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The key to me will be what the playoff system looks like. The best idea I've heard is to return to the bowl system that we had in the past and have the top 4 teams play in a playoff after the bowl games are finished in January. If they move to an NFL/FCS style system where there is a 16 team playoff and teams that finished 3rd or 4th in their conference are getting in, I'll be disappointed.

The BCS is a flawed system, but I actually thought it worked reasonably well given its initial purpose. The goal of it was to match the #1 vs. #2 rated teams in the final game, and most years it clearly did just that. Prior to the BCS, it seemed like every other year there were 2 undefeated teams that never got to meet on the field at all, and it was left completely up to the subjective voters to decide who the national champion was.
 



Whatever system they pick will be just as flawed if the games are played "after the bowl games":

1) To select 4 teams after the bowls are played will be just as much chaos as the BCS. Which bowls matter? Who decides who plays in the bowls--conference affliations be damned? What about conferences that send multiple bowl qualifiers? What if the SEC wins 2 of the above listed bowls and all of the other bowls that they qualify for? You end up with Alabama vs. LSU.

Season ends in February?

2) 8 team play-off. Are 20-30,000 fans going to travel three weeks in a row and pay thousands of $ each week? This ain't like basketball or FCS where you might get 3-5,000 traveling fans each weekend. Hotels? Air fare/reservations with 6 days notice for 20,000?

First round on campus? Camp Randall in December?

Which 8 get to play? 8 conference Champions? 6 conference Champions plus 2 WCs? Same issues as BCS now.

As "flawed" as the BCS is, I still think a play-off at the major college level is a tough proposition from the logistical standpoint. Will the bowls go away without a fight? Don't think so.

Random thoughts. Go ahead, savage away.
 



John Galt said:
The key to me will be what the playoff system looks like. The best idea I've heard is to return to the bowl system that we had in the past and have the top 4 teams play in a playoff after the bowl games are finished in January.
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I'm ok with this idea, but I think the long layover would make the season way too long. You'd play your regular season, then have a month off. Play your bowl games around New Years, then take a week or two off to sort things out. And then play the playoff games. You'd be getting close to February before it's all set and done. It works just fine for the NFL because there is no layover.

If they move to an NFL/FCS style system where there is a 16 team playoff and teams that finished 3rd or 4th in their conference are getting in, I'll be disappointed.
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I agree, 16 would be too many. I'd be ok with 8 as long as the first round games would be at the higher seed. Playing at home would be a huge advantage. But I think the next step if 4.

The BCS is a flawed system, but I actually thought it worked reasonably well given its initial purpose. The goal of it was to match the #1 vs. #2 rated teams in the final game, and most years it clearly did just that. Prior to the BCS, it seemed like every other year there were 2 undefeated teams that never got to meet on the field at all, and it was left completely up to the subjective voters to decide who the national champion was.
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It's gotten better, but there still has been plenty of controversy. We had the split NC in 2003, the situation in 2004 when three teams finished the regular season undefeated, 2006 with Boise St. being the only team to finish undefeated, and 2007 and 2008 were a mess.

There's never going to be a perfect system, of course.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I'm ok with this idea, but I think the long layover would make the season way too long. You'd play your regular season, then have a month off. Play your bowl games around New Years, then take a week or two off to sort things out. And then play the playoff games. You'd be getting close to February before it's all set and done. It works just fine for the NFL because there is no layover.
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If the bowl games were all finished January 1, you could play the semi-finals on Jan 8 and the championship game Jan 15. This is similar to when the season is finishing up now. The logistical challenge was well put by highwayman, in that how do you get fans to travel to 3 places in 3 weeks w/ limited notice. Neutral site games wouldn't work, you'd have to play at the higher seeds home field.
 

if it were me, id start out by doing sec acc bigeast b10 b12 pac12 and have the champions of thoes divisions play each other... litterally draw a name out of a hat for who plays who... none of this 1v6 crap.. pre determain the game destinations as well as who plays who before the season starts...
 



