Bracket buster
When the new Bowl Championship Series rankings came out this week, the debate began as to whether undefeated Louisville is more deserving to play in the national championship game than a one-loss team with a tougher schedule. Everyone has an opinion as to which two teams should be playing for the national championship, but let's face it – there is no totally correct answer to this question. Or should I say that the correct answer is that the BCS system really never can give us a correct answer.
It’s almost like a multiple-choice exam where the correct answer is the one that is closest to the actual answer. If you’re confused with that analogy, welcome to the BCS.
So I started thinking, what if we were having a playoff at the end of the season? What would the discussions be like today? We would not be wondering who were going to be the top two teams at the end of the season, but who the top eight teams (in my playoff scenario, anyway) would be. Shoot, every undefeated and one-loss team in the country – and their fans – still would be in the hunt for a national championship. Talk about enhancing the value and protecting the integrity of the regular season.
I decided to put together an eight-team playoff based on today's BCS standings, which, of course, will change by the end of the season. No offense to basketball, but I called it December Delirium (I get that a lot of the games are in January, but the Final Four often is in April and that hasn't stopped the "March Madness" label).
Once I put it down on paper, I was blown away at just how incredible this would be. Imagine two and a half weeks with seven of the most exciting games of the year, in which every game is huge for everybody. It makes the BCS system we have today – and the money it generates – look like a joke.
And it would change the current week from being a week of improbabilities for most teams to a week of possibilities.
Here are some of the considerations I took into account:
I took the top eight BCS schools and seeded them strictly by ranking.
I used the four BCS games and three other ones randomly selected as the sites for each playoff game (the games could be rotated among bowls just as they are now).
I tried to pick a weekend or holiday to play so every game could be shown on prime-time TV and to give each team a week off between games.
All the other bowls still would be played throughout the holidays just like they are now (kind of like basketball's NIT).
So without further fanfare, I give you …
December Delirium
Yahoo! Sports' College Football Playoff
