. Semifinal Winner #2
Fiesta Bowl, Tempe, AZ

I didn't have the heart to write "Ohio State vs. Michigan" in there. Again, we went chalk through every game, with higher-seeded teams winning. We all know that won't happen, which is the beauty of a playoff.

Note that this model allows the National Championship game to be played on New Year's Day - as God intended - and actually ends the season one week earlier than the current BCS Championship Game format. Among other things, this avoids the one-month-plus layoff between a team's final game and a BCS bowl game - better for fans, with constant, meaningful game action, not so hot for coaches, who would probably prefer an extra month of practice to four straight weeks of game-planning and potential injury.

Random notes, from Tom's original model, which is now hermetically sealed in the Sun Sports vault: the middle-tier bowl games that currently serve as Round Two playoff sites can rotate from year to year. The "what about the regular season" argument is countered, at least partially, by the fact that the only SURE way to reach the lucrative playoff ladder is to win your conference - which makes Florida-Tennessee or Florida State-Miami just as compelling as they are right now. With 119 Division I programs competing for 11 guaranteed spots (and only 5 at-large bids), my view is that regular-season games wouldn't take a hit in terms of relevance.

I wrote earlier that incorporating existing bowls into a playoff structure might seem to be the best of all worlds, but I received an excellent e-mail on this point from our friend Charles Davis, who will call the BCS Championship Game in Glendale on Fox. As a former athletic administrator, Charles knows all too well the complexity of a local bowl committee, and the demands that a bowl game places on the two teams involved. As he pointed out:

"No program that's going into a playoff game is going to spend a week to 10 days in the bowl city, going to the bowl commitment events (lunches, dinners, sightseeing trips, etc.) before playing a game. And, IF you win, and you advance on to the next "bowl" game, how are you going to do that again, and possibly again? Then what about your fan base? Most people can make one bowl trip, not multiple...and which game will they choose to follow their team? It becomes a calculated gamble on the fans' part...from my point of view, if you make a playoff system, the existing bowls are dead, and they know it. Thus, their insistence on no playoff. The bowls have gone as far as they will with the BCS system. If you put a playoff in and ask them to still try to exist, they would fold up and go home before even attempting it. Then you would have a true playoff and you can call the games whatever you want to call them, but true bowl games they would not be any longer."

True dat. Which is why this model, while noble, faces serious hurdles.

Here's the big question: how desperately do you want a true national champion? Desperately enough to perhaps minimize the relevance of regular season games? Desperately enough to accept it when your team suffers the inevitable stunning upset in Round Two? Desperately enough to support your team through four weeks in December by spending three of those weeks (and your money) on the road? Desperately enough to create a playoff ladder that is completely independent of the existing bowl system, thereby removing 11 conference champions and the 5 best remaining teams in the country from consideration for existing bowls? How much does it matter to you?

On the other hand, under the current system, every regular season game is a happening, a cataclysmic event. Fans can target one bowl game - and only one bowl game - on which to spend their time and hard-earned travel dollars. Go back to the top of this lengthy entry: money talks. Financially, a D-I playoff would be an enormous challenge to support, as Charles so eloquently expresses.

But it's not impossible, which was the whole point. Just ask yourself: how bad do you want it?

An SOS For Strength Of Schedule

Okay, this one has bothered me for a while.

At Florida's official website, you can find complete football schedules for 2007 and 2008, but no further. Florida State's website lists complete ACC schedules for the Seminoles out to 2015, with sporadic one-offs and two-game series penciled in - a home-and-home with Colorado in '07 and '08, another one with BYU in '09 and '10 - but no game times, and no full 12-game slates decided beyond next season.

Point being, football schedules are fluid, rarely set in stone more than two years out. Everyone knows this. Why, then, do I routinely hear the experts tell me that Rutgers' chances of playing for a national title are weakened by their non-conference schedule?

Hear me out. The unbeaten Scarlet Knights opened their 2006 schedule with a non-conference murderer's row of North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Howard, and Navy. Let's agree that Rutgers set this schedule two years ago. It may have been earlier, but I'm going with the Florida/FSU model.

