The most important part of my system is that I refuse use the TLA’s to differentiate between division I footballs two subcategories. Growing up it was always 1-A and 1-AA. The day I refer to them as FCS and FBS is the day I take a cheese grater to my face and jump in the Pacific Ocean.
Now that that business is settled, I believe i touched on this during last weeks blog, but in case I didn’t. I can’t stress enough that this is MY system, and I’m not about being fair or even making sense, this is the system that I would get the most enjoyment out of and makes the most sense to me. Don’t like it? Email me, tweet me, the address should be over there ----->
I’ll pretend like your criticisms don’t bother me and then I’ll cry myself to sleep that night, sounds like fun huh?
In all seriousness, I wouldn’t mind hearing your system. So again, shoot me an email ---->
Or a tweet ----->
Now to my system. My system is a twelve team playoff bracket with the top four teams getting a first round bye. These teams are made up of four of the six teams that have a conference championship. Those conferences include:
- ACC
- Big Ten
- C-USA
- MAC
- Pac 12
- SEC
Here are my reasons for this stance:
- Conference Championships are awesome, don’t like the fact that you conference doesn’t get a first round bye? Add more teams and have a conference championship......you ninnies
- I like the idea that the conference championships would act as a sort of first round playoff game
- Conferences that have a championship have to play an extra game that other conferences do not, so I think it is only fair we reward those teams with one fewer game to make things even.
- Teams that don’t have a conference championship could play on the same weekend that other conferences are playing their conference championships. I like that idea. The only problem with that is that two conferences (usually the MAC and C-USA) would be left out of the top four due to the weakness of their conference. I know that doesn’t seem fair but fill your conference with something other than Akrons, directional Michigan Schools and maybe i’d be more merciful. Also, in most peoples scenarios (including the current model now used by the BCS) they are left completely out in the cold, so I’m doing them a favor by including them at all. You’re welcome.
Idealy it would be nice to have eight conferences of sixteen teams, or something so no byes are needed, that would require some conference realignment, I’ve thought about doing that for another blog, but it would be a real time sink, so no promises.
I’m also torn between the awesomeness that is conference championships and conferences that can actually play all of the teams in their conference every year (the way the Big 12 is now). To me it seems silly to have teams in your conference that you play in two year on, two year off cycles, or longer in some cases.
Aside from the four conferences with the bye that leaves 7 conferences plus the independents. Therefore I give one slot each to each conference champion. I feel it’s important you win your conference in order to win the MNC, that’s just how I feel. Don’t like it? Write your own blog :-)
That leaves one spot left. A spot I had a hard time deciding on. On the one hand you have the four independents, however there are only four of them, if their were more I might think about giving an automatic spot, but there aren’t, so they have to be ranked highly enough (perhaps in the top 10) or have a decent enough record. You indy’s don’t like it? Join one of the conferences that needs a few extra teams to hold a conference championship so they’re eligible for one of those nifty top four seeds.
Even better yet, be selected or not by a committee of experts whose sole job is selecting the 12th spot or a wild card team. Yeah, I like that committee idea.***
Yes, I said wild card team, I didn’t like that idea either, especially since I just got done saying how important conference championships are. As things are now I don’t see a way around it.
Next unique aspect of my playoff is that reseeding will take place after each round, meaning that in each round the lowest seeds will be matched against the highest seeds. This will increase the likelihood that the two best teams meet in the championship. I know the NFL does this with their first round, but they still split their brackets by conference and only reseed for the first round I believe, mine is the only system I know of that would be a complete reseed system.
Last major unique thingy about my system is that the first two rounds will be played at the higher rated teams home stadium. This was just nixed by the Big Ten which originally suggested something similar for the future four team playoff. I liked the idea. I like the idea of a team from the south having to come up north in the middle of December and playing somewhere really, really cold. This instead of northern teams always having to travel south for their bowl game as it has been forever.
The so called ‘final four’ will take place at traditional BCS bowls, rotating between them as to who hosts the championship. Those bowls being the Orange, Sugar and Rose. Screw you Fiesta bowl, you corrupt bastards you! You’ve lost your chance.
I’m not entirely against some further mix-match of bowls to home games, perhaps the first round could be bowls as well, again rewarding the top four seeds with a home game.....but this blog is due so no more time to ponder....
Now onto the fun part, using my system, what would last year have looked liked? First, seeding the teams, we’ll start with the infamous top four seeds, pulled from the conferences having a championship.
Seed Team Pre-Bowl Record in 2011/ Notes
1. LSU 12-0 / Easy-peesy pick, only undefeated team, and out of the rugged SEC to boot.
2. Oregon 11-2 / Picked them over Wisconsin as they played a more courageous Non-conference schedule including a loss to #1 seed LSU in the first week of the season.
3. Wisconsin 11-2 / See above, plus they totally aren’t Clemson....
4. Clemson 10-3 / Worst record, plus I hate them, they wreck havoc on my family college pick’em every week of every year with their Jeckl and Hydeness, but they are better conference champs than the C-USA offerening or the MAC,..although I would have been curious to see Southern Miss take a shot at them...
