Everyone enjoying their Christmas festivities this weekend? I hope so… I have one last Christmas wish and that’s for the BCS to go away. It isn’t necessary to go through the litany of reasons why this system is one big joke, but let’s just say there wasn’t the BCS.
How good would any of these four scenarios be 16 playoff, 8 teams playoff, 4 team playoff, +1 system be? How do they stack up against each other? We’ll even use the BCS to rank the teams.
16 Team Playoff
1 LSU vs 16 Georgia
2 Alabama vs 15 Clemson
3 Oklahoma St vs 14 Oklahoma
4 Stanford vs 13 Michigan
5 Oregon vs 12 Baylor
6 Arkansas vs 11Virginia Tech
7 Boise St. vs 10 Wisconsin
8 Kansas St. vs 9 South Carolina
The 16 team playoff leaves no doubt the national title is decided on the field. What I don’t care for is if a 3 loss team of which there will be a few participating, knocks of say LSU. The regular season becomes nearly meaningless, and this would mark the end of the bowls as we know them. Seeing the Louisiana Lafayette kids joy the other night is what it’s all about or should be.
8 Team Playoff
1 LSU vs 8 Kansas St.
2 Alabama vs 7 Boise St.
3 Oklahoma St vs 6 Arkansas
4 Stanford vs 5 Oregon
Here we again ensure the title decided on the field, that’s good, but I see they same problem as the 16 team playoff just not as severe. You can have team 2 losses behind another winning the national title. The Bowls are at risk, because logistically you can’t ask fans to travel 3 straight weeks to neutral sites. You’ll need to have games at home sites.
4 Team Playoff
1 LSU vs 4 Stanford
2 Alabama vs 3 Oklahoma St.
Now we are getting closer to what I want to see. You can still rotate the major bowls to host the semi-finals and finals and the minor bowls hosting games they do now. Hey if you aren’t in the top 4 you can’t blame anyone because you probably lost a game somewhere. I can live with this.
+1 System
Winner of LSU vs Alabama plays
Winner of Oklahoma St vs Stanford or an possibly an Oregon team that wins big
With a plus +1 you keep the traditional bowl affiliations alive. Rose Bowl Pac 12 vs Big 10 for example still happens. You create the potential of several bowls with national title implications. In certain years as many as 4 bowls could play a role in who plays for the national title. This is my favorite system. As @BDohertyTSHQ1 mentioned on twitter and I agree, if a +1 system did exist, I don’t think LSU Alabama would play in the “semi-final” bowl game. We just went with the current bowl matchups here though.
BCS
LSU vs Alabama
Like in the plus +1 LSU would play Alabama in a rematch, but in that system the national champions isn’t decided soley on the result of one game, that by the way was already played.
Anyways that’s my Christmas weekend rant. Merry Christmas everyone!
Leave a Reply