My College Football Tournament Plan
The first BCS poll was released this week, and the way the college football season has gone so far this year, it seems like we could be potentially be on a collision course of about 10 1-loss teams vying for the 2 spots in the national title game. The polls will be biased, people will complain, someone will get left out, and we'll have the same old story all over again. Ryan already wrote a preemptive strike against this post 2 days ago, but I have a plan that I think will work and some counterpoints for Ryan...
My plan is pretty simple. Much like the NCAA basketball tournament, take all 11 division 1-A conference champions and 5 at-large teams to make a 16 team tournament. The 5 at large teams would be the top 5 teams in the BCS that did not win a conference championship. The seeding in the tournament would be the order they finished in the BCS, regardless of whether or not they won the conference title. This method only essentially allows the poll makers to choose 5 teams to play for the national title because the 11 conference champs are out of their control. There could be some complaints over the at large spots but the last team out would more than likely be a team that already lost to 1 or 2 of the teams that make the tournament.
Ryan addressed this format in his post, saying that including all conference champions would have anti-climatic games. In the first round, yes, there probably would be some, but the NCAA basketball tournament has plenty as well, and for that matter, who really cares? I'd like to see this tournament happen mostly for entertainment value alone. The college basketball tournament is one of the most entertaining events in sports because you can cheer on the underdogs in the first 2 rounds and then see some spectacular matchups in the later rounds. This is exactly what you would see in this tournament. While the #1 seed would get to throttle the MAC champion in the first round, they would then (for example if the favorites won below) have to beat the Pac-10, SEC, and Big East champs 3 weeks in a row to win the title. Also, speaking of the MAC champion, Ryan mentioned that the Motor City Bowl is their way of getting media attention each year. In my tournament, instead of facing the 7th place team in the Big Ten on ESPN2 sometime around Christmas, they would get to play against a national powerhouse that, if they were to win, would bring an unbelievable amount of attention to their little liberal arts school conference. And if they get blown out? It's not really a big deal, because no one expects them to win anyways. The MAC gets plenty of chances during the regular season to beat crappy Big Ten teams, so what's the point of letting them do it again?
I don't want to get rid of the bowl system as it is today, and my no means would a tournament make the bowls obsolete. Why? Because all bowl games except for the BCS national championship game are completely meaningless already. A matchup between the 4th place ACC team and 5th place SEC team is meaningless. When Purdue had a magical season and went to the Rose Bowl 7 years ago, it was meaningless. The BCS system as it is today sets up a national title game and the winner of that 1 game is the national champion. All other games are just glorified exhibitions with only pride on the line. I don't see any reason to get rid of these games with a tournament in place, because once again, they can be entertaining, and good for the players. These games could make nice weekday filler between the Saturday tournament games.
Speaking of logistics, I'm not even going to get into the academic argument, because it is absolutely ridiculous. Most big time college football players only take school seriously enough to remain academically eligible, and it works in basketball with a much more hectic schedule. This system wouldn't add too many extra games either. All 16 of the teams that qualify would make it to a bowl, so only the 8 first round winners would play more games than usual, with just 4 teams playing 2 extra games, and 2 teams playing 3 extra. As for the games themselves, I would propose rotating the semi-finals and championship game between Pasadena, Miami, and Glendale each year and have a semi-home field advantage for the higher seeds in the first 2 rounds. I got into more details on this last year on Is It Sports? but I think it would be interesting for each conference to have a home "neutral" location to host the game to save on some travel for the teams most likely to advance deep into the tournament.
So if the season ended after this past week's ranks, here is how the tournament would look. I guess we'll see where South Florida stands next week after their loss tonight. I broke conference title and multiple division ties based on higher BCS rank for now, but by the end of the season we'll have clear cut conference champs.
