How I would run a college football playoff

I'm very happy that South Florida lost to Rutgers last night since it knocks them out of that ridiculous #2 ranking and effectively ends any ludicrous National Championship talk. This year may shake out perfectly for the BCS if the season ends with two unbeaten big conference teams. But if that doesn't happen, we're looking at another huge college football nightmare, with at least a couple of teams left wondering why they are on the outside looking in. How does every other major team sporting event solve this type of situation? They have a playoff tournament...what a novel idea!

People say that having a college football playoff is too complicated or would add too many games to the schedule, and that's wrong on both counts. Division IAA manages to have a playoff every year, and having our beloved "student-athletes" play three straight weeks of college basketball in March doesn't seem to bother anybody. So, without further ado, I propose an eight team division one college football playoff tournament to be conducted like this:

Eight teams get in. The conference champs from the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big XII, Pac 10, and SEC receive automatic berths. Right now half of those leagues hold a conference championship game and half don't, though I'd like to see them all hold one. If we enacted a playoff and made a conference championship game a requirement you'd see the other member conferences get it done with lightning speed. BYU and UNLV would be in the Pac-10, Notre Dame would jump to the Big 10, etc. That leaves two remaining at-large spots to be determined by the BCS rankings. Yes, there will definitely be complaining from the at-large teams that end up around #9 and #10 in the rankings, but those teams will have a lot less to be angry about than, say, a #3 team in the current format.

My plan requires five locations for games so I'm keeping the current four BCS spots: Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix, and Orange Bowl in Miami. I'm also adding the Cotton Bowl, partially for history's sake but also because I assume the new Texas Stadium they're building will be pretty amazing. If (when?) Las Vegas ever builds a state-of-the-art domed football stadium, I might have that in the mix instead of Dallas.

Like the BCS, the hosts of the various games rotate on an annual basis. The first round goes as follows, just like you'd figure it would: #1 vs. #8, #2 vs. #7, #3 vs. #6, and #4 vs. #5. Four of the five locations each host one first round game on their regular bowl game day, on or around January 1. They can even call each of these games the Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, etc., as this seems to be one aspect of a playoff that gets some people worked up.

The remaining location that doesn't get a first round game would then host both the semi-finals and the National Championship (so this goes to each city once every five years). The semis would take place on the Friday and Saturday (one on each day) in the week following the first round games (January 11 and 12 in 2008, for example). Savvy TV networks would ensure scheduling that did not conflict with any NFL playoff action--not a concern at all on Friday, and easily handled on Saturday. The National Championship game would then be held on the Friday night the next week.

The upside? Practically everything. We get a playoff tournament, which is what most fans want and what the game deserves. We keep the bowl traditions intact. We keep some of the structure of the BCS--the part that works. We minimize scheduling and travel problems, and having the semis and final at the same spot is a big part of that, much like basketball's Final Four. Handling tickets would be a breeze because some diehard fans and tons of corporate fat cats would scoop up packages for both semi games and the championship, while tickets for fans that just want to see their team in the championship would become available after the semis (from fans of teams that just lost). Sure, this is a small factor, but an important one to consider.

The bowl games could all keep their corporate sponsorship and a smart corporate entity could find a way to work in an all-new deal. I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see "The Nike College Football Championship tournament, featuring Arizona State and Boston College meeting in the Apple Computers Championship Game in the Tostito's Fiesta Bowl!" Whatever. It's a small price to pay to actually see this happen. The whole plan adds a grand total of two new televised game opportunities with guaranteed blockbuster ratings that would have the network execs killing each other for the broadcast rights.

Or, you know, we could keep letting computers and writers that don't even watch all the games decide. Because that seems almost perfect.