I know the large conference commissioners are not in favor of a playoff in general. They feel like it will reduce the overall revenue for the conference. Delaney implied he would prefer to reduce the opportunities for the small conferences since they never would have had those opportunities before the BCS.

And I think Highwayman hit the nail on the head on two points. For any team, are 25,000 fans going to travel to the first round playoff game, then travel again to the second round, then travel again to the championship game? And I would think the SEC teams would virtually refuse to travel to a northern school and play outdoors in December.

Also, I would assume MN isn't the only northern school that didn't design their stadium around being open in December, meaning another reason they'd try to push the games down south.

As a football fan I'd rather see a tournament, but I'll be surprised if they make it work...
 

8 team playoff with no break after the end of the season. Six major champions 2 best BCS at large. Seed them 1-8 with playoff games at home sites of higher seed until the final which is played at a preordained venue. This would mean this year that quarterfinals would be played the weekend of the 10th, semifinals the 17th and the final would be played as the last BCS game after the New Year. Here's the caveat, with arguably the 8 "most deserving" playoff teams playing the BCS is going to look pretty bare yes? Wrong.

By winning into the playoff you have assured yourself a BCS slot, which means that squads from non-AQ conferences could have greater access, although they would still have to win out. When a team is eliminated from the playoffs they are slotted into an appropriate BCS bowl according to conference. For example, say Wisconsin and Oregon were on opposite sides of the bracket and were beaten in the quarterfinals. Since they have the right tie ins they go straight to the Rose Bowl. Having almost 3 weeks should give bowl organizers plenty of time to hype the matchup and organize everything, and its not as long of a layoff as the current system has for some teams. I think Alabama had a over 40 day layoff between their last game and the BCS title?

Just my 2 cents about ways to preserve the bowl system (cuz its not going to go completely away) while still making the playoff the top prize. It also makes the BCS games what they should be, the next best thing to the national championship, as it stands now its the best chance a lot of teams get.
 

I would do something similar, except I would have the top 8 conference champs make the playoffs, with the opening round at the higher seeded team's home site, and no at large bids. This would enhance the value of the conference chamionship. An 8 team playoff is small enough that bowls could still exist. Some of the smaller bowls would probably disappear, but there would be plenty left.
 

It'll be interesting if the rest of the bowls are affected. When schools are Losing money to go, and are completely on the hook for tickets, there's something wrong. Even a decrease to 32 bowls would be an improvement.
 



If a playoff is implemented it will start small, like the basketball tournament did. Probably 4 teams.

Have the 4 team playoff begin right after the regular season, maybe two weeks later and two weeks between semis and final game.

Then the bowl games can go back to what they were originaly, exhibition games. Big Ten vs Pac? in Rose Bowl. If a B1G or Pac? team played in playoff then the second place team would go to Rose Bowl.

Jan 1
Cotton Bowl
Sugar Bowl
Rose Bowl
Orange Bowl
 

1. I hate bowls. They're mostly pointless. I can't remember who won last year's Fiesta, Orange, etc. I sure as heck can tell you who has won the last 10 national championships though. I rarely watch a bowl game not involving the Gophers and our rivals. If a playoff further erodes the bowl structure, that would be a good thing in my mind.

2. I hate when people bring up that an 8 or 16-team playoff would ruin the integrity of the regular season. B. F'in. S. Last time I checked Alabama played at home against LSU and the outcome of that game had NO barring on the national championship game. If the regular season truly mattered then Alabama had no right to play in that game. Since the BCS game is determined in paper, the regular season does NOT matter. It would matter if the winner of the BT, ACC, B12, PAC-10, etc got invited to the tournament. Since they aren't invited, it is a meaningless regular season to me. The thing about the regular season that matters to the vast majority of football fans is rivalries. Those don't go away with a playoff. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? You don't. Fans will still show up for the boring non-conference games and in fact, a playoff might actually encourage teams to schedule tougher opponents. No way Wisconsin would have gotten an at-large bid if they didn't win the BT with their baby butt-soft schedule this year. Just like in CB, SOS would become even more important. Finally on the regular season crappy argument: virtually every regular season game does matter in a playoff system...for seeding and the fact that you might not make the field of 8 or 16. OSU's loss to Iowa St in this format means they likely face a road game at Alabama in the semis if they make it that far. Beat Iowa St - you get home field up until the championship game. Mich St's loss to Wisconsin in the BT championship game: Wisconsin joins the dance while Mich St plays in some pointless remaining bowl game. That's powerful.

