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2010 College Football Postseason: What
It Could Be…
Article by
Terry Plucknett
Posted - 12/23/10
It’s a great time
of year.
It’s Christmas time, the Oscar
movies are gracing theatres with their presence, award
nominees are being released, the NFL regular season is
coming to a close, and college football bowls are starting.
I am so glad I get two weeks
off every year at this time just to keep track of it all.
One thing that is always fun to
keep track of is the college football postseason.
Not only are there the 35 bowls
to watch this year, but there is always the controversy that
comes with the BCS system.
So I decided to take a little
time out from debating whether Hailee Steinfeld should be
placed as lead or supporting, and talk about what this whole
BCS mess could look like.
This football
season has brought about probably the fewest questions as to
who should be playing for the national championship in
several years.
However, even with that there
are still questions being raised as to the strength of the
system.
I have a problem with the
system that very few people are raising.
Going into this season, out of
the 120 schools in the FBS, only about a dozen of them had a
chance to win the national championship.
There has even been an
undefeated SEC team left out of the national championship in
the past.
That means going into the every
season, 90% of the college football teams in the country
know they have absolutely no shot at the top prize.
Look at March Madness and
college basketball.
What makes that tournament the
greatest sporting event every year is the idea that any team
in the nation has a shot to win the championship by them
giving each conference champion an automatic spot in the
tournament.
Now a lot of people are saying
there needs to be a tournament in college football, like an
“and 1” scenario where 2nd
and 3rd
play with the winner playing the 1st
place team for the championship.
Also, there is talk of a 4 or 8
team bracket set up.
I find all three of these
scenarios unsatisfactory for the reason I said above.
A majority of college football
will still not have a shot at the national championship.
So here is what I am proposing…
(Before I propose
it, this is not my original idea.
I found this idea several years
ago on the internet.
I loved it and have run with
it.)
Every conference
in the FBS will have an automatic qualifier into a 16 team
tournament.
There are 11 conferences.
The other 5 teams in the
tournament will be determined by the highest ranked
non-conference champ.
This could be determined by the
current BCS standings.
These 16 teams would be seeded
according to BCS standings.
As what happens in March
Madness, the top ranked teams end up playing against a lower
level conference champ (which could lead to some fun March
Madness-esque upsets) while the middle teams will have very
even matchups in the opening rounds.
There have been a
lot of criticisms of potential playoff systems, but I do not
think any of them stand up to this system.
Some say the regular season
would mean less.
I argue the opposite.
Just like the wild card system
does for the NFL and MLB, this system would make the end of
the regular season mean more to more teams.
This year in the last 3 weeks
or so, all anyone cared about is what Auburn and Oregon did
because if they won, it didn’t matter what anyone else did.
This would open it up to a
larger group.
The lowest “wild card” team
this year would have only had 2 losses, so it would still be
pretty competitive.
The conference championships
would mean even more than before because now it would be a
place in the playoff on the line instead of a BCS game, or
if you’re in a smaller conference, playoff instead of the
Little Caesars Bowl.
Another argument is disrupting
the players’ finals weeks and holiday break.
First, they don’t seem to care
about disrupting finals weeks and Spring Breaks for March
Madness.
Second, the tournament I am
suggesting would only last as long as the current bowl
season.
So that argument is pointless
as well.
The third argument is that a
playoff would force the loss of the bowl system.
My response to that is not
necessarily.
There are 35 bowls this year
involving 70 college football teams.
The playoff would only involve
16 of those teams.
Also, the teams that lose in
the first round could then be placed in a New Year’s Day
bowl game with the quarterfinals, semifinals and
championship game using the BCS bowls for their games.
The last argument against the
playoff system is the travel time for all the teams.
Again, this is not an issue for
March Madness which plays every game on a neutral court
which forces every team and every fan base to travel.
However, this could also be
solved by the higher ranked team hosting the playoff game
the first round with bowl games hosting the rest like I
said.
Some advantages
to this are, like was said, everyone has a shot at the title
at the start of the year.
