This 2 class system, as we can see by the play of BYU but also of the competitive play of teams like Ohio, ECU, Arkansas State, as well as the entire Sun Belt lately just goes to show that this system is broken.

The solution isn't a playoff…its to just say "All conferences will be treated equally from now on" and provide a guarantee "BCS" bowl bid to every conference.  March Madness gives smaller teams "access" to the possibility of winning a national championship, but they never truly can.  A playoff would do little to help the inequality of college football.

A new system using the same computer and polls (to a much lesser extent) as are currently used is fine, with minor tweaks as the system matures…but all teams must be given the same opportunity.  Right now BYU can go undefeated, stomping BCS teams along the way and Florida State would still have a better shot at the National Championship game (despite having only played FCS teams so far).  In the current system, the best team does not necessarily get to play in the national championship.  Many cite Hawaii as the reason to not go to this system…but the truth is Hawaii is recruiting as a non-BCS team so of course they dont deserve to be in the national championship.  Level the playing field and over time there should be a much more even level of talent that would allow any team to make a run.  A better example is USF last season vs. ECU this season.  If USF was still in CUSA last season and had the same accomplishments would they ever have reached #2? Never.  BCS bias.

Hypothetical 12 Bowl Setup
National Championship Game - #1 v. #2
Rose Bowl - Pac 10 v. At large
Holiday Bowl - WAC v. At large
Fiesta Bowl - MWC v. At large
Cotton Bowl - Big 12 v. At large
Sugar Bowl - SEC v. At large
Peach Bowl - Sun Belt v. At large
Orange Bowl - ACC v. At large
Citrus Bowl - Big East v. At large
Motor City Bowl - MAC v. At large
Outback Bowl (or "Indy Bowl" for Homefield Advantage Concerns) - Big 10 v. At large
Gator Bowl - CUSA v. At large

Thats 24 teams, all the conference champions, and the only bowls that should exist and/or matter.  In this scenario, a BYU that goes through its season undefeated has a chance at the national championship…and so does an FAU team.

The most important thing that this does is level the recruiting playing field.  If a player can go to San Diego State and win a national championship while being close to his family then maybe he wont leave to take the offer from Alabama or Florida.  Under the current system he is gone in a heartbeat.

—Sorry about the rant, just have a feeling BYU will go to the Fiesta Bowl, win, and someone else with 1 or 2 losses will be NC.

I agree that we need to dump the BCS, and we had that whole discussion a couple weeks ago about it.  I think it's only a matter of time that the BCS conferences can get away with treating nearly half of the D1A schools as second-class members. (I called it D1A and D1a.)

Instead of expanding to 12 bowls, which I think would bring cries of unfairness from the other side, I think we can accomplish it by just saying no more guaranteed slots for your conference, and we go to the BCS rankings to decide who's in and who's out.  Keep the max of two teams per conference.

As for a playoff, well, it might not provide lower conferences with "access" to the NC, but at least it would be a fair system.  Nobody can seriously argue that March Madness isn't fair.  Yeah, you're not going to see a 14-seed make a run to the title, but neither can you say that the team that does win it all has some kind of NCAA-sanctioned advantage over the rest.

Also, a playoff might actually help a team like BYU.  One of the criticisms of the current system is that the teams ranked higher in the preseason have an advantage.  If BYU ends up as one of three undefeated teams, like Auburn did a few years ago, and the other two were ranked higher in the preseason, then yes, it is likely that they get bounced out of the title game. (And for that matter, Florida State would too.)  With a playoff, BYU and several 1-loss teams would have a shot.

I also don't think that ANY FCS wins should count towards a bowl….I mean comeon, you can play them if you want but you shouldn't get credit for playing a team that recruits under lower scholarships and lower expectations.

Maybe also only allowing up to 7 home games to prevent UF, for example, from whipping people in the most hostile stadium in College Football for 8 games a season.

Lowering the number of scholarships would also help.

A playoff could help but the issues of extending the season and the whole (reasonable) argument that it takes the excitement out of the game…ie if Ohio State is guaranteed to be in the playoffs they can legitimately slouch off, using 2nd and 3rd string players, negates the possibility of a truly fair (16 teams if you want to get mid-majors) playoff system.

Remove the clause for Notre Dame..period

Removing all tie-ins for BCS games would be useful

I still think that 12 bowls, with equal payouts, could solve alot.. A player then would know that he could stay at FAU and go to a "BCS" bowl (in my example the Peach) and possibly even the National Championship.

