Monday, December 3, 2007

College football playoff pairings

I've been promoting the best plan for a college football playoffs.

Simply put, it's the winners of the 11 major conferences taking the top 11 seeds, then 5 at-large or wild-card teams thrown into the mix, making a field of 16. Their seedings are by BCS standards. Non-BCS rated teams (the non-BCS-locked conference champs, usually) are seeded by winning percentage, then by head-to-head, then coin flip or drawing.

Keep in mind that conference champions are seeded first, then the wild-card/at-large teams. Some odd seedings, unless you consider that winning the conference is important. Just like in every other sport, at every other level.

Here are the seeds, with their conference, their record, and final BCS standings:
  1. Ohio State (Big 10; 11-1; #1)
  2. LSU (Southeastern; 11-2; #2)
  3. Virginia Tech (Atlantic Coast; 11-2; #3)
  4. Oklahoma (Big 12; 11-2; #4)
  5. Southern California (Pacific 10; 10-2; #7)
  6. West Virginia (Big East; 10-2; #9)
  7. Hawaii (Western Athletic; 12-0; #10)
  8. Brigham Young (Mountain West; 10-2; #17)
  9. Central Florida (Conference USA; 10-3; NR)
  10. Central Michigan (Mid American; 7-5; NR)
  11. Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt; 7-5; NR)
  12. Georgia (wild card, Southeastern; 10-2; #5)
  13. Missouri (wild card, Big 12; 11-2; #6)
  14. Kansas (wild card, Big 12; 11-1; #8)
  15. Arizona State (wild card, Pacific 10; 10-2; #11)
  16. Florida (wild card, Southeastern; 9-3; #12)
Notice that the top 12 teams in the final BCS standings all make the cut, with the number 17 team, and 3 unranked teams (but conference champions) filling it out.

However, does it seem right that Florida Atlantic or Central Michigan are seeded above Georgia, Missouri, et al?

Of course not.

Except that they won their conference. And winning the conference means something. And you get rewarded. Just like in every other sport. At every other level.

So, with those seedings, here are the pairings.
  • Florida at Ohio State
  • Arizona State at LSU
  • Kansas at Virginia Tech
  • Missouri at Oklahoma
  • Georgia at Southern California
  • Florida Atlantic at West Virginia
  • Central Michigan at Hawaii
  • Central Florida at Brigham Young
Of those 8 games, 5 should be good games. 3 should be blow-outs. However, in this crazy year with this crazy game called college football, you never know what would happen.

Anyhow, the 8 winners would play the following week. The top 4 remaining seeds would host the bottom 4 remaining seeds. Oh, and the 8 losers would get bowl invitations. Pretty good bowl invitations, in all likelihood.

The "final four" would play in conjunction with a bowl, in my plan. And the championship game could be a bowl, or a separate game. Don't matter.

I like my plan much better than what they got going on today.

Any team -- even Central Florida, Central Michigan, or Florida Atlantic -- that makes it through that tournament, deserves to be called national champions.

4 comments:

  1. Too complicated. Big 10 champ vs SEC champ. Makes sense to me. No one ran the table this year so go with the 2 toughest conferences. You are making this way too complicated.

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  2. Hawaii ran the table. And this playoff setup gives them, and every conference champion, plus the best of the rest, a chance to take home the gold. Or crystal.

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  3. To comment on Mr. Surber's comment, the Big 10 (11) is not even the fourth best conference this year. Sorry, Mr. Surber, I respect the Hell outta you, but you couldn't be further off base on this one. Damn, that hurt for me.

    I can accept the conference champions getting the top slots, IF they play a conference championship game, until that time, tOSU shall never have a chance to ever play in the BCS, right, Basil? And by BCS, I mean the Basil Championship Series, which is what it should be called.

    And does strength of schedule and power ranking have any weight in determining the seeding and the at-large bids? I do know that this has very good possibilities, because yet again, tOSU is going to get badly embarrassed in the Championship Game offering further proof that we should simply call the winner of the SEC Championship Game the National Champion.

    Oh, and forbid any Heisman candidates from tOSU for ten years, with the fiasco that was one Troy Smith. Yeah, he was the best college player in the country last year. R-I-G-H-T.

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  4. If Hawaii was undefeated, why weren't they ranked number one?
    Even though you have tried to inform me, I do not understand football. sigh...

    ReplyDelete

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