\"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

College football fans: if there is one thing that we can agree on for the most part it's that the current system of choosing a champion is imperfect. At best, it's flawed, and at worst it's downright horrible. So, my question for you is, what would you replace the current system with?

My idea:

1) Go back to the traditional bowl games and abolish the BCS.

2) Allow the conferences to schedule their own games (using transparent methodology).

3) Teams will be allowed to choose three out of conference games of their choice (consistent with conference rules).

4) Each team will have one mandatory bye week.

5) The NCAA will schedule one out of conference game for each team. This will be done by a "competition committee." The purpose will be to act as a mid-season "playoff" game. This will place teams judged to be of comparable quality against each other. Obviously this will be an imperfect, subjective process, but the purpose will be to try and eliminate as many teams from being undefeated as possible. They would alos try to avoid like bowl matchups (so no Pac10 versus Big10, etc). (Likely match ups for this system if it were run this year might be UC-Berkeley vs. Florida, LSU vs. tOSU , and USC vs. Oklahoma.)

6) A National Championship game will be held ten days after the premier bowls. This will occur between the two teams voted #1 and #2 in the current coaches poll.

Not perfect -- far from it. The main purpose of this system is to preserve (read: restore) the integrity of the old bowl system, while trying to maximize the possibility of eliminating as many undefeated teams as possible.

One flaw is that this system might be so effective, you have 4 or 5 one loss teams clamoring for a national championship bid. Hopefully the traditional bowl games can fix some of these problems (e.g., one loss tOSU vs. one loss USC in the Rose bowl). It's not perfect, but I think it might be better than what we have now.

I'm interested to see the obvious flaws in the system that I was too air headed to catch. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] (Or to hear what you would change.)

So, what are your ideas?

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Have the entire season be 1 big playoff bracket. Maybe have 1 or 2 warmup games tops.

OMG would this be rediculously exciting. I would watch and I have no college football team that I root for.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I think the awesomeness of a 4 team playoff would be good.

Then again, I do really hate it when teams don't play ANYONE serious out of conference.

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A four team playoff system sounds great, but I just can't see it without completely FUBARing the bowl system.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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A four team playoff system sounds great, but I just can't see it without completely FUBARing the bowl system.

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Why can't you just call the semifinal games The Orange Bowl and The Fiesta Bowl and then call the championship The Rose Bowl? They've already ruined the conference associations with the games, I don't see why this is so bad.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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A four team playoff system sounds great, but I just can't see it without completely FUBARing the bowl system.

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they'd rotate. The semi-finals would be the Orange/Sugar and the champ would be the Fiesta bowl or something like that.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

What do we do about big rivalries OOC that are played in year in and year out but have up & down years? You're going to run in to problems adding a tough OOC game for some teams who already have a tough OOC game.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

128 team playoff obv

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128 team playoff obv

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With wrestlebacks.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Go back to the way it was before the BCS. Then after
the new year bowl games have the Vegas odds makers
tell us the proper ranking of the college teams.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I guess I'm in the minority, but I like the current system. Controversy is good and I like that there is so much pressure on teams in the regular season. Anyway, it's not like there have been a string of unworthy national champions under the BCS.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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Have the entire season be 1 big playoff bracket. Maybe have 1 or 2 warmup games tops.

OMG would this be rediculously exciting. I would watch and I have no college football team that I root for.

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That'd be so good, but so impractical.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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I guess I'm in the majority, but I like the current system. Controversy is good and I like that there is so much pressure on teams in the regular season. Anyway, it's not like there have been a string of unworthy national champions under the BCS.

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Best regular season of any sport. Every game counts, whether it's v Notre Dame, App St, or Oklahoma.

Or, go with 128 teams and wrestlebacks.

If you like college football, what's wrong with debating the merits of 1991 Miami v 1991 Washington? Or 1994 PSU v 1994 Nebraska? Most years, there aren't 2 undefeated top tier teams anyway, and now the BCS has solved that problem.