3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers.

Those are the arguments I hate: What I would love:

8 team playoff (5 AQ's - sorry Big East) and 3 at large teams determined by a selection committee similar to CB. The committee also seeds the teams 1 thru 8. 1 players 8, 2 plays 7, etc. The first and second rounds are played at the home stadium of the higher ranked seed. Championship game rotates across the country - not just in Miami, NO, Glendale, and Pasadena. We're talking about Ford Field, Lucas Oil, Jerry's Palace, Georgia Dome, etc. 1st round is the week of Dec 10th. 2nd round is the week after Christmas. Championship game is right after new year's day. Can still have your crappy bowls if you want them. Just won't include any team that makes it to the semi's (excludes 4 teams). The wonder known as the Insight or Beef O'Brady's Bowls can still exist.
 

Pewterschmidt said:
3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers..
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As I understand it:

Bowl money is split between participants.

Money from BCS games is split between BCS schools.

Money from an NCAA football playoff would be split between all 300+ D I schools.
 

station19 said:
As I understand it:

Bowl money is split between participants.

Money from BCS games is split between BCS schools.

Money from an NCAA football playoff would split between all 300+ D I schools.
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Who says the NCAA gets to run the playoff?

Also, BCS money is shared between conference members. I would assume that the money generated from the TV contracts would be split in a similar way.
 

Lakeville Goldy said:
And I would think the SEC teams would virtually refuse to travel to a northern school and play outdoors in December.
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That right there is why I think it could work. It would still keep the regular season very important. You're an SEC team and don't want to travel north to play in December? Then win more games. If you're an Oregon, would you rather play VA Tech at home or LSU on the road in the 1st round? Huge difference.

If I were King of the World and could change things to how I'd like it, this is what I'd do:

8 team playoff. First and second rounds would be at the higher seeds' home stadium. First round played the week after conference championship, second round one week later. The six teams who lose the first two rounds are automatically put into BCS bowls to be played at their normal times. Championship game played at a neutral site in early January.

To determine the eight playoff teams, conference champions from the six big conferences get in automatically if they finish in the Top 10 of the BCS rankings. The rest of the slots would be taken by the highest ranked teams available. Teams from the same conference cannot face each other in the first round unless the conference has three or more teams in the playoffs. This year the first round match-ups would have looked like this:

#10 Wisconsin at #1 LSU
#7 Boise St. at #2 Alabama
#5 Oregon at #3 Oklahoma St
#6 Arkansas at #4 Stanford

Then reseed after the first round.

1) BCS bowl games are still in place for the BCS conference members to cash in.
2) Six great matchups (four 1st round, two 2nd round) are added to the schedule. I've got to believe that the ratings for these games would be much higher than the current BCS bowls. Imagine the fun of the first round games in one weekend. One game Friday night, three on Saturday. I'm a big NFL fan as well, but that weekend would get me more excited than the Super Bowl by a mile.
 

Pewterschmidt said:
Who says the NCAA gets to run the playoff?

Also, BCS money is shared between conference members. I would assume that the money generated from the TV contracts would be split in a similar way.
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Agreed about the ncaa. That's why bsc was invented and why the bsc schools will not go along with an ncaa tournament but may invent their own. BTW I think the AQ thing is really stupid. Also potential lawsuits abound

I believe the conference split of bcs money is the option of each conference.
 

Pewterschmidt said:
1. I hate bowls. They're mostly pointless. I can't remember who won last year's Fiesta, Orange, etc. I sure as heck can tell you who has won the last 10 national championships though. I rarely watch a bowl game not involving the Gophers and our rivals. If a playoff further erodes the bowl structure, that would be a good thing in my mind.