ACC: Boston College (3)
Big 12: Oklahoma (5)
Big East: South Florida (2)
Big Ten: Ohio State (1)
C-USA: Tulsa (NR)
MAC: Central Michigan (NR)
Mountain West: BYU (NR)
PAC-10: Arizona State (8)
SEC: LSU (4)
Sun Belt: Troy (NR)
WAC: Hawaii (18)
At Large Teams: South Carolina (6), Kentucky (7), West Virginia (9), Oregon (10), Virginia Tech (11)
First Round Matchups
#1 Ohio State vs. #16 Central Michigan
#8 Arizona State vs. #9 West Virginia
#4 LSU vs. #13 BYU
#5 Oklahoma vs. #12 Hawaii
#3 Boston College vs. #14 Troy
#6 South Carolina vs. #11 Virginia Tech
#7 Kentucky vs. #10 Oregon
#2 South Florida vs. #15 Tulsa
My plan is pretty simple. Much like the NCAA basketball tournament, take all 11 division 1-A conference champions and 5 at-large teams to make a 16 team tournament. The 5 at large teams would be the top 5 teams in the BCS that did not win a conference championship. The seeding in the tournament would be the order they finished in the BCS, regardless of whether or not they won the conference title. This method only essentially allows the poll makers to choose 5 teams to play for the national title because the 11 conference champs are out of their control. There could be some complaints over the at large spots but the last team out would more than likely be a team that already lost to 1 or 2 of the teams that make the tournament.
Ryan addressed this format in his post, saying that including all conference champions would have anti-climatic games. In the first round, yes, there probably would be some, but the NCAA basketball tournament has plenty as well, and for that matter, who really cares? I'd like to see this tournament happen mostly for entertainment value alone. The college basketball tournament is one of the most entertaining events in sports because you can cheer on the underdogs in the first 2 rounds and then see some spectacular matchups in the later rounds. This is exactly what you would see in this tournament. While the #1 seed would get to throttle the MAC champion in the first round, they would then (for example if the favorites won below) have to beat the Pac-10, SEC, and Big East champs 3 weeks in a row to win the title. Also, speaking of the MAC champion, Ryan mentioned that the Motor City Bowl is their way of getting media attention each year. In my tournament, instead of facing the 7th place team in the Big Ten on ESPN2 sometime around Christmas, they would get to play against a national powerhouse that, if they were to win, would bring an unbelievable amount of attention to their little liberal arts school conference. And if they get blown out? It's not really a big deal, because no one expects them to win anyways. The MAC gets plenty of chances during the regular season to beat crappy Big Ten teams, so what's the point of letting them do it again?I don't want to get rid of the bowl system as it is today, and my no means would a tournament make the bowls obsolete. Why? Because all bowl games except for the BCS national championship game are completely meaningless already. A matchup between the 4th place ACC team and 5th place SEC team is meaningless. When Purdue had a magical season and went to the Rose Bowl 7 years ago, it was meaningless. The BCS system as it is today sets up a national title game and the winner of that 1 game is the national champion. All other games are just glorified exhibitions with only pride on the line. I don't see any reason to get rid of these games with a tournament in place, because once again, they can be entertaining, and good for the players. These games could make nice weekday filler between the Saturday tournament games.
Speaking of logistics, I'm not even going to get into the academic argument, because it is absolutely ridiculous. Most big time college football players only take school seriously enough to remain academically eligible, and it works in basketball with a much more hectic schedule. This system wouldn't add too many extra games either. All 16 of the teams that qualify would make it to a bowl, so only the 8 first round winners would play more games than usual, with just 4 teams playing 2 extra games, and 2 teams playing 3 extra. As for the games themselves, I would propose rotating the semi-finals and championship game between Pasadena, Miami, and Glendale each year and have a semi-home field advantage for the higher seeds in the first 2 rounds. I got into more details on this last year on Is It Sports? but I think it would be interesting for each conference to have a home "neutral" location to host the game to save on some travel for the teams most likely to advance deep into the tournament.
So if the season ended after this past week's ranks, here is how the tournament would look. I guess we'll see where South Florida stands next week after their loss tonight. I broke conference title and multiple division ties based on higher BCS rank for now, but by the end of the season we'll have clear cut conference champs.