This makes every game every
team plays significant.
Also, it eliminates the dreaded
layoff.
Sometimes, teams have up to 2
months between their last regular season game and their bowl
game which leads to rusty play and not a true showcase of
the quality of the team.
This system would make the
longest layoff a team could have 2 weeks.
So now let’s play
out a “what if” scenario.
What if this actually happened
this year?
What would it look like?
Here is what our college
football postseason could look like… (Cue the
Wayne’s World
dream music)
FIRST ROUND
Friday, December 17
Two games Friday night to kick off the
playoff.
# 11 LSU (10-2) at # 6 Ohio St. (11-1) –
7ET/4PT
LSU sneaks into
the tournament as the last wild card team to make the field.
They travel to Columbus for an
epic showdown with another powerhouse program in Ohio St.,
who tied for the Big 10 title but lost the tiebreaker for
the automatic qualifier (BCS ranking) so they enter as a
wild card.
Les Miles facing off against
Jim Tressell.
LSU didn’t always win pretty
this year, but they always seemed to win.
On the other hand, Ohio St. had
a typical Ohio St. season: traditional football, at times
overrated, but not to be overlooked.
Tyrelle Pryor is the difference
maker here.
Ohio St. wins and advances
24-13.
# 13 Central Florida (10-3) at # 4
Stanford (11-1) – 10ET/7PT
Central Florida
is one of those teams that under normal circumstances would
have no shot at competing for the national championship.
However, with winning the
Conference USA championship, they make it into the bracket.
They are no scrub either.
Their 3 losses were close games
lost to quality teams, and they ended the year in the top
25.
They were ranked higher than
the Big East champion who received an automatic BCS bid.
Stanford on the other hand only
lost the one game to Oregon all year.
They have who is projected to
be the top pick in the NFL Draft in Andrew Luck and one of
the most sought after coaches in Jim Harbaugh.
UCF will come out firing, but
the skill of Stanford and home crowd will prevail.
It will be close for awhile,
but Stanford will pull it out and advance 38-17.
Saturday, December 18
This becomes the
biggest day of college football of the year in a style that
will rival the first few days of March Madness.
The last 6 games of the first
round are played with the potential for some major upsets.
# 12 Virginia Tech (11-2) at # 5
Wisconsin (11-1) – 12ET/9PT
Virginia Tech
started off the year slow with losses to Boise St. and James
Madison, but never lost again on their way to an ACC
championship.
Wisconsin wins the three-way
tiebreaker for the Big 10 championship with the highest BCS
ranking.
Wisconsin is strong, but so is
Virginia Tech.
This is the matchup in March
Madness, and I think there will be one here.
Virginia Tech upsets Wisconsin
in Madison to advance 20-17.
# 10 Boise St. (11-1) at # 7 Oklahoma
(11-2) – 1ET/10PT
Boise St. gets
lucky by winning the tiebreaker for WAC champion by having a
higher BCS ranking than Nevada and Hawaii, and without a
couple missed chip shots they wouldn’t need to win a
tiebreaker and would be hosting the first round game on the
blue turf.
Oklahoma comes in to the
playoffs as the Big 12 champion after defeating Nebraska.
Oklahoma has been inconsistent
throughout the year, while Boise St. has dominated everyone
placed before them except Virginia Tech and Nevada, the best
two teams they played all year, and like I said, should be
undefeated.
Boise St. goes in to Norman and
does what they did in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and knocks off
the Sooners to advance 28-24.
# 16 Florida International (6-6) at # 1
Auburn (13-0) – 3:30ET/12:30PT
Florida
International comes out of the Sun Belt Conference as
champion with a .500 record, but 0-4 record in a rough
non-conference schedule.
Auburn comes in as the top seed
and SEC champion.
The teams that dominated FIU in
non-conference were nowhere near as talented as Auburn, and
they will roll in the biggest mismatch in the first round to
advance 52-10.
# 14 Connecticut (8-4) vs. # 3 Texas
Christian (12-0) – 4:30 ET/1:30PT
Connecticut comes
out of the Big East, which was disappointing this year
overall in an NFC West sort of way, however they were champs
and consequently get the bid.
