Guess which team the computers had No. 1 in the BCS rankings? Not Ohio State, or LSU. Try Virginia Tech, ahead of No. 2 LSU and followed by Ohio State, Missouri (which is not playing in a BCS game) and Kansas. By the way, LSU only crushed Virginia Tech this season, 48-7.Ok, earlier in the season I wrote a column speculating on what if the BCS didn't exist and we had a playoff format in Division I-A (or whatever they're calling it these days) football.
It was a simple concept, and pretty much the same one they use in every other division. A committee puts together the field, and off we go.
Here's how it would work. The top team from each of the six major BCS conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC) gets an automatic bid, with the field filled out by the BCS rankings. If conferences want to have a championship game for the automatic bid, that's fine, and the world can still have a slew of bowl games for the non-playoff teams. The first round would be at home sites of the higher-ranked seeds, with advancing teams playing at neutral sites of the biggest bowls (Sugar, Orange, etc) along with other high bidders. The committee's primary job would be to switch teams out of playing conference opponents, and things like that.
So here's how a playoff would look:
16 at 1: Tennessee at Ohio State
9 at 8: West Virginia at Kansas
12 at 5: Boston College at Georgia
13 at 4: Florida at Oklahoma
14 at 3: Illinois at Virginia Tech
11 at 6: Arizona State at Missouri
10 at 7: Hawaii at Southern California
15 at 2: Clemson at LSU
The only change would be to swap Florida, Boston College and Illinois to avoid SEC and ACC first-round matchups, and minimize chances of two teams playing for a third time (after meeting in a conference title game).
1934 Alabama: After defeating Stanford in the Rose Bowl, the Crimson Tide (10-0) was able to make a claim on the national title, although Minnesota was the consensus choice. Courtesy of the Paul W. Bryant Museum.
No comments:
Post a Comment