If you don't go undefeated, you have no room to whine anyways.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Ripoff from soccer and have a promotion/relegation system. Have the BCS conferences be division I (but equalize the number of teams), lump the mid-major conferences that are basically DII now anyway and have them be DII, and have the "championship division" be DIII. Bottom team in each conf. is auto relegated, top team in each DII conf. goes up, and 2nd worst have a playoff with a 2nd best DII team. Same for DII/DIII. Relegate/promote teams into conferences that make geographic sense whenever possible (or just have the conferences each have agreements with one another).
Each team plays 8 conf games, 2 against DI, and 1 against either DII or DI, to allow for traditional rivalries/matchups.
Best record in each top 6 conference goes to 8 team playoffs along with two wild cards. Have a DII playoff among conference winners as well.
Obviously the money/contractual issues would make this difficult but in the end there would be way better games and more excitement for fans of both small and big colleges.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

If they could refine BCS and get rid of the human bias, it would be better than anything in any other sport league. The NC relies heavily on regular season performance, which is a great thing, and relies less on a dodgy playoff structure. As long as they can find a way to best ensure the title game has the best 2 teams in the country, its great. I think there has to be a way to measure this, and a possible answer could be a few more regular season games.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I want to add that College football has the best "post season" in American sports, with MLB being second, followed by the NFL. The NBA and NHL are disgusting.


and if you want to know why:
CF:2 teams
MLB: 8
NFL: 12
NBA 16

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Well, i would be a fan of a 16 team playoff with all 11 conference champs getting a guaranteed spot. They do this in the lower divisiions, so there is no reason that the big schools can't do it. The other teams could still play bowl games if they want. They wouldn't be any more meaningless than they already are.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

jstnrgrs, quite frankly, I am sick of playoffs and tourneys deciding champs. Regular season performance should mean considerably more than it currently does and college football is the only one where regular season performance means a ton.

Right now I am waiting for MLB and MLS regular seasons to end so they playoffs can start. Thats awesome.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I do, however, see the appeal of a regular season followed by a single national championship game. The problem is that this can't work for 117 teams. I would therefore recomend that the top division be limited to 20 teams. (two round robin divisions of 10 (probably a geographic east and west alignment) with the winners playing in the national championship game).

In order to ensure that everyon gets to participate, a system of promoting and religating could be used. Everyone could just accept that to take a school from somewhere in the 40s to national champion would be at least a 2 year process.

I think this would be an awsome system.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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jstnrgrs, quite frankly, I am sick of playoffs and tourneys deciding champs. Regular season performance should mean considerably more than it currently does and college football is the only one where regular season performance means a ton.

Right now I am waiting for MLB and MLS regular seasons to end so they playoffs can start. Thats awesome.

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I do understand this (see my alternative suggestion). However, I don't think that a playoff with 16 out of 117 teams is enough to make the regular season meaningless. Espicially if 11 of those spots are reserved for conference champs.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

yeah that would be sweet. It should probably be 24 teams, 11 games in each league. Winners of each league play for the title. Bottom two drop. Would be insanely sick. I don't think most US sports fans realize how awesome this would be. Even better than the NFL IMO.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

yeah, but not all conferences are equal.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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Best regular season of any sport. Every game counts,

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unless you are Utah (2004) then none of the games count.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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yeah that would be sweet. It should probably be 24 teams, 11 games in each league. Winners of each league play for the title. Bottom two drop. Would be insanely sick. I don't think most US sports fans realize how awesome this would be. Even better than the NFL IMO.

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I was actually thinking of having the bottom half (or more) drop. I think you would need to keep chaning it up to ensure that Freshmen from all 117 schools have a slightly better than mathematical possibility of making it to the top before they graduate.

Any promotion system would be awsome though.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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yeah, but not all conferences are equal.

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this is actually good for keeping the regular season meaningfull. since several playoff spots would be taken by weaker conference champs, there would not be many spots for good teams that don't win their conference. this helps to keep the regular season meaningful in addition to giving everyone a chance.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I would be more in favor of the having a top flight then a playoff system.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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Best regular season of any sport. Every game counts,

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unless you are Utah (2004) then none of the games count.

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Or Auburn.

The current system is such a joke because the tiebreaker, which is the polls, is set before a freaking game is played. USC gets in over any other one-loss team simply because they started the year at #1. See Oklahoma, Nebraska and Miami for examples of this. No polls should be released until like the 2nd week of October and the coaches poll should be abolished.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

human polls shouldn't be a part of it at all.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
yeah that would be sweet. It should probably be 24 teams, 11 games in each league. Winners of each league play for the title. Bottom two drop. Would be insanely sick. I don't think most US sports fans realize how awesome this would be. Even better than the NFL IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually thinking of having the bottom half (or more) drop. I think you would need to keep chaning it up to ensure that Freshmen from all 117 schools have a slightly better than mathematical possibility of making it to the top before they graduate.

Any promotion system would be awsome though.

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Also, the reason that I chose 10 team divisions is so that you could still have 3 nonconference games to preserve traditional rivalries, bolster your claim to staying in the super conference, or give your team an easier game.


Here is what i specifically suggest.