2. I hate when people bring up that an 8 or 16-team playoff would ruin the integrity of the regular season. B. F'in. S. Last time I checked Alabama played at home against LSU and the outcome of that game had NO barring on the national championship game. If the regular season truly mattered then Alabama had no right to play in that game. Since the BCS game is determined in paper, the regular season does NOT matter. It would matter if the winner of the BT, ACC, B12, PAC-10, etc got invited to the tournament. Since they aren't invited, it is a meaningless regular season to me. The thing about the regular season that matters to the vast majority of football fans is rivalries. Those don't go away with a playoff. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? You don't. Fans will still show up for the boring non-conference games and in fact, a playoff might actually encourage teams to schedule tougher opponents. No way Wisconsin would have gotten an at-large bid if they didn't win the BT with their baby butt-soft schedule this year. Just like in CB, SOS would become even more important. Finally on the regular season crappy argument: virtually every regular season game does matter in a playoff system...for seeding and the fact that you might not make the field of 8 or 16. OSU's loss to Iowa St in this format means they likely face a road game at Alabama in the semis if they make it that far. Beat Iowa St - you get home field up until the championship game. Mich St's loss to Wisconsin in the BT championship game: Wisconsin joins the dance while Mich St plays in some pointless remaining bowl game. That's powerful.

3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers.

Those are the arguments I hate: What I would love:

8 team playoff (5 AQ's - sorry Big East) and 3 at large teams determined by a selection committee similar to CB. The committee also seeds the teams 1 thru 8. 1 players 8, 2 plays 7, etc. The first and second rounds are played at the home stadium of the higher ranked seed. Championship game rotates across the country - not just in Miami, NO, Glendale, and Pasadena. We're talking about Ford Field, Lucas Oil, Jerry's Palace, Georgia Dome, etc. 1st round is the week of Dec 10th. 2nd round is the week after Christmas. Championship game is right after new year's day. Can still have your crappy bowls if you want them. Just won't include any team that makes it to the semi's (excludes 4 teams). The wonder known as the Insight or Beef O'Brady's Bowls can still exist.
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I disagree completely with pretty much all of this. It's easy in hindsight to find the one game during the regular season that didn't "count." If CFB moves to the type of playoff that you suggest, lots of games that previously had national title implications will now only be about who gets the higher seed. I'm not interesting in watching CFB degenerate into an NFL style system. I could give a rat's a$$ about watching Michigan/Ohio St. to see who winds up with the #4 seed and who gets #8 only for them to play again in 2 weeks. And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
 

Is this the 4 + 1 game format they were talking about on ESPN radio

I thought I heard on ESPN Radio that the BCS schools are discussing a 4 team playoff basically 4 semifinalist and then the + 1 game like they have now for the BCS title. Doesn't sound like it is going to be a true tournament just the 4 highest seeds play and then the winners face off in the final game.
 

John Galt said:
I disagree completely with pretty much all of this. It's easy in hindsight to find the one game during the regular season that didn't "count." If CFB moves to the type of playoff that you suggest, lots of games that previously had national title implications will now only be about who gets the higher seed. I'm not interesting in watching CFB degenerate into an NFL style system. I could give a rat's a$$ about watching Michigan/Ohio St. to see who winds up with the #4 seed and who gets #8 only for them to play again in 2 weeks. And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
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I think you're underestimating the importance of getting a higher seed and playing at home. Just looking at the Big Ten and SEC, home teams won over 60% of conference games.
 

John Galt said:
I disagree completely with pretty much all of this. It's easy in hindsight to find the one game during the regular season that didn't "count." If CFB moves to the type of playoff that you suggest, lots of games that previously had national title implications will now only be about who gets the higher seed. I'm not interesting in watching CFB degenerate into an NFL style system. I could give a rat's a$$ about watching Michigan/Ohio St. to see who winds up with the #4 seed and who gets #8 only for them to play again in 2 weeks. And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
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Then we'll have to agree to disagree because your way of thinking makes absolutely no sense to me. Think back to the conference championship games. I could argue that not a single game that weekend mattered. Not a one. What kind of finish to the regular season is that? If Georgia beat LSU, they probably still play in the NC game. In my model, every single one of those games matter. You win - you're in. You lose, you better hope that you played well enough during the regular season to get an at-large bid. The major flaw with the current model is so many games are meaningless. Any one-loss team (or more) not named Alabama saw their season end with their first loss. Oklahoma St might as well just packed it in. Every remaining game they had on their schedule was pointless. Completely meaningless. In the tourney system, that loss hurts. One more and they're probably out of the 8-team tourney. That loss to ISU cost them seeding, home field in the semis, and completely wiped away their margin for error. However, what it did do was still give meaning to the rest of their games unless they lost one more.

