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Playoff Proposal
I know there have been other threads on this subject, but since apparently search isn't working I don't feel like wading through five pages of threads to find them.
Basically, I was thinking about a playoff system for college football because of the crap going on right now, and this thought poped in my head: do it more like basketball.
There are 11 conferences in Division 1-A. You do a 16-team tournament over four weeks. Each conference champion gets an automatic bid. You then take the average of the coaches and AP polls, and the five highest ranked teams that aren't champions get at-large bids. Do a special combined poll to rank those 16, and seed them like a normal tournament.
Keep three of the BCS bowls around to alternate as semi-final and championship game locations, and let the other bowls make deals with conferences like now to stay alive, or just fold.
I know this isn't perfect, but it will do several things.
1) Eliminate controversy about who the champion is once and for all. If you go undefeated and lose in the first round, you have no valid complaints.
2) Allow teams from all conferences to have a shot. Since every conference has an automatic bid, a team like Miami of Ohio, N. Illinois, or TCU would only need to win their conference to make the playoff. It becomes more fair to all teams.
3) Keep the regular season important. While one late loss won't kill you anymore, you need to win the critical games in-conference to keep going. An example from this year; Michigan had two early losses, but finished 7-1 and won the Big Ten.
I think this is a fair proposal to make, as it makes the championship system fairto everyone while keeping conference championships and the regular season legitamite.
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"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun
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