I also miss the days of the independents..Penn State, Miami, Louisville all going out and challenging everyone while having the same opportunity to make it to a major bowl game..sometimes I wish we were independent and literally played huge games every week…UF, FSU, Miami, Penn State, Texas, Kansas, USC, etc etc….looking at HS career this is how he made his teams big..as Independents playing the big schools and then winning against them.

FSU is ranked after beating 2 terrible 1-AA teams at home.  All you need to know about the system.

A 16 team play-off that guarantees all conference champions and then at-large teams based on rankings. The bowl system can stay intact by playing playoff games at major bowl sites and non-playoff teams can still go to bowls. It would be comparable to teams getting invited to the NIT. Basically meaningless, but teams still like to get the invite. Realistically teams outside of the national championship game don't have a shot at the title as it stands so keeping bowls for non-playoff teams would be the same thing.


The question of season length comes into play, but some teams are already playing 14 games with 12 regular season games plus a conference title game and bowl game.

The solution is to cut the regular season to 11 games. Teams with conference title games make those  first round playoff games. So the top conferences get their two teams in right away (if they qualify based on a top 25 ranking). Other teams that are eligible play their first round games against non-conf opponents the same week. Here is a hypothetical example of the first round.

Note: Toss out the MAC championship, just take the conference winner after 11 games. No conference shall have more than two eligible playoff teams.

Oklahoma vs. Kansas (BIG12 championship)
Florida vs. Auburn (SEC championship)
Boston College vs. FSU (ACC championship)

At large teams (based on conference title) and seeded:

USF (Big East) vs. Miami, OH (MAC)
FAU (SBC) vs. BYU (MWC)
Fresno State (WAC) vs. Ohio State (BIGTEN)
USC (Pac10) vs. East Carolina (CONFUSA)

Two at large teams:
Wisconsin vs. West Virginia


Another option is to keep the conference title games as automatic bids and have the other ten teams advance based on a playoff selection committee.

GO OWLS!!!

SeminOWL2006 said

I also don't think that ANY FCS wins should count towards a bowl….I mean comeon, you can play them if you want but you shouldn't get credit for playing a team that recruits under lower scholarships and lower expectations.

Maybe also only allowing up to 7 home games to prevent UF, for example, from whipping people in the most hostile stadium in College Football for 8 games a season.

Lowering the number of scholarships would also help.

A playoff could help but the issues of extending the season and the whole (reasonable) argument that it takes the excitement out of the game…ie if Ohio State is guaranteed to be in the playoffs they can legitimately slouch off, using 2nd and 3rd string players, negates the possibility of a truly fair (16 teams if you want to get mid-majors) playoff system.

Remove the clause for Notre Dame..period

Removing all tie-ins for BCS games would be useful

I still think that 12 bowls, with equal payouts, could solve alot.. A player then would know that he could stay at FAU and go to a "BCS" bowl (in my example the Peach) and possibly even the National Championship.

I also miss the days of the independents..Penn State, Miami, Louisville all going out and challenging everyone while having the same opportunity to make it to a major bowl game..sometimes I wish we were independent and literally played huge games every week…UF, FSU, Miami, Penn State, Texas, Kansas, USC, etc etc….looking at HS career this is how he made his teams big..as Independents playing the big schools and then winning against them.

Actually, just reducing the number of scholarships would be a great move.  It would level the playing field a lot just because the top teams can't get all the top players.  More will filter down, which means an FAU or UCF gets the occasional 4-star.  The FSUs and UFs of the world will still get the 5's, but they won't be quite as deep, and the mid-majors would be better.  I think you'd get more parity and less bodybag games.

And yeah, the Notre Dame exception needs to go.  If they're good enough, they'll be ranked high enough.

I don't like D-1AA games (I refuse to say "FCS") counting toward bowl eligibility, but with the growing numbers of bowls, there wouldn't be enough teams if you didn't count them.  It's bad enough with 6-6 teams getting in from any conference, but now you'll have 6-6 SBC, MAC and CUSA teams in there if we keep adding bowls.  We'll have that this year.

I think generally we're on the same page, but the 12 bowls won't work for the big evil reason – money.  Find me one corporation out there willing to put up BCS money for the Sun Belt winner.  No way you can guarantee an equal payout to every conference champ without drastically bringing down the payout for the current BCS games, and that simply won't happen.  The big conferences will scream murder and threaten to break away.  To an extent, supply and demand still has to rule, and tough as it is for us to swallow, more people want to see USC than FAU.  Can't just declare everyone equal by decree.