TCU wins the Mountain West and
gets rewarded with this matchup against their future
conference foe when TCU moves to the Big East in 2012.
Connecticut is a scrappy team
that does what they can to be in every game while TCU has
been dominant throughout the year.
The dominance wins out over the
scrappiness as TCU overcomes a first half surge from UConn
and advances 31-10.
# 15 Miami (OH) (9-4) at # 2 Oregon
(12-0) – 7ET/4PT
Miami (OH) goes
from one of the worst teams in the nation last year to MAC
champions this year.
As their reward, they get to
travel to one of the most hostile environments in the nation
in Eugene to play the undefeated Pac-10 champs.
Whenever Miami (OH) faced a
major conference team they were dominated, and Oregon
dominated more times than not.
The Ducks will run the Redhawks
ragged like they have done with everyone else this year and
win easily to advance 45-20.
# 9 Michigan St. (11-1) at # 8 Arkansas
(10-2) – 7:30ET/4:30PT
Michigan St.
makes the field as a wild card as the lowest of the 3 teams
tied at the top of the Big 10 while Arkansas is the third
team to make it from the SEC losing two tough games to then
number one Alabama and current number one Auburn.
As this is the 8-9 matchup, it
should be the best matchup, and it does not disappoint.
As the game plays out, the
experience of Arkansas’s Ryan Mallett beats out the
inexperience of Michigan St.’s Kirk Cousins to advance
23-17.
This round is
left with Florida International, Michigan St., Central
Florida, Wisconsin, Connecticut, LSU, Miami (OH), and
Oklahoma eliminated.
These 8 teams would then fill
in 8 spots in New Year’s Day bowl games that were left
vacant.
Florida International and Miami
(OH) would play in the Ticketcity Bowl, Michigan St. would
play LSU in the Capital One Bowl, Wisconsin would play
Oklahoma in the Outback Bowl, and Central Florida would play
Connecticut in the Gator Bowl.
The next round is
the start of neutral sites for the games.
These playoff games will be
played as the traditional bowl games in these sites.
Combining the quarterfinals,
semifinals, and championship, there are seven bowl games
that will be used for the playoff.
We start with the BCS bowls:
the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls.
Then we add the three biggest
non-BCS bowl games to the rotation: the Cotton, Chick-fil-A
(formerly Peach), and Holiday Bowls.
These seven locales (Los
Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and
San Diego) would cycle through who gets which game.
For example, Phoenix would have
the championship this year, with next year Miami, then New
Orleans, etc.
Four of the bowls will be
designated as the quarterfinal sites, with the matchup
decided by proximity to the higher ranked teams.
QUARTERFINALS
Yes, this year
would require games on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
However, there are always bowl
games on these days anyways so it shouldn’t be a problem.
Here is where it gets
interesting.
Friday, December 24
Holiday Bowl – San
Diego, CA
# 10 Boise St. vs. # 2 Oregon – 8ET/5PT
Here we have a
rematch of one of the most intriguing games of last season.
Oregon lost the game (as well
as their starting running back due to a sucker punch) on the
blue turf last year, but this year’s Ducks are better than
last year.
However, so are the Broncos.
Boise St. would be the toughest
defense that the Ducks would play all year, and they would
hold the high-flying Oregon offense to a low point total
like they did last year.
This would force the Ducks to
rely on their defense to stop Kellen Moore, which no defense
has been able to do yet in his career.
Because of these factors, the
Broncos knock off the Ducks in a shocker 24-13.
Saturday, December 25
The start of a new Christmas tradition: a
triple-header of insane quarterfinal matchups.
Cotton Bowl –
Arlington, TX
# 6 Ohio St. vs. # 3 Texas Christian –
12ET/9PT
As I said before,
Ohio St. has been inconsistent throughout the year while TCU
has been a model of consistent dominance.
However, this will be a
intriguing test of just how strong the non-BCS conference
teams are.
