So there are potentially six teams that could go undefeated in college football this year which means there is a high probability of at least three of them actually doing it. That means for one of those three, no matter what they did this year they couldn’t win the national title because the voters didn’t like them at the start of the season. That is incredibly stupid, but instead of just complaining about it and saying I want a playoff I am going to actually tell you what the perfect playoff system is. Listen up NCAA!

First of all we have to deal with the format. An eight team playoff would work perfectly within the confines of the bowl schedule and academic schedule. Round 1 would be played the week before Christmas, then the winners get to have Christmas week off to spend with their families when they’re not practicing (Michigan excepted as DickRod will have them doing 2 a days on Christmas day). The semifinals would be on New Year’s Day and the national championship would be one week later. The national championship game is already on January 7 so this is not extending the season at all.

In order to appease the bowls the 6 games leading up to the national championship would be alternated between the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, Cotton and Peach bowls. The national championship would also be held at one of those 6 venews every year. LA, New Orleans, Miami, Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta all have stadiums capable of handling the national title so that works out perfectly. The rest of the minor bowl games won’t disappear simply because there is a playoff, they will go on as usual, still get the same ratings as usual because people will watch college football, and still be a big success as usual.

Now that we’ve established the format, we need to pick eight teams. First of all, the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Big Twelve and Pac Ten champions all get automatic bids. There’s no way any of these conferences would buy into it without that being the case. As an added benefit the easiest way for a team to make the playoffs is now winning your conference rather than just trying to go undefeated so teams will schedule tougher games out of conference to prepare them for conference play. For the mid major conferences and independents, if a team is in the top 8 in the BCS standings they get an automatic bid as well. The final 1 or 2 spots would go to the highest ranked team in the BCS standings who is not already invited.

Now you may say, what about the first team out, won’t they whine? Well, yes they surely will, but wouldn’t you rather have the ninth best team complaining rather than the third best possibly undefeated team? I would. Besides, it happens in basketball too and we all just get over it because that bubble team probably wasn’t going to win the championship anyway.

As of right now we would have the following playoff:
Florida-Alabama winner vs. Georgia Tech
Texas vs. Cincinnati
Iowa vs. Boise St.
USC-Oregon winner vs. TCU

Last year would have been:
Oklahoma vs. Virginia Tech
Florida vs. Cincinnati
Texas vs. Penn St.
USC vs. Utah

Who wouldn’t love either of those playoffs? Anyway, I think it’s a perfect solution. I won’t even charge the NCAA, they can simply implement it and I’ll be happy.

In the sports world tonight:

CFB: East Carolina @ Memphis

NHL: Philadelphia @ Washington
Colorado @ Edmonton
Detroit @ Vancouver

NBA: regular season starts!
Boston @ Cleveland
Washington @ Dallas
Houston @ Portland
Los Angeles @ Los Angeles

Also, on ESPN, 30 for 30 continues with some crap about boxing, a sport which no one but jpmanahan cares about anymore followed by WSOP coverage.

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