There would be 2 super conferences (east and west) with 10 teams each. These 20 teams would be:

The 11 "regular" conference champions for the previous year.
The 2 super conference champions from the previous year.
The 7 highest ranked teams that do not fit into either of the above categories. (according to whatever pre determined ranking system they choose. The current BCS ranking system would be fine)

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

so it would be possible for teams from the same conference being in the super conferences? Even winners of the same conference?

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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so it would be possible for teams from the same conference being in the super conferences? Even winners of the same conference?

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Well, if there are going to be 20 teams in the super conferences, it would have to be possible for teams from the same conference to be in the super conference (there are only 11 conferences).

It would not be possible for a team to win its regular conference in the same year as it wins a super conference because in years when you compete in a super conference, you would not compete in the regular conference (though you still could play some of those teams as non conference games).

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I think we'd be better off accepting that college football isn't set up to crown a national champion (its governing body, as far as I know, does not recognize a champion like it does in, say, basketball), go back to the old bowl system, and let the dozens of organizations that want to declare their own national champions (and there are a lot) do so.

-McGee

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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what's wrong with debating the merits of 1991 Miami v 1991 Washington?

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Or the '84 Huskies and '84 BYU...

b

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Just think how close we came to having Michigan play Ohio in the National title game last year. As is happened, Florida blew out Ohio state.

The flaw that worried me is that it came really close to the world not knowing how strong Florida was relative to Michigan.

I am in favour of a 1 plays 4 and 2 plays 3 in bowls games, with the BCS title game to follow that. Not perfect, but considering last year (and other years), we need it.

And for the team that is ranked 5 and thinks they should be 4, too bad. Can't fix everything.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Make it all year round.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
yeah that would be sweet. It should probably be 24 teams, 11 games in each league. Winners of each league play for the title. Bottom two drop. Would be insanely sick. I don't think most US sports fans realize how awesome this would be. Even better than the NFL IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was actually thinking of having the bottom half (or more) drop. I think you would need to keep chaning it up to ensure that Freshmen from all 117 schools have a slightly better than mathematical possibility of making it to the top before they graduate.

Any promotion system would be awsome though.

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My idea has always been to take the 119 FBS teams, add one to make it an even 120 (App st. perhaps) then divide them into 4 40 team subdivisions. Teams have to schedule teams from there subdivision in their schedule each year with one "out of division" game allowed.

Each year, drop the bottom 5 and raise the top 5. This allows plenty of movement year-to-year and also means that the schedules from each division will be largely comparable.

Cody

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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Well, i would be a fan of a 16 team, 11 conf champs...

so there is no reason that the big schools can't do it.

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There are plenty of reasons, you just don't agree with them.

Why should an 8-3 MAC or CUSA champ get an autobid over a better 11-1 PSU or USC or Texas team? Which conf champ - regular season or conf playoff winner?

The current system is much better. Unlike the old days, computer rankings are used. The combination of humans and data has worked well.
List of prior champs:
FSU
Okla
Miami
Ohio
LSU
USC
Texas
Florida.

Nobody thinks Boise was better than Fla last year. No one thought anyone was better than Okla or Miami or Texas or etc.

The system works. Making the reg season meaningless so some 8-3 MAC team or 9-2 Big East team only has to get hot for 4 weeks over holidays is not an improvement.

After all, if you wanted a real, comprehensive playoff, you'd include 128 teams. Is that better?

Is making fans travel 4x to 4 diff playoff games, to Boise, Birmingham, Miami, and Arizona during finals weeks and holidays a good thing? I say no. You can disagree, but it's all hot air unless College Presidents decide they want one. They do not.

And the other 30 bowls that wouldn't host the title game would be legitimately devalued. Saying no one cares about Tenn v PSU last year is simply wrong. But changing to a 'playoff bowl' v 'meaningless bowl' system reduces interest and lowers revenues.

I am a huge cfb fan. I love the current system.

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

Just to tie this up, If the super conference had been implimented this year, the super conferences might look like this:

EAST
Arkansas
Auburn
Florida
Louisville
LSU
Houston
Ohio State
Rutgers
Troy
West Virginia

WEST
Boise St
BYU
California
Central Michigan
Michigan
Oklahoma
Texas
Wake Forrest
Wisconsin
USC

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

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what's wrong with debating the merits of 1991 Miami v 1991 Washington?

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Or the '84 Huskies and '84 BYU...

b

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I still cannot believe Illinois was passed over in 2001...they had one regular season loss but the computers chose someone else...BAH

Re: \"Fixing\" college football -- let\'s see your solution
 

I already put in the master answer to this question

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