ESPN columnist Pat Forde revealed in his Sunday column that college football’s Bowl Championship Series (BCS) is “screwed up” and amounts to “haphazard guesswork at the 11th hour.” Thanks, Pat. You must be exhausted after such grueling journalistic analysis.
Over the next month I’ll keep a running count of how often I hear or read that the BCS sucks. I’ll also keep track of the number of proposed solutions. For the record, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the BCS, nor do I have a problem with the lack of a playoff. Those are two entirely different things, mind you, though most people don’t understand the difference. Sorry if I’ve lost you, but bear with me. Anyhow, I do think a playoff would be incredibly exciting and I’d love to see it happen. But as long as we’re in the land of what if, we might as well revamp college football from the ground up.
Here’s my suggestion: Form a league composed of the top 36 college football teams divided into six divisions of six teams each. Each team plays five divisional games and seven non-divisional games for a total of twelve regular season games. The top twelve teams qualify for the playoffs, with the top four teams receiving first round byes. The top two teams receive home field advantage until the Championship Game, which is played at a rotating neutral site. Playoff teams are determined by overall record, and divisional champions do not automatically qualify for the playoffs. The tie breaker for determining playoff qualification and seeding is head-to-head record followed by strength of schedule.
At the end of the season, the bottom four teams are relegated to the second tier, and the top four teams from the second tier are promoted into the league for the following season.
Divisions, which are realigned each year due to relegation, are created primarily for maintaining traditional regional rivalries. The divisions are also balanced to an extent for strength of schedule based on last year’s results. Disparities in divisional strength of schedule will be balanced with the non-divisional schedule. For example, if one division is relatively stronger than the others, the teams in that division will play easier non-divisional games. Obviously, scheduling for strength of schedule in college football is not an exact science. However, the idea is to make each team’s schedule relatively equal in difficulty. Over the course of the season, that goal can be achieved. Non-divisional games will also be scheduled to maintain traditional rivalries. For instance, the USC-Notre Dame game will remain on the schedule and Texas would still face Oklahoma even if they are not in the same division in a given season.
Although the teams in the league will change from year to year, determining which teams to place in the league at the outset is important for many reasons. The criteria would include the program's success (recent and historical), television market, stadium size and fan base, and traditional significance in college football. I will form a committee to determine the initial 36 teams, and I will chair the committee. The bribes and kickbacks will make the IOC blush. For illustrative purposes only, I have chosen teams based only on the 2006 Sagarin rankings. Using the Sagarin rankings through the end of the 2006 regular season to determine the top 36 teams, the 2007 league would be as follows:
Pacific Division
Hawaii
Southern California
BYU
UCLA
Oregon State
Washington State
Western Division
Arizona State
Boise State
Cal
Oregon
Arizona
TCU
Central Division
Texas
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Wisconsin
Nebraska
Arkansas
Midwest Division
Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Notre Dame
Rutgers
Boston College
Southeast Division
Florida
LSU
Tennessee
Georgia
South Carolina
Auburn
Atlantic Division
Wake Forest
Virginia Tech
Clemson
Louisville
Georgia Tech
West Virginia
Texas’s schedule would be as follows:
Tennessee
@ Wisconsin
Arkansas
@ Michigan
Auburn
Georgia Tech
@ BYU
UCLA
@ Nebraska
Oklahoma (Texas/OU would almost certainly be home and home.)
@ Oregon State
@ Texas A&M
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