Not to mention the "game of the century" in early November pitting LSU at Bama. What kind of regular season is it when the "game of the century" has ABSOLUTELY NO MEANING whatsoever.

I'd much rather have dozens and dozens of games that matter than just a handful. I'd rather have a regular season that builds to something (Non-conference to conference to conference championship to tourney) than something that ends in week 1 or 2 where there might be 1 game a weekend that matters to the national championship race and that's even debatable.
 

And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
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The issue is whether rivalries would be diminished by a tournament. I have seen no reason to think they would be. Your example doesn't have anything to do with a playoff, and doesn't have anything to do with rivalries. Can rivalries fade? Sure, when the gap between the teams gets too wide. Rutgers vs. Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game, and it they used to play every year, but it became one-sided, and they haven't played since the 1980's. No one is saying that rivalries could never fade, just that a tournament wouldn't do it.
 

Pewterschmidt said:
1. I hate bowls. They're mostly pointless. I can't remember who won last year's Fiesta, Orange, etc. I sure as heck can tell you who has won the last 10 national championships though. I rarely watch a bowl game not involving the Gophers and our rivals. If a playoff further erodes the bowl structure, that would be a good thing in my mind.

2. I hate when people bring up that an 8 or 16-team playoff would ruin the integrity of the regular season. B. F'in. S. Last time I checked Alabama played at home against LSU and the outcome of that game had NO barring on the national championship game. If the regular season truly mattered then Alabama had no right to play in that game. Since the BCS game is determined in paper, the regular season does NOT matter. It would matter if the winner of the BT, ACC, B12, PAC-10, etc got invited to the tournament. Since they aren't invited, it is a meaningless regular season to me. The thing about the regular season that matters to the vast majority of football fans is rivalries. Those don't go away with a playoff. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? You don't. Fans will still show up for the boring non-conference games and in fact, a playoff might actually encourage teams to schedule tougher opponents. No way Wisconsin would have gotten an at-large bid if they didn't win the BT with their baby butt-soft schedule this year. Just like in CB, SOS would become even more important. Finally on the regular season crappy argument: virtually every regular season game does matter in a playoff system...for seeding and the fact that you might not make the field of 8 or 16. OSU's loss to Iowa St in this format means they likely face a road game at Alabama in the semis if they make it that far. Beat Iowa St - you get home field up until the championship game. Mich St's loss to Wisconsin in the BT championship game: Wisconsin joins the dance while Mich St plays in some pointless remaining bowl game. That's powerful.

3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers.

Those are the arguments I hate: What I would love:

8 team playoff (5 AQ's - sorry Big East) and 3 at large teams determined by a selection committee similar to CB. The committee also seeds the teams 1 thru 8. 1 players 8, 2 plays 7, etc. The first and second rounds are played at the home stadium of the higher ranked seed. Championship game rotates across the country - not just in Miami, NO, Glendale, and Pasadena. We're talking about Ford Field, Lucas Oil, Jerry's Palace, Georgia Dome, etc. 1st round is the week of Dec 10th. 2nd round is the week after Christmas. Championship game is right after new year's day. Can still have your crappy bowls if you want them. Just won't include any team that makes it to the semi's (excludes 4 teams). The wonder known as the Insight or Beef O'Brady's Bowls can still exist.
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1. You don't remember the Boise State - Oklahoma game? Really? You didn't watch the Stanford-Oklahoma State game out of mild curiosity? Really? What makes you watch a national championship game that doesn't involve the Gophers or their rivals any more than a regular bowl game?.. I think there are too MANY bowls (too many teams with .500 records or worse getting to play) but at the worst these are just extra games, similar to pre-conference games, that help determine strength of conferences and showcase teams from varying parts of the country.