So those are our top four seeds, again, pulled from the conferences that have a championship.
Onto the teams in the first round, without the bye.
Seed Team Pre-Bowl Record in 2011/ Notes
5. Alabama 11-1 / Alabama sneaks into the only wild card spot with their only loss coming to #1 Seed LSU. Had somebody in the independent ranks been worth a poop though, they’d have been on the outside looking in...
6. Oklahoma State 11-1 / Best record of the remaining conference champs, prolly would have been involved in the championship last year had they used any sensible system of a four team or even a plus one playoff.
7. TCU 10-2 / Next year they’re off the the Big 12 but last year they were still in the Mountain West conference and their Rose Bowl appearance and win against Wisconsin in 2010 proves to me they can hang with the big boys.
8. Southern Miss 11-2 / Always a favorite of mine (other than Nebraska) they take on the big boys and normally scare the be-jesus out of them, and sometimes beat them. That’s why I’m a little lot leary about Nebraska playing them the first game of the season next year....yikes,...anyways, they upset up until that point undefeated Houston in the C-USA championship, and like I said I’d be curious to see how S.Miss would have matched up against Clemson,...the more I think about it, the more I’m closer to giving them that 4th seed.....
9. Arkansas State 10-2 / Another scary non-conference opponent for Nebraska next year, getting the slight edge over N.Illinois
10. N.Illinois 10-3 / Biggest thing the Huskies had going for them is that they’re not in the Big East, which I can’t even bring myself to watch. Which is saying something...considering we are talking about College football here.....
11. Cincinnati 10-2 / As much as I can’t stand watching the Big East, I still think the Bearcats are better than.....
12. Louisiana Tech 8-4 / Who finished with the worst record of any conference champ and they are coming out of the cupcake filled Sun Belt conference.
Those are the seeds. Now with the aid of a neat site I found called What If Sports I’ll use that to trace through my hypothetical playoff from last year.
The site uses stats, formulas, algorythms and a bunch of other stuff I don’t understand to generate realistic results in hypothetical match-ups, complete with stats and stuff, very cool...so you could say, match up the 1994 Nebraska team with the 1995 Nebraska team, or whatever your heart desires...again,....very cool.
On to the first round:
To no ones surprise 5th seed Alabama throttles 12th seed La. Tech 38-17.
6th seed Okie State takes down 9th seed Cincy from the Big (L)East 48-27.
TCU (7th seed) wins a high scoring game with 10th seed and MAC champ N. Illinois 49-31.
In the last match up of the first round, my dark horse S.Miss team falls in a slight suprise to 9th seed Arkansas State 20-17.
So we have the following four seeds advancing:
- 5th seed Alabama
- 6th seed Okie State
- 7th seed TCU
- and 9th seed Arkansas State
Making the 2nd round feature:
- #1 LSU vs #9 Arkansas State
- #2 Oregon vs #7 TCU
- #3 Wisky vs #6 Okie State
- and #4 Clemson vs #5 Alabama
The results from the second round hold no huge shockers, but I’m mildly surprised LSU only managed to squeak by ASU 20-17, and Wisky managed to outscore Okie State 56-42.
Other scores from round two:
- #2 Oregon 27-17 over #7 TCU
- and #5 Alabama knocking off #4 Clemson 30-6
We’re now down to the ‘final four’ and the games that are associated with existing bowls. After re-seeding again we end up with the following match-ups:
- #1 LSU vs #5 Alabama, a match up that took place in last years actual national championship bore fest.
- and #2 Oregon vs #3 Wisky another actual match up from last bowl season, with Oregon winning.
As I mentioned earlier my original idea was to rotate the bowls, but seeing as how Oregon and Wisky are a traditional Pac 12/Big Ten Rose Bowl match up we’ll put them there. And the SEC is a Sugar Bowl conference (if I remember right), so we’ll put them there, leaving the MNC to be the Orange Bowl. Maybe I should make some rule that if a traditional bowl match up occurs the teams will go to their traditional bowl,...or something,....haven’t decided....too late now...
In the Sugar Bowl Alabama all but shuts down LSU just like in the real life matchup 38-3, but the Rose takes a different turn than the real thing and Wisconsin prevails.
Now are our National Championship. A show down in the Orange Bowl,.....finally a playoff where a true champion can be determined!
…....Alabama thrashes Wisky 45-13.....
So even though I designed a playoff system specifically to my tastes, and Alabama only got in because their weren’t any good independent teams we still wound up with the same MNC.
Also, we ended up having what was probably an even more mis-matched national championship...all under scoring my point from last week, that the national championship is stupid, and you can’t prevent a stinker from occurring in the championship game regardless of the system.
Therefore,...I say again....teams should just win their games and not worry about whatever post-season tweak the rich guys are trying this year......now if you don’t mind the “Committee***” has to meet to prevent this 45-13 disaster from happening again next year....surely SOMETHING can be figured out...maybe if we ju-......
* remember that acronym? Awww...shucks...well thanks for trying...
** Three.Letter.Acronyms
*** Oh, and by committee I mean me.......and only me
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