In 2004 - when Rutgers' 2006 schedule was most likely finalized - North Carolina was a 6-6 team, with wins over Georgia Tech and Miami(!), plus a 3-point loss to Virginia Tech. Navy had a renaissance year in '04, going 10-2 with a decisive win over New Mexico in the Emerald Bowl. For what it's worth, Howard was a winning team in 2004, albeit a winning team in I-AA. Surely you remember that the Bison had the best scoring defense and total defense in the MEAC (hey, who didn't know that?)

Illinois and Ohio were terrible in 2004, just as Rutgers placed them on the schedule for 2006. No getting around it. However, you could argue that the other three non-conference games that Rutgers scheduled for the 2006 season looked halfway decent on paper when said paper was written two years ago.

Think about it. In 2004, Rutgers was a 4-7 team, coming off five straight years of 7 losses or more, including a stellar 1-11 campaign in '02. You're Greg Schiano. You went 3-24 in conference games in your first four years on the job. Now you've got to fill out your schedule for 2006, still two years away.

After all the phone calls and exchanging of contracts, here's what you came up with for non-conference games in 2006: an ACC school (on the road), a Big 10 school, two layups against Ohio and Howard (well, layups for schools that didn't go 3-24 in their conference in the previous four years), and a road game against a service academy with a recent run of success and a bowl bid that year. Is that so embarrassing? Would you not consider that to be a decent non-conference test, remembering that your program has been utter dreck for the last ten years, and you're basing your '06 schedule at least partially on '04 performance?

In other words: why does Rutgers get punished now because the teams they scheduled two years ago happened to suck when it finally came to game time '06? It's not like Schiano was ducking anybody. To repeat: he was 3-24 in his conference by the time he set his schedule for 2006. If I were in his shoes, I'd be scheduling twelve Howards and Ohios for '06. But he didn't.

Let's be honest. Rutgers' non-conference schedule isn't the problem. The problem is still the Big East, or the perception of the Big East. Louisville and West Virginia (and, to some extent, Pittsburgh) have been lavished with love this year because they're familiar, successful programs. They play on national television on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. They're fun to watch. The assumption that their success somehow lifts the entire Big East football landscape is dicey, however, and Rutgers proves it. For that matter, so does USF, a program less than ten years old with back-to-back bowl-eligible seasons and zero recognition outside of Florida.

Based solely on wins and losses, we should be talking about Rutgers as a potential national championship participant, and we should be talking about USF as the first school in Florida with a legit shot at expanding the Big Three. The fact that we're not doing so is more a testament to the Big East's image problem than any concern about non-conference scheduling. This is not an indictment of the Big East, by the way - it's an indictment of the hundreds of stupid mitigating factors that continue to exclude the great majority of the 119 Division I programs from any conversation involving the phrase "national championship." Stuff like non-conference schedules.

The solution? Play it off. Don't get me started.

But should you happen to be near a television this coming Monday at 6pm, "Tailgate Overtime" on Sun Sports may have a little something for you.

Best Of Both Worlds?

Ed Goren, the president and executive producer of Fox Sports, recently granted an interview to John Henderson of the Denver Post in which Mr. Goren discussed the new Bowl Championship Series television contract, which moves to Fox this season. Fox's new deal coincides with the advent of the "double-hosting" format, wherein the four BCS money bowls - the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, and Rose - will take turns hosting a 1-versus-2 BCS National Championship Game one week after the bowl game itself. The first of these championship games will take place at the new Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on January 8, 2007, one week after the Fiesta Bowl at the same site.

Football watchers, including Henderson, might wonder if Fox, the network that brought you music under highlights, glowing pucks, and "American Idol," plans to lobby the BCS and/or conference administrators for another BCS 'tweak,' one that could better ensure a return on Fox's investment by guaranteeing a true 1-versus-2 title game every year. Something resembling, say, a playoff system.

"First off, I do not believe we have a lot of influence," Mr. Goren said in response. "When we negotiated this deal we were very specific: It's your event. It's your sport. If you want suggestions along the way, we certainly have opinions. But we don't run it. And we're happy with the way it is right now."

'Right now,' in this case, is the honeymoon period of a new contract, just a few months after the BCS produced perhaps the greatest national championship game of our lifetimes. It would be much tougher, as Henderson pointed out, for Fox to "stand on the sidelines" had this deal been signed after the 2001 season, when Nebraska played for the BCS title despite getting creamed by Colorado just weeks earlier. Or, for that matter, after the '03 season, when Oklahoma reached the BCS title game after being hammered by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game.