ACC: Boston College (3)
Big 12: Oklahoma (5)
Big East: South Florida (2)
Big Ten: Ohio State (1)
C-USA: Tulsa (NR)
MAC: Central Michigan (NR)
Mountain West: BYU (NR)
PAC-10: Arizona State (8)
SEC: LSU (4)
Sun Belt: Troy (NR)
WAC: Hawaii (18)
At Large Teams: South Carolina (6), Kentucky (7), West Virginia (9), Oregon (10), Virginia Tech (11)
First Round Matchups
#1 Ohio State vs. #16 Central Michigan
#8 Arizona State vs. #9 West Virginia
#4 LSU vs. #13 BYU
#5 Oklahoma vs. #12 Hawaii
#3 Boston College vs. #14 Troy
#6 South Carolina vs. #11 Virginia Tech
#7 Kentucky vs. #10 Oregon
#2 South Florida vs. #15 Tulsa
Labels: NCAA Football
posted by Steve | 12:38 AM
2 Comments:
Just because I don't want to make this entire week about college football when there are other things going on in the sporting world, here is my rebuttal in the comments.
I'm going to go paragraph by paragraph with my counterarguments, just for ease, and then summarize with a tidy little conclusion that I wish had been included in my main post.
First, if you held a gun to my head and made me pick a tournament format, I would use the one that Steve did. If we have 11 conferences, it should mean something if you win yours. I do still wonder why pollsters selecting 5 teams for a tournament is better than pollsters selecting 2. They already seem to be fraught with issues doing that, and the further you get from the top, the more muddled the picture is.
The fundamental difference between basketball and football, especially at the collegiate level, is that there isa great deal of luck involved in a basketball game, more so than in football. If a smaller school can hit threes like there is no tomorrow against a favorite, you're sure to see an upset. In college football, the physicality of the bigger schools will eventually wear down the weaker schools. Generally speaking, when a school is talented, they will be ranked higher, no matter what conference they are in (See Utah and Boise State) so when the tournament comes around in football, there aren't any sleeper teams. Keep in mind, Central Michigan, the conference leader in the MAC has already lost to Purdue and Division 1-AA (at home) by 20 and 34 points. It may be a personal opinion, but I would find losing by 70 on national television when you are supposed to be the class of your conference to be an embarrassment, not only to your school but to your entire conference.
When bowls were originally created, they were intended to be conference championships between two separate conferences. The Rose Bowl pit the Pac 10 versus the Big 10, the Orange Bowl featured the Big East and Big 12 and so on. The idea of a national champion wasn't really considered, because the identity of the individual conference was stronger than that of NCAA football. That's the way I prefer it, and if you don't feel that way I really can't make you. In any event, with this perspective, there are still several bowls that feature conference champions competing against each other. If you are old fashioned like me, those games are full of meaning. If you are from a small conference, or a middling team like the one I grew up following (the Gophers) Bowl eligibility is huge, and those bowl games again are hugely meaningful to the fan base. Solely focusing on the National Championship is a narrow perspective that assumes everyone cares more about the NCAA than their own teams or conference.
In the end, I don't have any problem with Steve's tournament. Like I said, if we were forced to have a tournament, I would choose this format. Of course, if it came into effect I probably would do what I do with NCAA basketball. Not watch the regular season. Perhaps that's another reason so many are reluctant to have a tournament.
In any case, my fundamental argument against a tournament deciding the national champion seems rather arbitrary, particularly in such a brutal sport with strong conference identities not seen in basketball. Winning a tournament seems like it would reward you for winning a tournament, where as having a national championship game seems as though it rewards for an entire season well played.
That being said, I think its a matter of personal taste. Tournaments are always fun, but in my mind and in this situation doesn't really accomplish a whole lot. Everyone disagrees with me, so don't feel bad if you do to.
I've seen Division III playoffs for the past eight years (this will be my ninth), and trust me, it works fantastically well. There are some blowouts, to be sure, most of them in the early rounds. But about 90% of 1-16 and 2-15 games in the basketball tournament are blowouts, too; it's those other 10% (and others) that make that tournament so great.
The academic argument, as you correctly note, is bunk. DIII teams play up to five extra weeks, and generally speaking, those kids actually care about academics. But they make it work. I'd also argue for shortening the regular-season schedule by at least a game, if not two (though I'd advocate this regardless of a playoff).
It would work. And I can only imagine that the TV payout would be astounding.
Post a Comment
<< Home