“Death to the BCS”: A 2009 What If
By Paul Myerberg // Oct 13, 2010
It takes down the B.C.S., as you'd expect from the title.
If nothing else — and there’s much, much more — “Death to the BCS” provides an accurate, meaningful, comprehensive breakdown of all that’s wrong with the Bowl Championship Series landscape. There’s plenty to discuss, topics I’ll touch on in greater depth with Dan Wetzel, the Yahoo! Sports national columnist, in a Q&A next week. I’m looking forward to throwing some questions Dan’s way; you should as well, considering how passionate Dan — one of the very best in the business — is on the topic. As a quick taste of what’s to come, the back cover of “Death to the BCS” provides an interesting take on how the 2009 season might have played out had a playoff system been in place. It’s all hypothetical, so try to hide your disappointment. Nevertheless, it’s intriguing to consider what might have been.
It’s a 16-team hypothetical playoff, as you’d expect. The big boys are there, whether via a conference championship — Alabama, for instance, as the SEC winner — or via an at-large bid — Florida, Penn State and Virginia Tech, for example. Also in the mix: every single F.B.S. conference champion, B.C.S. conference or otherwise. Here are the projected first round matchups at the end of the 2009 regular season, listed by four-team “division,” from top left to bottom right as in the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament — or women’s tournament:
Alabama division
1 Alabama vs. 16 Troy
8 Ohio State vs. 9 Georgia Tech
T.C.U. division
5 Florida vs. 12 Penn State
4 T.C.U. vs. 13 L.S.U.
Texas division
2 Texas vs. 15 East Carolina
7 Oregon vs. 10 Iowa
Cincinnati division
6 Boise State vs. 11 Virginia Tech
3 Cincinnati vs. 14 Central Michigan
The scenario has Alabama the automatic bid from the SEC; Texas from the Big 12; Ohio State from the Big Ten; Oregon from the Pac-10; Georgia Tech from the A.C.C.; Cincinnati from the Big East; Boise State from the WAC; T.C.U. from the Mountain West; Central Michigan from the MAC; East Carolina from Conference USA; and Troy from the Sun Belt. That leaves Iowa, Florida, Penn State, Virginia Tech and L.S.U. as at-large bids.
Just something to chew over — what could have been? I’m going to save the B.C.S. or non-B.C.S. conversation for my conversation with Dan, but it’s an interesting scenario. Wouldn’t a second round matchup between Alabama and Ohio State have been interesting?
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Tags: Dan Wetzel, Death to the BCS
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Why 16 teams? A tournament that big only adds to perhaps the strongest argument against a playoff – that it is too great a burden on the players, who are, after all, college students.
How about an 8-team playoff instead, which would only add 2 games, instead of 3, to the post-season schedule. I’m thinking the 7 major (i.e. BCS) conference champs (including the MWC, which, especially after it adds Boisie, will clearly be worthy of inclusion) and 1 at-large bid to take care of the highest ranked independent team, minor conference team, or major conference non-champ.
The other nice thing about an 8-team playoff is that you can keep the 4 “big” bowls as the “first round,” with traditional or semi-traditional match-ups – Rose (Big-10/Pac-10), Sugar (SEC and at-large), Orange (ACC/Big-East), and Fiesta (how about Big-12/MWC!)
Remember also that too large a tournament de-emphasizes the importance of the regular season, which is after all one of the things that keeps college ball special.
Defeat Alabama by two touchdowns and my Gamecocks still doesn’t make this hypothetical tourney? I say Death to this BS article!
Paul: Please, please read the entire post: this was a hypothetical 2009 playoff scenario based on the book “Death to the BCS.” Not a 2010 playoff scenario.
Very excited to read that book.
I don’t believe that a playoff would hurt college football, since it works in Division III, Division II, the NFL, and every single other college and professional sport in the world.
The matchups that would have been in 2009 is the best argument for abandoning the BCS for a playoff. Each of the 4 brackets would have featured terrific matchups or intriguing storylines, with the promise of increasingly compelling matchups as the brackets advanced.
Imagine, 15 games in the CFB postseason that all meant something and the chance for miracles.
Hey Paul, I was just joshing. LOL I heard about this book today on Finebaum. The author is supposed to be on his show tomorrow or Friday.
Paul: You son of a bitch! I wish I had the balls to listen to Finebaum daily. I will listen over the web on certain days, such as this Monday. Don’t forget to call in to the show and drop a little P.S.R. love over the airwaves. Sure Finebaum would love that.
Dave, an 8-team playoff does absolutely nothing to address the biggest flaw of the system, which is the systematic exclusion of a number of teams. A 16-team playoff provides access to nearly every school in the FBS via conference championships. Even if the Sun Belt Champion is just cannon fodder for the SEC Champ, the access is still there, which gets Congress off your back. Secondly, bid out the sites, similar to the basketball tournament. It would be a piece of cake for, say, Alabama to play Troy in Atlanta and Ohio State/Georgia Tech in Pittsburgh with the winners playing in Charlotte (all NFL stadiums, with a mild but not overwhelming home-field advantage). You mean to tell me there’s no way the NCAA and the schools themselves would make LESS money with a system like this?
Wow…make this list with the current coaches poll…what an awesome playoff!
I like the proposal of 16.
It allows the establishment’s brand-name at-large picks to still compete even if they don’t win their conferences, while still letting all conference winners have a chance at the big prize.
Too bad we don’t have a Wayback machine: I’d love to see how Utah would have fared in a 2008 playoff. Or how the 2007 mess (LSU, OSU, Georgia, WVU, Oklahoma, Missouri, Virginia Tech, BYU, Hawaii) would have played out.
Ideal yes, of course. Logical, no. I don’t think in my lifetime I will ever see a college football playoff. The school presidents will never sign off on it. I just don’t see it happening.
I would love someone to ask Dan how he feels about ruining the SEC Championship Game the last two years, since the stakes would’ve been roughly zero.
I don’t have time to research this, but I’d guess you comment-board guys have a pretty extensive collective knowledge:
What’s the biggest outsider champion in the (fairly recent) history of NCAA playoff sports? Maybe we stick to FBS/D-II football and March Madness. Maybe college baseball, too.
Am I right that there’s never been a true outsider champ to make it through a playoff system?
Even in basketball (where you only need a couple of good players to make a run) all champs have come from big basketball conferences, right? A middling Big East team pulls off a championship more easily than, let’s say, a 29-1 SoCon team.
Is this true in FBS history, too?
You see where I’m going with this.
If we expanded the FBS field to 64, we’d be less surprised to see a 2009 LSU or Georgia get to the final four than a Cincinnati or ECU or even TCU/Boise.
Isn’t the BCS just cutting to the chase?
Would love to see what counterpoints you guys come up with from the historical facts.
To DMK: What about Butler at last year’s Final Four? Fresno State in baseball? Your arguments fail. The valid arguments aren’t about the likelihood that a mid-major conference champ would win it all. I doubt that would happen. The argument is about fairness and access. A 16-team playoff with access for all 11 conference champions is the valid option. Big boys who don’t win their conference would still have a shot at the prize. And nobody, that I know of, is promoting a playoff system with more than 16 teams. That “scope creep” argument is also BS.