Not even the staunchest BCS critics could argue that Texas-USC was the wrong game in '05. If I were Mr. Goren, I'd be pretty happy right now, too.

(Seeing as how Mr. Goren is the head sports honcho at Fox, the parent company of Sun Sports, may I add that he's a handsome man, a snappy dresser, and an excellent dancer.)

The NCAA conducts national championships in a playoff format in more than 30 sports at the Division I level, including rifle, skiing, field hockey, and little shindigs they call March Madness and the College World Series. In Division I-AA, Division II, and Division III, football joins the list as a playoff sport. Under the NCAA's broad playoff scope, D-I football stands alone.

Reasons for avoiding a D-I football playoff have been well-documented. The D-I conference commissioners and school presidents fall back on this one: a playoff system would extend the season through December and potentially into January, placing undue pressure on student-athletes during exams.

Funny, you rarely hear such concern from the presidents of schools in I-AA, D-II, or D-III, all of whom have student-athletes competing for spots in a football playoff that extends through late December. I guess the curriculum at schools like Furman, Hobart, and Johns Hopkins - all playoff teams last year - is far less rigorous than that of the AP Top 25.

Riiiight.

Questions of scheduling aside, the most powerful deterrent for a D-I playoff system was clearly expressed in the Denver Post article by Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen, who laid it out in a refreshing - and perhaps inadvertent - display of honesty:

"We much prefer the bowl system. It's my feeling, and shared by many, that if you had a playoff, say eight teams, most of the bowls would go away because they'd be pretty much inconsequential."

And there you have it. First rule of investigative journalism: follow the money.

Bowl games make money. They make money for local organizers, for the communities that host them, and for the teams that play them. If that weren't true, there wouldn't be thirty of 'em scheduled this fall. Further, bowl organizers know that the way to maximize impact (and profit) is to position the game as the ultimate goal; the last stop for the two teams involved. They fear that a subsequent playoff would render their bowl game irrelevant. Fair enough.

But what if we could have it both ways?

Let me introduce you, via blog, to MSgt Charles T. ("Tom") Rados of the United States Air Force. MSgt Rados lives in Fort Walton Beach, and is a "dedicated fan of college football," as he told me in an e-mail last December. In that e-mail, and in follow-up documents that displayed an impressive level of research, Tom has attempted to create a Division I football playoff system that keeps the current bowls intact, but still crowns a national champion via playoff. He used last year's schedule as his example, and created a bracket that resulted in, yep, Texas versus USC. I've combed it several times, and will lay it out here, with a couple of personal tweaks. MSgt Rados's comments are noted in italics.

A few qualifiers:

-D-I teams must be limited to 11 regular-season games. Right off the top, that's a serious hurdle. The 12th game is potentially one more home game for a power program like Florida, Florida State, or Miami; one more chance to sell 70,000+ tickets, three and a half hours' worth of TV/radio/in-stadium advertising, and tons of food, drink, and souvenirs. Home games make money, too. But in the spirit of competition: how about 11 meaningful regular-season games?

-Under this format, teams must win their conference to qualify for the playoffs. Independent teams will be at the mercy of the BCS rankings. That produces 11 conference champs, and 11 playoff berths.

-Five at-large bids will be filled using the current BCS ranking system, giving us a 16-team field for our Division I playoff.

-Among those 16 teams, the BCS standings will determine seeding. Teams that made the field of 16 but were not ranked in the BCS will be placed on the ladder according to overall record, with ties broken by conference record. Using that criteria, here's how the first round would have looked in 2005, based on actual performance of the teams involved (the number before each team is their mythical playoff seed):

1 USC vs. 16 Arkansas State
8 Miami vs. 9 Auburn
5 Oregon vs. 12 Florida State
4 Ohio State vs. 13 Boise State
6 Notre Dame vs. 11 TCU
3 Penn State vs. 14 Tulsa
7 Georgia vs. 10 West Virginia
2 Texas vs. 15 Akron

Two notes on the mythical 2005 bracket: one, a Miami-Auburn first-round matchup is an excellent example of why I'm warming to this idea. And two, kinda eerie that Georgia and West Virginia, who met for real in the '05 Sugar Bowl, meet in the first round here.

What next, MSgt Rados?