2. The Alabama-LSU game DID matter, just not as much as a loss to Iowa State on the road apparently mattered to most voters. You pulled one example where a team got a rematch with the very team they lost to. How often has that happened? The regular season DID matter for OkSt, Oregon, Stanford, Wisconsin, etc since losing their 1-2 games meant they didn't get a shot at the title. It made for a huge amount of drama, and made the loss sting that much worse for OkSt fans. Had OkSt won against ISU, Alabama wouldn't have had their shot, so yes, that game DID matter. The importance of the regular season of any sport is diluted as more teams are considered for a playoff system. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? USC-UCLA? Alabama-Auburn? I don't know, a game where the loss doesn't matter because you're still guaranteed a playoff spot and at least home field for the first round? I'm not saying in year 1 it happens. After 10, 15, 20 years of a new system, and more and more teams in a playoff system, rivalries go away. Tell me, since you used CBB as an example, how many schools have a serious rivalry in basketball? Is the OSU-Michigan rivalry/desire to win as heated in BB as it is in FB? Would you rather beat WI in football or BB? I can tell you I've been to a lot of games and I guarantee the sting of defeat against a rival in a system where the loss matters less is not there nearly as much.

3. Others have pointed this out. A playoff system would be run by the NCAA by rule. They control the TV deals and cash flow and money is distributed how they see fit (if at all?). I'm not sure how the bowl systems continue to cost schools money. Perhaps the smaller schools that aren't affiliated with big conferences with tie-ins to the big bowls that pay out in the teens of millions (which is then shared with all conference members). If it truly did cost them more than they received as a payout, here are a couple options: 1) don't bring the full team. Suit up like an away game, bring the minimum staff required, and reduce costs by not staying at the expensive hotels. 2) Negotiate terms with the bowls to not have to purchase as many seats as they require. 3) Realize that perhaps being in a bowl is a marketing/advertising cost associated with your athletic department since you are playing on national TV and being able to point out bowl appearances to potential recruits.

No more than a 4 team playoff. I can't think of a year where more than 4 teams could legitimately say they had a right to be national champions. I personally don't think there's a playoff system out there that actually crowns the best team in the country/etc. It crowns the hottest team at that time. The more teams you invite, the more you punish the ones who did go undefeated (or 1 loss in CFB).
 

RailBaronYarr said:
The more teams you invite, the more you punish the ones who did go undefeated (or 1 loss in CFB).
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I agree with this. I like the idea of no margin for error for 99% of teams in CFB. If you lose you have no arguement for being in the championship game. I just think if you add a +1 you will cover yourself for a rare year where more than 2 teams are undefeated like a few years back.
 

Pewterschmidt said:
Then we'll have to agree to disagree because your way of thinking makes absolutely no sense to me. Think back to the conference championship games. I could argue that not a single game that weekend mattered. Not a one. What kind of finish to the regular season is that? If Georgia beat LSU, they probably still play in the NC game. In my model, every single one of those games matter. You win - you're in. You lose, you better hope that you played well enough during the regular season to get an at-large bid. The major flaw with the current model is so many games are meaningless. Any one-loss team (or more) not named Alabama saw their season end with their first loss. Oklahoma St might as well just packed it in. Every remaining game they had on their schedule was pointless. Completely meaningless. In the tourney system, that loss hurts. One more and they're probably out of the 8-team tourney. That loss to ISU cost them seeding, home field in the semis, and completely wiped away their margin for error. However, what it did do was still give meaning to the rest of their games unless they lost one more.

Not to mention the "game of the century" in early November pitting LSU at Bama. What kind of regular season is it when the "game of the century" has ABSOLUTELY NO MEANING whatsoever.

