Thursday, November 29, 2007

More calls for a college football playoff

Yahoo! sports columnist Dan Wetzel called for a college football playoff this week. And his plan is closest to the plan I've been promoting for a couple of years.

Wetzel calls for a 16-team tournament. The 11 conference champions, plus 5 at-large teams. He'd seed them in BCS standings order (or some similar formula).

I've been suggesting almost the same thing. The 11 conference champs, plus 5 at-large teams. Only, I'd follow the NFL pattern of the conference champs taking the top spots, and the at-large teams taking the bottom slots.

In the NFL, the division champs take the top sports, in a seeding order based on record. They fill in with "wild card" teams, the best teams that didn't win the division.

Mine is similar. The college "at-large" teams would be the equivalent of the "wild card" teams. That's the reason I say put them at the bottom of the seedings.

Wetzel removes the playoff teams from the bowls. I don't. My plan allows teams bumped in the first round ... or even the first two rounds ... to remain bowl-bound.

For instance, most would expect the MAC, Sun Belt, or C-USA champs to be bumped in the first or second round. They'd still get a bowl invite. I mean, the GMAC Bowl or the Las Vegas bowl wouldn't mind having a playoff team playing, would they?

Wetzel says lots of folks have supported his plan. I'm not in that group. Not 100%, that is.

His plan is better than the current BCS screwed up situation. But I think mine's better. But Wetzel's plan is close. Awfully close.

1 comment:

  1. All thinking people agree there should be a playoff, but most of us also like the bowls, too. The idea that I have read that you have seems like one of the best that I have seen, but I want to be able to use hard statistical data to have power rankings. If for some reason, Boise State or Hawaii gets matched with LSU or Florida, do you think that is a good game? I just can't see it, but I know when Mizzou and West Virginia are 1 and 2, my flesh crawls and I bet the jawing heads at the BCS are feeling the same thing.

    Like the Champion of the SEC should just get to pay in the D-I Championship Game automatically. Yea, that seems right, and Ohio State has to play eight games after the season to get INTO the playoffs.

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