I'd also like to go back to the 11-game schedule.  All adding another game has done is let the powers schedule another beatdown.  But I guess that won't happen unless we cut down the bowls, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.  Maybe if the economy goes into the tank, but I'd rather put up with more bowls.

UCFKnight85 said

FSU is ranked after beating 2 terrible 1-AA teams at home.  All you need to know about the system.

If I were a D1A athletic director, I'd schedule two patsies to start every year.  Why put it on the line when you can just dole out the punishment and get recognized?

When you think about it, though, ranking them might be no worse than continuing to rank a team #1 after slaughtering some 1-AA cupcake.  The bigger injustice is that we rank teams at all before they play a game.  Don't rank them until mid-October when we know what we've got out there.

The said

SeminOWL2006 said

I also don't think that ANY FCS wins should count towards a bowl….I mean comeon, you can play them if you want but you shouldn't get credit for playing a team that recruits under lower scholarships and lower expectations.

Maybe also only allowing up to 7 home games to prevent UF, for example, from whipping people in the most hostile stadium in College Football for 8 games a season.

Lowering the number of scholarships would also help.

A playoff could help but the issues of extending the season and the whole (reasonable) argument that it takes the excitement out of the game…ie if Ohio State is guaranteed to be in the playoffs they can legitimately slouch off, using 2nd and 3rd string players, negates the possibility of a truly fair (16 teams if you want to get mid-majors) playoff system.

Remove the clause for Notre Dame..period

Removing all tie-ins for BCS games would be useful

I still think that 12 bowls, with equal payouts, could solve alot.. A player then would know that he could stay at FAU and go to a "BCS" bowl (in my example the Peach) and possibly even the National Championship.

I also miss the days of the independents..Penn State, Miami, Louisville all going out and challenging everyone while having the same opportunity to make it to a major bowl game..sometimes I wish we were independent and literally played huge games every week…UF, FSU, Miami, Penn State, Texas, Kansas, USC, etc etc….looking at HS career this is how he made his teams big..as Independents playing the big schools and then winning against them.

Actually, just reducing the number of scholarships would be a great move.  It would level the playing field a lot just because the top teams can't get all the top players.  More will filter down, which means an FAU or UCF gets the occasional 4-star.  The FSUs and UFs of the world will still get the 5's, but they won't be quite as deep, and the mid-majors would be better.  I think you'd get more parity and less bodybag games.

And yeah, the Notre Dame exception needs to go.  If they're good enough, they'll be ranked high enough.

I don't like D-1AA games (I refuse to say "FCS") counting toward bowl eligibility, but with the growing numbers of bowls, there wouldn't be enough teams if you didn't count them.  It's bad enough with 6-6 teams getting in from any conference, but now you'll have 6-6 SBC, MAC and CUSA teams in there if we keep adding bowls.  We'll have that this year.

I think generally we're on the same page, but the 12 bowls won't work for the big evil reason – money.  Find me one corporation out there willing to put up BCS money for the Sun Belt winner.  No way you can guarantee an equal payout to every conference champ without drastically bringing down the payout for the current BCS games, and that simply won't happen.  The big conferences will scream murder and threaten to break away.  To an extent, supply and demand still has to rule, and tough as it is for us to swallow, more people want to see USC than FAU.  Can't just declare everyone equal by decree.

I'd also like to go back to the 11-game schedule.  All adding another game has done is let the powers schedule another beatdown.  But I guess that won't happen unless we cut down the bowls, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.  Maybe if the economy goes into the tank, but I'd rather put up with more bowls.

I think scholarships already were cut. That is why non-BCS teams are becoming more competetive.

GO OWLS!!!

The said

UCFKnight85 said

FSU is ranked after beating 2 terrible 1-AA teams at home.  All you need to know about the system.

If I were a D1A athletic director, I'd schedule two patsies to start every year.  Why put it on the line when you can just dole out the punishment and get recognized?

Take a page out of Spurrier's book from when he was at Florida.

GO OWLS!!!

owlfan1 said

I think scholarships already were cut. That is why non-BCS teams are becoming more competetive.

GO OWLS!!!

It's been 85 since the mid-90s.  Cut that back to 75 and you'll see a lot more competition.  The BCS schools will piss and moan like they always do, but the reality is that they could still go three-deep at every position.