It will be a very competitive
and physical game, but in the end TCU will emerge
victorious, partially because they will almost be playing a
home game in Texas.
TCU advances 13-6.
Chick-Fil-A Bowl –
Atlanta, GA
# 8 Arkansas vs. # 1 Auburn – 4ET/1PT
A rematch from
earlier in the season, we have a showcase of two of the best
quarterbacks in the nation in Cam Newton and Ryan Mallett.
However, just like in the first
matchup, Cam Newton will prevail in a high-flying shootout.
Auburn advances 41-35.
Rose Bowl – Pasadena,
CA
# 12 Virginia Tech vs. # 4 Stanford –
8ET/5PT
Possibly the two
hottest teams that are not undefeated in the country,
Stanford and Virginia Tech brings about an intriguing
matchup (which is actually the real-life Orange Bowl matchup
this year).
Stanford is rolling, and Andrew
Luck is having a legendary season, but Tyrod Taylor and
Virginia Tech are rolling even better.
The Hokies go to the West Coast
and shock the Cardinal in the battle of the unstoppable
teams.
Virginia Tech advances 24-20.
This round sends
home Oregon, Ohio St., Arkansas, and Stanford.
For these four teams, their
seasons are over, however they still have had the
opportunity to play in a bowl game as they would have done
without the playoff.
In other words, the schools
still get their paycheck.
SEMIFINALS
One day.
Two games to decide the
National Championship matchup.
This one happens to fall on New
Year’s Day which means other bowl games will be on, and also
will add to one of the best sporting days of the year.
Saturday, January 1
Sugar Bowl – New
Orleans, LA
# 10 Boise St. vs. # 3 Texas Christian –
4ET/1PT
Why is it that
these two teams always end up playing each other?
They will play next year also
as they will be conference foes in the Mountain West.
Two years ago, TCU won.
Last year, Boise St. won.
They are very similar teams;
both fighting for that extra level of respect.
Now they are getting in each
other’s way.
One magical run has to come to
an end, and I think it will be TCU’s.
Boise St. is just too good and
can fire on all cylinders like few teams can.
It will be close, but the
Broncos grind it out and advance to the championship 17-16.
Orange Bowl – Miami,
FL
# 12 Virginia Tech vs. # 1 Auburn –
8ET/5PT
Virginia Tech has
had a magical run since going 0-2 to start the season.
However, it has to come to an
end sometime.
The Auburn Tigers provide that
opportunity.
The Hokies magical run ends
here as the Tigers roll on to the National Championship
31-20.
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Saturday, January 8
Fiesta Bowl –
Glendale, AZ
# 10 Boise St. vs. # 1 Auburn – 8ET/5PT
What a perfect
place for Boise St. to get their shot at the National
Championship shot; the place where they were put on the map
with their first BCS bowl game.
And what a chance it is.
Auburn has the best player, has
gone through what is considered the toughest top to bottom
conference in the nation, and has made their way through
this gauntlet of a playoff just like Boise did.
All year the Broncos have shown
to be the most balanced team in the nation despite a slight
lapse in accuracy for their kicker in a 15 minute span.
Auburn comes in a little
overly-confident and struggles to stop Boise St.’s
high-flying offense with their sub-par defense.
Cam Newton can only do so much
on his own against a stout Bronco defense, and Boise St.
squeaks out a win on a late Newton fumble.
Boise St. wins the National
Championship 34-28.
Wouldn’t that be
an amazing ride through this month of college football?!?
This is just one scenario this
playoff could provide.
There are dozens of ways it
could all play out that are just as likely and feasible as
this one.
That is the beauty of a
playoff.
It is unpredictable.
I know there will be a lot of
people that would disagree with how I had my bracket play
itself out, but that’s okay.
Wouldn’t you much rather have a
debate on how an unpredictable playoff bracket like this
plays itself out instead of which team deserves a higher
computer ranking?
I know I would.
Let me know how you think the
bracket would play out.
A pdf version of the bracket is
attached below.
2010 Potential College Football Playoff
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