The first round of the playoffs would be home games for the higher seeds. I'm not sure about that one. One reason why the 5-12 matchup at March Madness is considered even money is precisely because of the neutral site. On last year's schedule, opening round games would be played on December 10th, one week after most conference championship games.

For simplicity, I picked all the higher seeds to win...teams that lost in the opening round still qualify to play in a bowl game.

Interesting. We have 8 first-round winners, so we'll need four bowl-playoff games for the second round. The 8 first-round losers may now accept bids for bowl games that do not factor into the playoff system that year. In a sense, the first-round losers could have as many as three postseason games: their conference championship game (if they have one), their first-round loss, and a subsequent bowl game.

After the first-round games, the bowls not included in the playoff bracket start extending their bids, and the non-playoff-bowl season goes off as usual. Meanwhile, the winners in the first round move on, playing each other according to seeding. Here's MSgt Rados's scenario from 2005, with games played on December 17th:

1 USC vs. 8 Miami - Poinsettia Bowl
5 Oregon vs. 4 Ohio State - Music City Bowl
6 Notre Dame vs. 3 Penn State - Motor City Bowl
7 Georgia vs. 2 Texas - Cotton Bowl

His note: I picked the [second-round] playoff bowl games at random, trying to provide a close home game for the higher-seeded team. This does not have to be the system at all. Over the years, bowls could bid for selection as a playoff bowl.

Tom also notes that last year, the Motor City Bowl featured Memphis against Akron. Under his format, they would have had Notre Dame and Penn State. I wonder which game would have sold more tickets.

Let's assume the higher seeds win again. National semifinals, December 24th, 2005:

1 USC vs. 4 Ohio State - Fiesta Bowl
3 Penn State vs. 2 Texas - Sugar Bowl

Remember, the four BCS bowls still rotate hosting the true national title game each year. Two of them get those national semifinal games, one gets a "consolation" game (a weak link, in my view - tough to convince the Rose/Sugar/Fiesta/Orange people to take that matchup once every four years), and one gets the title game.

Here it is, with higher seeds winning again:

January 3rd: West Virginia vs. Alabama - Orange Bowl (his note: Bowl selection Sunday would be on December 11th, after the first round. On that day, the "consolation" bowl - in this case, the Orange - gets first pick of the two best teams not playing in the second round, or otherwise not in the mix. In this case, the Orange picks 10-2 West Virginia against 9-2 Alabama.

January 4th: 1 USC vs. 2 Texas - Rose Bowl

His postscripts: With 11-game seasons, no team would play more than 16 total games. That is only three more than USC and Texas played in 2005...the season does not go any longer than the current bowl schedule...coaches get continuity week to week instead of the four-week layoff period before a major bowl game.

Logistically, this is pretty close to workable. Philosophically - and I explained this to MSgt Rados in several e-mails - it's a challenge.

The Rados System places an enormous premium on winning your conference, which, to a football purist like me, is fine. However, this system removes much of the flexibility currently enjoyed by bowl committees in selecting teams. Examples: the Poinsettia Bowl will always have one eye on Navy, given the enormous military presence in San Diego. The Citrus Bowl in Orlando loves Midwestern teams like Wisconsin, because they always travel well. The reverse is true for Miami, which historically does not travel many fans and must be viewed cautiously by any bowl game that's not on the highest tier. It would take spectacular diplomatic effort to convince all thirty bowls to buy into this system and voluntarily cede their right to invite teams that generate interest at the gate.

In short, a playoff CAN be achieved using the current bowl system. An Air Force master sergeant just laid it out for you with 16 teams - I would think that a commission of athletic directors, school presidents, and conference commissioners could easily knock out a playoff script for, say, eight teams. But given the number of cooks in the kitchen, the odds are stacked. Still, it's an intriguing concept, one that, in some form, could finally produce an honest national champion in Division I college football.

By the way, I sent MSgt Rados an e-mail with a link to this blog, and received a response that confirmed its faithfulness to his model - "There were about 10 Air Force folks reading it over my shoulder and all completely agreed with your comments as well as mine," he wrote.

Tom also mentioned that he has asked his wife to tape all the Monday night episodes of our new "Tailgate Overtime" program that he may miss, starting in November - when he deploys to Iraq.

Note to Mr. Goren, conference commissioners, and organizers of the BCS: I've saved Tom's Air Force e-mail address. He'll be a little busy this winter, but you might want to drop him a line someday.