I'd much rather have dozens and dozens of games that matter than just a handful. I'd rather have a regular season that builds to something (Non-conference to conference to conference championship to tourney) than something that ends in week 1 or 2 where there might be 1 game a weekend that matters to the national championship race and that's even debatable.
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Your bolded point is not true. In hindsight, yes. But how many 1-loss teams actually KNEW when they lost their season was over? Think OkSt knew it? What was the margin of BCS ranking at the end of the season? How about the sting of the loss to USC for Oregon? No one can say that any of the other teams in contention would absolutely win out. Or that at the end of the day the other teams' strength of schedule and perception with voters based on how they won their remaining games would be better than their own. Therefore no one knows that their season is done. But it does make every matchup meaningful.

2nd point... Actually, that win helped solidify LSU as the undeniable #1 team in the country. Their strength of schedule, due in large part to that game (+ the Oregon and Arkansas wins), made it so that even a loss at the end of the season would still have kept them at #2. While I don't agree with it the perception, people didn't see OkSt's schedule that way, so a loss to ISU hurt them. So that game was meaningful, as much for LSU as it was that OkSt had even MORE pressure not to lose.

3rd point...We already do have this... it's called the entire season. Boise State saw any hope of a national championship vanish with the loss to TCU. A playoff system with 8 teams produces how many "meaningful" ones (by your definition)? 4-2-1 = 7. Not dozens upon dozens. Even a 16 team playoff produces 8-4-2-1 -> 15 games that are "meaningful."
 

I think anything more than a +3 will result in the near complete destruction of college football as we know it.

The interest in a major bowl that is not part of a playoff will be the same as the current interest in the capital one / gator / outback bowl. Then they will say, "why not start the playoffs right after the season?". Once they do that the (remaining) bowl games that now will occur after the championship will become the pro bowl. Once that happens, most of them will fold, and a team will be out of contention once they are 0-2 or 0-3 making all non-rivalry games pointless. And we'll have ruined college football.
 

GophersInIowa said:
That right there is why I think it could work. It would still keep the regular season very important. You're an SEC team and don't want to travel north to play in December? Then win more games. If you're an Oregon, would you rather play VA Tech at home or LSU on the road in the 1st round? Huge difference.

If I were King of the World and could change things to how I'd like it, this is what I'd do:

8 team playoff. First and second rounds would be at the higher seeds' home stadium. First round played the week after conference championship, second round one week later. The six teams who lose the first two rounds are automatically put into BCS bowls to be played at their normal times. Championship game played at a neutral site in early January.

To determine the eight playoff teams, conference champions from the six big conferences get in automatically if they finish in the Top 10 of the BCS rankings. The rest of the slots would be taken by the highest ranked teams available. Teams from the same conference cannot face each other in the first round unless the conference has three or more teams in the playoffs. This year the first round match-ups would have looked like this:

#10 Wisconsin at #1 LSU
#7 Boise St. at #2 Alabama
#5 Oregon at #3 Oklahoma St
#6 Arkansas at #4 Stanford

Then reseed after the first round.

1) BCS bowl games are still in place for the BCS conference members to cash in.
2) Six great matchups (four 1st round, two 2nd round) are added to the schedule. I've got to believe that the ratings for these games would be much higher than the current BCS bowls. Imagine the fun of the first round games in one weekend. One game Friday night, three on Saturday. I'm a big NFL fan as well, but that weekend would get me more excited than the Super Bowl by a mile.
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Love it, this sounds like a great plan to me.
 

If the NCAA ever goes to a playoff there will not be bcs rankings. There will be the polls and there will be the NCAA selection comittee just like every other college sport.

It would be pretty easy to do a 12 team tourney. 11 conference champions and one at large bid. You could have some criteria like a conference champion has to be in the selection committees top 20 to get the automatic bid otherwise it becomes an at large.
Round of 12 round and round of 8 played the two weeks following the conference championship games. Play at higher seeds stadium. If a teams stadium isn't game ready because of cold tell them to move the game.
Keep the bowl system the way it is minus the top 4. Play the semifinals on bidded on neutral sites (like basketball). Play semis on the nearest Saturday to new years day. Play the final game one week later.


All teams still play in bowls except the top 4. Big 6 conferences still get their bowl money.
 

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