Part of me wants to like the idea of an FBS college football playoff. It really, really does. But I'd like it more if teams played more games per year, which would involve greater player compensation, and probably eliminating most postseason bowl games outside the playoff, and automatic bids for every conference champion, and probably some kind of Notre Dame clause ...
By the time we'd arrive at a satisfying playoff setup, you'd have gotten rid of so much of what makes college football unique, and special to me. So since I've decided to go all-or-nothing, I'll examine the "nothing" option—which is really more of an alternative to a playoff. I call it the variable and-1 system.
The system consists of a set of premier bowls and a national championship game, not unlike the BCS and CFP. In this example, I'm taking five bowls as my premier games. They are 5 of the current New Year's Six games; four were previously BCS bowls, as well. I'll begin by assigning them their traditional conference tie-ins.
Rose Bowl: Big Ten champion vs. Pac-12 champion
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 champion vs. at-large team
Orange Bowl: ACC champion vs. at-large team
Sugar Bowl: SEC champion vs. at-large team
The fifth game, the Fiesta Bowl, would most always consist of two at-large teams—except for a special case which I'll explain later.
Using teams from last year, I'm going to imagine how such a system would look.
Let's assume a couple things, first:
-The team ranking used would be some sort of computer rating system. I'll use my own "NOPOLL" index, shown below.
-Since the Fiesta Bowl wouldn't normally have a conference tie-in, they will have first pick from the at-large teams.
-The Group of 5 could have a guarantee to have their top-ranked champion in a premier bowl, as is currently the case.
-The Sugar, Cotton and Orange Bowls would pick in order of their automatic bids' rankings, from greatest to least. In this case, it would go Sugar-Orange-Cotton. This helps create compelling matchups in the initial games.
Sugar: #1 Alabama (13-0) vs. #7 Michigan (10-2)
Orange: #2 Clemson (13-0) vs. #4 Georgia (11-2)
Cotton: #5 Oklahoma (12-1) vs. #8 UCF (12-0)
Rose: #6 Ohio State (12-1) vs. #10 Washington (10-3)
Fiesta: #3 Notre Dame (12-0) vs. #9 LSU (9-3)
(If Alabama and Georgia were not both SEC teams, Georgia would be in the Sugar Bowl. Let's assume bowls still don't want conference rematches.)
These matchups, and the teams left out, immediately make me want to introduce one additional clause. Any bowl with an at-large spot may pass on a team for a lower-ranked one, if and only if the lower-ranked team has a better record than the team being passed on. This would allow #12 Washington State to be selected, probably by the Fiesta Bowl, in lieu of LSU, Texas A&M or Florida. Thus, it would promote a variety of teams, conferences and fandoms represented within the Premier 5.
What happens next? As this is the variable and-1 system, the national championship game is that and-1, and would be played between the two best teams out of the five winners of these premier bowls.
This gives 10 teams a chance to play for a national title. It can even be done without playing too many games. Plus, it restores original conference tie-ins and the factor of tradition that I love about college football.
I realize this setup would have meant that we could have had up to 3 undefeated teams at the end of 2018. I don't care. This system reduces the margin for error that such teams have. Being undefeated doesn't automatically give a team a right to claim to be the best. I say this as a Notre Dame fan whose team could have been impacted here.
One last possibility still needs to be addressed: what if the Big Ten and Pac-12 have the top 2 teams? Wouldn't that mean the Rose Bowl would be the real national championship? Under any other circumstances, at least one of the top 2 would be the champion in a different conference, and this 1-vs-2 Premier 5 matchup would be avoided.
I have an easy solution: in this situation, the Fiesta Bowl would take over the automatic bid for the #2 team. If, say, Michigan and Oregon end up the top 2 teams at the end of a season, Michigan would go to the Rose Bowl while Oregon would head to the Fiesta Bowl. After the other three bowls receive their auto-bid teams, the Rose and Fiesta Bowls would also have first picks from among the at-large pool, followed by those other three.
Anything here you see that I don't? How can such a system be improved? Do you just flat-out disagree with the premise of scrapping the playoff for this system? Be sure to leave any thoughts in the comments here, and don't forget to subscribe if you'd enjoy seeing more college football coverage from my perspective.
