The commissioners and school presidents will have meetings soon to decide what changes to make to the BCS title game. There are tons of options on the table ranging from a radical 16 team playoff, 8 team playoff, 6 team playoff with top two teams getting a bye, 4 team “plus one” system, and even proposals keeping the exact same current system in place. I don’t think its realistic change to go to a complete playoff since there would be too many stakeholders that would resist the change. Many of the bowls would be excluded and fight the changes. The Pac12 and Big10 don’t want to eliminate the Rose Bowl. I bet eventually the commissioners all end up going to a “plus one” type of system although there are variations on what exactly this will be. I predict the actual system they agree on will go back to the pre ’97 or whatever period when they didn’t have any BCS game, and we will have the Rose Bowl every year and all the current bowls. SEC goes to Sugar Bowl, ACC goes to Orange, etc. Then AFTER all the bowl games are played they will do a BCS rankings and select #1 and #2 to play in the title game. I really like this system for our Pac12 schools and for all of college football. It gives us one more chance to break into the top two spots and we will always be able to see the best of the Pac 12/Big10 battle it out first. I do like how in the current BCS all regular season games are hugely important. This is not the case in the NFL or college basketball. If there was a 16 team playoff LSU could’ve rested their starters the final two games which would’ve been stupid. This “plus one unseeded” system would actually make the current BCS bowl games even more meaningful since the winners of the Rose, Sugar, Orange, or Fiesta could have a chance at playing in the national championship.
one of the biggest thing I could think of keeping people from doing a + 1 or playoffs is ticket sales. Alot of schools already have trouble selling their alottment with a month to prepare (Oregon doesnt travel well either) now with less notice, and time to get their people there... could leave a bunch of empty seats for a Natty.
Good point. People always talk about how great it is Division IAA or whatever has this fancy 16 team playoff but they never mention nobody goes to those games. The playoff games have like less than half the attendance of the schools regular season games. Maybe scheduling the Natty two weeks out from the BCS games would help? I dunno have it on MLK day or something.
Agreed, though I think the +1 is doable. Is there some reason other then unrealistic greed that the face value of tickets to big bowl games has to be priced 2-3x that of a normal game? The few fans who can get time off on short notice and might want to support their team in person will already be paying jacked up last minute prices on plane tickets & hotels... this comes right after Christma$. If everyone is going to gouge them it's unrealistic to think that they will show up. If the tickets are reasonably priced and available well before the actual participants have been determined, I'd imagine fans of college football in general would be interested in going to the NCG. Allot each fanbase 15,000 tickets (or so) normally priced tickets. Voila, full stadium The goal for game organizers should be creating the ultimate environment for their TV cash cow. Thats the real money here STOMP
you hit it right on the head there Stomp. Other than Greed... there is no reason why we are in the system we are. And thats why, even though I want it to change, I am skeptical that it will.
I like the idea of all BCS conference champions + 1 at large team make a playoff. That would also not make the better teams afraid of losing a game in non conference and maybe make for some better games.
Why don't they just play the playoff games at the bowl stadiums? Let the same bowl people promote it etc.....don't see what the problem is. The games can still be played, they're just playoff games instead of bowl games.
To me it's simple. Add in the Gator and Cotton bowls, rotating the six bowl games for quarter, semi and championship games and have the top 16 teams battle for a title, while the also rans still play in their Las Vegas and Sun Bowls. Assuming, for argument sake, that the top ranked teams win each game, it would look like this. First round are home games for 1-8. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 etc. Round two Cotton 1-8 Gator 2-7 Sugar 3-6 Orange 4-5 Round three Rose 1-4 Fiesta 2-3 Round four Fiesta (Remember it will rotate each year) 1-2 Absolutely no way anyone could complain about that.
16 teams is too many and no necessary. The top 8 in the rotating bowl game playoff would work just fine and be enough to determine a national champion.
It absolutely would, but with 16 there really can't be an argument from any team. For example, Wisconsin and South Carolina both could bitch that Kansas State got in the playoffs over them. With 16, there really wouldn't be any of that. I would be ok with a top 10, with 2 play in games though
How about 12 teams, with byes for the top 4. Hmm, that actually sounds like another football tournament I'm familiar with...
A bracketed playoff would be stupid. We’d have teams like LSU sitting starters the final weeks of the season. Nobody would follow the sport at the start of the year just as in college basketball. Do we want to replace the college football season with a college basketball regular season? The bowls are partly what make college football so successful and unique. Many have 100+ year histories. I think yes we could have some improvements to the BCS but a full scale playoff would remove all the unique awesomeness of college football. It has the most important regular season of any major sport and I don’t want to see that go away. The NY Giants lost 7 regular season games and may be the super bowl champs; I don’t want to see that format in college football.
