My BCS Playoff Proposal, Year 2

Since it was easy to adapt from last year's proposal, I figured I'd throw my two cents in again about how college football needs a playoff.

Before getting to the proposal, a couple of observations from this year that show why there needs to be a playoff:

1. Boise State and TCU - who really cared who won last night in the Fiesta Bowl? I'm sure both of those teams still want to show that they belong with the big boys. Nobody (including Pac-10 Champ Oregon) beat Boise State this year. A playoff is the only way to compare the MWC and WAC to the big conferences--whether they're close or not.

2. New Year's Day is becoming irrelevant - personally, I was excited about the PSU-LSU matchup. But, other than that, what compelling games were on Jan 1? Who is really excited about a Tuesday Jan 5 Orange Bowl matchup of Georgia Tech and Iowa?

3. It just doesn't matter. PSU was criticized towards the end of the year about not beating a ranked team. Well, they beat LSU. But, what does it matter? It's not like they get a chance to move on to anything to further justify how good/mediocre they are. Florida and Cincinnati had coaching dramas that were more covered than the game itself.

I'm sure there are many more reasons (like the Texas-Texas Tech-Oklahoma issue from last year), but on to what the 2009 proposal would look like:

Some of the basics first:

*All regular season games for 'non-BCS' conferences would end by Nov 14

*On the weekend of Nov 21 would be the conference championships for the non-BCS conferences and the BCS conferences would finish their play.

*The weekend of Nov 28 would be the 'play-in' weekend where the top 4 non-BCS conference champions would host the lowest non-BCS conference champ and 3 BCS at large teams NOT in their conference championship game (based on BCS standings). This would reward the smaller schools and force the big boys who aren't in the conference championship game to actually go on the road to these non-BCS schools.

*The weekend of December 5 is the six conference championships and the eliminating the non-BCS champs and BCS at-larges down to two for a total of 8 teams.

*The weekend of December 12 would be the matchup of the 8 teams, matched up accordingly by seed like the NFL does for the 2nd round of the playoffs as a home game for seeds 1-4. For example, this year Alabama would play Georgia Tech because GT would be the lowest ranked team (from the BCS rankings) left. This would give the northern teams a chance at a cold game matchup against the southern teams.

*Two weeks later (and only 4 teams left), the two semi-finals as a double-header at some dome or at two different locations (like NFL conference championship Sunday)

*And, by New Year's, a championship game.

Some other thoughts:

*Throw Notre Dame in with the Big Ten to give them 12 teams and a 'championship.' This year, for example, ND wouldn't be in the championship. Rather the top two ranked teams in the BCS between ND and the Big Ten would play in that

*Since the Big East only has like 6 teams, they are forced to match up against the top-ranked BCS at-large team not in a conference championship. That gives the best at-large team (Virginia Tech this year) a bye week.

*Even though the Pac 10 only has 10 teams, just give them their own conference championship of the top two-ranked BCS Pac-10 teams to prevent East Coast Bias.

*How excited would Central Michigan be to host LSU? And, let the best team win.

So, that's about it. Feedback certainly welcome. Off to watch the riveting Georgia Tech-Iowa matchup......zzzzzzzzzzzz