By the time we'd arrive at a satisfying playoff setup, you'd have gotten rid of so much of what makes college football unique, and special to me. So since I've decided to go all-or-nothing, I'll examine the "nothing" option—which is really more of an alternative to a playoff. I call it the variable and-1 system.
The system consists of a set of premier bowls and a national championship game, not unlike the BCS and CFP. In this example, I'm taking five bowls as my premier games. They are 5 of the current New Year's Six games; four were previously BCS bowls, as well. I'll begin by assigning them their traditional conference tie-ins.
Rose Bowl: Big Ten champion vs. Pac-12 champion
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 champion vs. at-large team
Orange Bowl: ACC champion vs. at-large team
Sugar Bowl: SEC champion vs. at-large team
The fifth game, the Fiesta Bowl, would most always consist of two at-large teams—except for a special case which I'll explain later.
Using teams from last year, I'm going to imagine how such a system would look.
Let's assume a couple things, first:
-The team ranking used would be some sort of computer rating system. I'll use my own "NOPOLL" index, shown below.
 |
| My computer ratings, following conference championships and before any bowl games. Bowls shown for each team were my projections at this point in time last year. |
-Since the Fiesta Bowl wouldn't normally have a conference tie-in, they will have first pick from the at-large teams.
-The Group of 5 could have a guarantee to have their top-ranked champion in a premier bowl, as is currently the case.
-The Sugar, Cotton and Orange Bowls would pick in order of their automatic bids' rankings, from greatest to least. In this case, it would go Sugar-Orange-Cotton. This helps create compelling matchups in the initial games.
Sugar: #1 Alabama (13-0) vs. #7 Michigan (10-2)
Orange: #2 Clemson (13-0) vs. #4 Georgia (11-2)
Cotton: #5 Oklahoma (12-1) vs. #8 UCF (12-0)
Rose: #6 Ohio State (12-1) vs. #10 Washington (10-3)
Fiesta: #3 Notre Dame (12-0) vs. #9 LSU (9-3)
(If Alabama and Georgia were not both SEC teams, Georgia would be in the Sugar Bowl. Let's assume bowls still don't want conference rematches.)
These matchups, and the teams left out, immediately make me want to introduce one additional clause. Any bowl with an at-large spot may pass on a team for a lower-ranked one, if and only if the lower-ranked team has a better record than the team being passed on. This would allow #12 Washington State to be selected, probably by the Fiesta Bowl, in lieu of LSU, Texas A&M or Florida. Thus, it would promote a variety of teams, conferences and fandoms represented within the Premier 5.
What happens next? As this is the variable and-1 system, the national championship game is that and-1, and would be played between the two best teams out of the five winners of these premier bowls.
This gives 10 teams a chance to play for a national title. It can even be done without playing too many games. Plus, it restores original conference tie-ins and the factor of tradition that I love about college football.
I realize this setup would have meant that we could have had up to 3 undefeated teams at the end of 2018. I don't care. This system reduces the margin for error that such teams have. Being undefeated doesn't automatically give a team a right to claim to be the best. I say this as a Notre Dame fan whose team could have been impacted here.
One last possibility still needs to be addressed: what if the Big Ten and Pac-12 have the top 2 teams? Wouldn't that mean the Rose Bowl would be the real national championship? Under any other circumstances, at least one of the top 2 would be the champion in a different conference, and this 1-vs-2 Premier 5 matchup would be avoided.
I have an easy solution: in this situation, the Fiesta Bowl would take over the automatic bid for the #2 team. If, say, Michigan and Oregon end up the top 2 teams at the end of a season, Michigan would go to the Rose Bowl while Oregon would head to the Fiesta Bowl. After the other three bowls receive their auto-bid teams, the Rose and Fiesta Bowls would also have first picks from among the at-large pool, followed by those other three.
Anything here you see that I don't? How can such a system be improved? Do you just flat-out disagree with the premise of scrapping the playoff for this system? Be sure to leave any thoughts in the comments here, and don't forget to subscribe if you'd enjoy seeing more college football coverage from my perspective.
Comments
Post a Comment