Joe McCaffery’s Blog

I’m a huge college football fan and get sick to my stomach this time of year when the regular season for major college football ends and the controversy begins over who got screwed by the BCS. I’m a fortunate guy though as I am a Montana-native, a UM alumni, and a die-hard Griz fan (whose heart was recently broken thanks to Wofford). Football snobs (think Kirk Herbstreit aka Mr. Three-Year Bench Warmer) can say what they want about I-AA football, but I’ll put up game day at Washington-Grizzly Stadium against any other venue in the country. That goes double when it comes to the playoffs (or a Griz-Cat game).

There is just something about the do-or-die, loser-goes-home nature of the playoffs. How often have you heard people refer to it as a “playoff-like” atmosephere. I honestly feel sorry for “major” college football fans. They have to settle for a “playoff-like” atmosphere, the rest of us get to experience the real thing. It’s because I’ve been fortunate enough over the years to experience the highs and lows that go along with cheering for the Grizzlies as they make their run in the I-AA/FCS playoff that I’m writing this post. That and the fact that I’m sitting on the train trying to make the most of my commute.

Based on my experiences it’s not an exageration to say that college football fans are being ripped off each year a I-A playoff system is not in place. This is especially true this year with so many great teams sitting there with two-losses.

The reality is that a small number of conferences and schools are benefiting the most from the current system. Unfortunately the powers that be in those conferences and schools are the same people that have the power to prevent a I-A playoff system from being implemented.

Other schools also have a vested interest in keeping the bowl system alive. The bowls are a cash cow and it wouldn’t make sense to send that cow off to slaughter, especially when so many schools are dependent on that cash to keep their football programs up and athletic departments solvent. So any realistic I-A playoff system cannot be an either/or proposition. It has to take both into account.

Think hybrid (there is an Al Gore joke here somehwere, but it’s been a long day and I’ve got nothing).

With this in mind I started thinking about how a hybrid BCS-playoff system might work. The basic premise is that it would be possible to have a playoff system that would still allow eliminated teams to participate in a bowl game. Here how my ideal system would work:

• All regular season games are completed by the Saturday before Thanksgiving (this includes conference championship games)
  • If there is a con to this proposal, it would be the scheduling adjustments that would be required in order to have the regular season completed by mid-November.
• The final BCS-poll of the regular season is announced and the top 16 BCS-rated teams qualify for playoffs.
• Highest seeds host on-campus home games during the first three rounds
• Opening round games are played on Thanksgiving Weekend- 4 games are played on Friday and 4 games on Saturday …this would be college football’s version of March Madness.
• After the opening round there are eight eliminated teams an updated BCS-poll is released and the BCS committee will determine which two teams eliminated in the opening round will receive the two at-large BCS Bowl bids.
  • At that point the remaining six teams eliminated in the opening round are free to accept bids to a non-BCS bowl
  • It is assumed that the six teams eliminated in the quarter-final and semi-final rounds receive the remaining BCS Bowl bids, but there could be exceptions made (i.e. no more than two BSC bowl bids per conference, which by the way I think is ridiculous)
• The participants in the BCS Championship game are determined in the semi-final round on the second Saturday in December
• The Sunday following the semi-final round the BCS committee announces which teams will play in the four BCS bowls
• BCS Bowl Games and Championship Game are played on traditional January dates

And there you have it, a playoff system that peacefully co-exists with the existing bowl system.

Again I realize it would take some adjustments to the regular season schedules, especially for conference that have a championship game. For other conferences though, like the Big 10, it would not impact their scheduling at all.

Scheduling challenges aside, this approach would have resulted in the following opening-round match ups had it been in place this year:

How awesome would this be? The only person that could possibly be against this is my wife because I would pretty much ignore her and the kids for two straight days.

Anyone trotting out the tired argument about prolonging the seasons of too many student-athletes should consider that the I-AA\FCS teams have been doing this since 1978. So if I-A truly is the superior sub-division with more scholarships and more depth, why then can’t the top 16 major college football programs handle the possibility of playing three additional games?

If people still balk at the 16-team playoff, then a similar 8-team playoff could be implemented. The upside would be that it addresses the student-athlete argument and the conference championships can still fall on Thanksgiving weekend. The downside is that it would eliminate the Cinderella teams and lessen the March-Madness-like feel and the revenues associated with the eight opening round playoff games in the 16-team playoff. Other than that, the premise is the same:

• Top 8 BCS-rated teams qualify for the BCS-playoffs
• Highest seeds host on-campus home games during first two rounds
  • The four opening round games would ideally be scheduled across a Friday and Saturday to ensure as many people could view the games as possible.
  • If all games were played on a Saturday one could only hope they were scheduled so that they are played consecutively or at least with staggered start times to allow as many games to be televised as possible
• The six teams eliminated in the opening and semi-final rounds receive the remaining BCS-Bowl bids
• The participants in the BCS Championship game are determined on the field on the second Saturday in December
• BCS committee announces which teams will play in the four BCS bowls the Sunday following the semi-final round games
• BCS Bowl Games and Championship Game played on traditional January dates

This approach would have resulted in the following opening-round match ups had it been in place this year:

The bottom line is that these are two approaches to a playoff system that could realistically work AND would not change the current bowl system in any significant away. The conferences and schools and the NCAA would significantly and incrementally grow their revenues from the television rights and the ticket sales to the playoff games (6 games with 8-team playoff & 14 games with 16-team playoff). The most compelling part is that the championship participants would be determined on the field.

Also, there is big-time money to be made here. I have to believe that if the powers that be stop thinking that a playoff system would hurt the bowl system and instead saw how the systems I am proposing would actually enhance the bowl system, all while providing the schools, conferences, and other stakeholders with incremental revenues, then I can’t believe that this couldn’t happen and soon.

What do you think? What am I missing? Let me know.