I want to see if this is possible

[Sluss]

A playoff in college football would be great and would really give us a true meter of how good teams are. I have already explaind why it will never happen

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll rephrase it give me one good reason why there should not be a playoff

[/ QUOTE ]

There's already a playoff. It's called the regular season.

What if there was a playoff this year? It's clear that USC and Texas are 1 and 2 this year - if a playoff was in place, either of those teams could lose, and then your national championship game isn't matching the two best teams.

Also, if it's a 4-team playoff, who are the other two teams? Penn St, Va Tech, LSU? What about an 8 team playoff, who gets left out - OSU, ND, Oregon, Miami, Auburn?

There's no perfect system, but the one in place still keeps the regular season games extremely important.

[Hornacek]

[ QUOTE ]
I am almost positive that the OP is too young to remember 1991.
Anyone old enough to remember Washington and Miami not playing for the title knows that the BCS is an improvement on the old system.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not forget the spanking Woodson and Griese would have given Nebraska in the 1997 title game.

[Gunny Highway]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll rephrase it give me one good reason why there should not be a playoff

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not rephrasing. That's asking a completely different question.

[legend42]

What if there was a playoff this year? It's clear that USC and Texas are 1 and 2 this year - if a playoff was in place, either of those teams could lose, and then your national championship game isn't matching the two best teams.

Just as the Super Bowl, World Series, NCAA hoops final, etc. often don't match the two best teams. Should we eliminate all those playoff systems?

Also, if it's a 4-team playoff, who are the other two teams? Penn St, Va Tech, LSU? What about an 8 team playoff, who gets left out - OSU, ND, Oregon, Miami, Auburn?

Obviously, there will always be controversy. But the point is to decide who the BEST team is, and give all teams with a legitimate claim to that title a chance to decide it on the field. IMO, an 8-team playoff offers that.


There's no perfect system, but the one in place still keeps the regular season games extremely important.

Not really. Once a team loses a single game, they know their title hopes are pretty much snapped. With an 8-team playoff system, the mid-late season games would still be absolutely crucial for a bunch of teams (and not just to see whether they go to the Peach or the Alamo Bowl).

[lastchance]

Penn State and Va Tech clearly get the 3 and 4 spots, this year, IMHO.

3 years back, letting Oklahoma, LSU or USC get shafted absolutely sucks. Letting Nebraska, or Oregon get shafted a year before that sucks.

4 team-playoff would keep all of the mystique of the regular season. The 4th best team in the nation won't lose more than 2 games, and it's much better to have dispute over the 4th best team than 2nd best. Having a tier 2 team get shafted is much better than having a tier 1 team get shafted.

[jstnrgrs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'll rephrase it give me one good reason why there should not be a playoff

[/ QUOTE ]

There's already a playoff. It's called the regular season.

What if there was a playoff this year? It's clear that USC and Texas are 1 and 2 this year - if a playoff was in place, either of those teams could lose, and then your national championship game isn't matching the two best teams.

Also, if it's a 4-team playoff, who are the other two teams? Penn St, Va Tech, LSU? What about an 8 team playoff, who gets left out - OSU, ND, Oregon, Miami, Auburn?

There's no perfect system, but the one in place still keeps the regular season games extremely important.

[/ QUOTE ]

So tell me, at what point in last year's season was Auburn played off? How about Utah?

Just because it will work this year, doesn't mean that it is the best system possible (and it is an improvement over the old system).

It would be possible to have an undisputed national champion (with everyone getting a chance at it) without lenghtening the season at all. The college football people just don't want to do it.

[jstnrgrs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'll rephrase it give me one good reason why there should not be a playoff

[/ QUOTE ]

There's already a playoff. It's called the regular season.

What if there was a playoff this year? It's clear that USC and Texas are 1 and 2 this year - if a playoff was in place, either of those teams could lose, and then your national championship game isn't matching the two best teams.

Also, if it's a 4-team playoff, who are the other two teams? Penn St, Va Tech, LSU? What about an 8 team playoff, who gets left out - OSU, ND, Oregon, Miami, Auburn?

There's no perfect system, but the one in place still keeps the regular season games extremely important.

[/ QUOTE ]

Easy way to have a legitimate national championship:

Realign college football into four geographic regions with 30 teams in each. Divide these regions into 10 team confrences based on rankings (top ten teams in Conference A, sencond ten in Conference B, bottom ten in Conference C).

Regular Season
Teams play everyone in their conference once (plus 2 [or three if you want a 12 game regular season] non-conference games to preserve traditional rivalries).

Conference championship week
In the week that is now the conference championship week, have the 4 conference A champions play against each other (1 vs 4, and 2 vs 3 based on any ranking system), these would be the national semi-finals. (The same thing could also be done for the lower conference to determine a B and C champion)

Also in this week would be promotion/regalation games.
The last place team in each conference would be automatically regalated to the lower conference the following year.
First place teams in lower conferences would be automatically promoted to the higher conference the following year.

The second to last team from the higher conference would play against the second place team from the lower conference to determine if there wuld be an additional promotion/regalation.

Bowl games
the bowl games would be mostly the same as there is now, except that the national championship game would be between the winners of the two national semi-finals. The loosers of the national semi-finals, and other teams with winning records would play in other (meaningless) bowl games just like they do now.


This would be awsome, but of course it will never happen.

If it were to start next year, the initial alignment might look like this:

North Conference A
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Wisconsin
Michigan
Northwestern
Minnesota
Iowa
Louisville
Iowa State
Kansas

East Conference A
Penn State
Virginia Tech
Miami (FL)
West Virginia
Georgia
Florida
Boston College
Georgia Tech
South Carolina
Clemson

South Conference A
Texas
LSU
Auburn
TCU
Texas Tech
Alabama
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Tennessee
Baylor

West Conference A
USC
Oregon
UCLA
Colorado
Nebraska
Fresno State
Arizona State
California
Boise State
Stanford

North Conference B
Purdue
Missouri
Michigan State
Toledo
Northern Illinois
Central Michigan
Kansas State
Miami (OH)
Western Michigan
Indiana

East Conference B
Florida State
North Carolina
South Florida
North Carolina State
Virginia
UCF
Maryland
Rutgers
Wake Forest
Pittsburgh

South Conference B
Tulsa
Southern Miss
Vanderbilt
Memphis
Houston
Oklahoma State
Louisiana Tech
Arkansas
Southern Methodist
UAB

West Conference B
Colorado State
Nevada
Brigham Young
Oregon State
New Mexico
UTEP
Utah
San Diego State
Washington State
Wyoming

North Conference C
Bowling Green
Ball State
Akron
Cincinnati
Ohio
Illinois
Eastern Michigan
Kentucky
Marshall
Kent State

East Confernece C
Connecticut
Navy
Army
East Carolina
Florida International
Syracuse
Florida Atlantic
Duke
Temple
Buffalo

South conference C
Louisiana-Lafayette
Arkansas State
Middle Tennessee
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Louisiana-Monroe
Troy
Tulane
Rice
North Texas

West Conference C
Arizona
Air Force
Hawaii
Washington
UNLV
Utah State
San Jose State
Idaho
New Mexico State

[TheNoodleMan]

[ QUOTE ]

Easy way to have a legitimate national championship:



[/ QUOTE ]
What is easy about that? That is a total overhaul of College football, that is not easy.

[jstnrgrs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Easy way to have a legitimate national championship:



[/ QUOTE ]
What is easy about that? That is a total overhaul of College football, that is not easy.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but if it were to happen (and it won't), it would make college football the best spectator sport in the world by far.