Left Seater wrote:My problem with the plus 1 system is that often it isn't necessary. Who should Texas have had to play in the plus 1 in 2005? USC in 2004?
Imho, if you're going to do Plus One, you have to revamp the current BCS format, at least slightly. Eliminate the 1 vs. 2 matchup. You can then do it one of two ways.
Option One is to create essentially a four-team playoff with the bowl games as the first round and the Plus One game as the championship. In this option, you would use involve two bowl games and four teams every year. One bowl game would host a 1 vs. 4 matchup and the other would host a 2 vs. 3 matchup, with the winners squaring off in the Plus One game. The rest of the BCS would continue pretty much same as usual.
Option Two is to go back essentially to the system in place prior to 1992, which gives conference tie-ins to certain bowl games, and the remaining bowl bids sort of selected ad hoc. If you want to keep a semblance of the BCS in place, these bowls could cooperate by selecting remaining teams on a rotating basis. The problem with this system would be that it would create a sort of free-for-all for the Plus One game, which could be determined by the polls. There's also the possibility of a 1 vs. 2 matchup in the bowl round under this system.
As a practical matter, I think any playoff system that goes into place will prove to be a huge cash cow for the NCAA. That will mean that the NCAA will want to maximize its revenue, and that means 16 teams eventually. If I might be so bold as to offer a prediction, I think they'll try a Plus One game within 5-10 years, then eventually, within another 5-10 years, go to a full-blown playoff with 16 teams.
Btw, if you had a 16-team playoff last year, it might have looked something like this:
#1 Ohio State vs.
#16 Rutgers
#8 Boise State vs.
#9 Auburn
#4 Michigan vs.
#13 Arkansas
#5 USC vs.
#12 West Virginia
#6 Louisville vs.
#11 Notre Dame
#3 LSU vs.
#14 Wake Forest
#7 Wisconsin vs.
#10 Oklahoma
#2 Florida vs.
#15 Virginia Tech
Note: to prevent the possibility of a regular-season rematch in the first round, I swapped out Arkansas with West Virginia and LSU with Michigan. To accomplish the same thing, if you prefer you could swap out Arkansas with Notre Dame and LSU with USC, which yields the following matchups:
#1 Ohio State vs.
#16 Rutgers
#8 Auburn vs.
#9 Boise State
#4 USC vs.
#13 West Virginia
#5 LSU vs.
#12 Notre Dame
#6 Louisville vs.
#11 Arkansas
#3 Michigan vs.
#14 Wake Forest
#7 Wisconsin vs.
#10 Oklahoma
#2 Florida vs.
#15 Virginia Tech
What's not to like about that? All of those teams wound up playing in the postseason anyway. Imho, it would be better if their games had a bearing on the national championship. You get some great OOC matchups, much like the bowl games offer, only the games count for more than just pride.
SunCoastSooner wrote:I would like to see an eight team playoff starting in mid to late December personally.
Won't happen, at least not the part in bold. Remember the justification university presidents have glommed onto in opposing a playoff. Most schools are in finals in mid-December.
My suggestion: keep the bowl games as, for lack of a better phrase, college football's answer to the NIT. Require the bowl games to finish by December 30. Start the playoff on December 31.
