The Third Annual Kevo College Football Playoff

Ladies, gentlemen, and Tom: in what is fast becoming a December tradition only rivaled by Christmas, it is now time for The Third Annual Kevo College Football Playoff.

The premise is simple: the BCS sucks. Everyone with half a brain knows this, unfortunately everyone with power in the NCAA has less than half a brain. The bigwigs don't want to lose money, teams don't want to left out of bowl games, and sponsors don't want to lose their bowl games. Of course, if anyone had common sense, none of this would have to happen. Luckily, I do have some common sense. If anyone with any power in the NCAA is reading this, here's how you do a playoff system.

1) 12 teams make the playoffs
In most years, there are easily 12 teams that legitimately could win a playoff. 8 teams is just not enough, and there probably aren't 16 teams that would really deserve it. 6 automatic bids are given to the big conference champions (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-10, SEC) and six bids are given to at-large teams. The at-large teams can be decided either by a selection committee, or by a rating system similar to the BCS. For argument's sake, I'll use the BCS rankings for this season to pick the at-large teams. Teams are then seeded, again either by committee or rankings. The top 4 seeds get a bye. Here would be the teams for this season, with overall seed:
ACC Champ: Georgia Tech (9)
Big 10 Champ: Ohio State (8)
Big 12 Champ: Texas (2)
Big East Champ: Cincinnati (3)
Pac-10 Champ: Oregon (7)
SEC Champ: Alabama (1)
At-Large: TCU (4), Florida (5), Boise State (6), Iowa (10), Virginia Tech (11), LSU (12)

2) Every bowl game is still played
11 bowl games are part of the playoff system. The rest are played as they are now, outside of the playoffs. Detractors would say the non-playoff bowl games would be completely meaningless. Guess what? They are now.
The title game, semi-finals, and one quarter final game are played at the major bowl sites (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta), with a rotation of which game gets the title game each year. The rest of the games are played at the bigger bowl sites (Cotton, Gator, Capital One, Holiday, Outback, Chick-fil-A, Liberty). And like college basketball, higher seeded teams get to play closer to home where possible.

3) How the schedule would work
Some people say there simply isn't enough time in the season for a playoff system. By the way, Ohio State is going to have a 41 day layoff before they play in the Rose Bowl. Yes, there's time.

Start the season on the first week of September. Every team gets 12 games with one bye week, 13 weeks total. This ends the regular season in the last week of November. The conference title games can be played the first week of December. Non-playoff bowl games can start the Saturday after and continue through the week. The first round of playoffs start the 3rd week of December. The second round is on the fourth Saturday. The semi-finals are on New Year's day (along with other non-playoff bowl games, there has to be a lot of games on New Year's after all). The title game is a week later. Now, was that so hard?

So here's how the playoff schedule would look this year:



First Round, Saturday, December 19th

5. Florida vs 12. LSU at the Outback Bowl (Tampa Bay)
6. Boise State vs 11. Virginia Tech at the Holiday Bowl (San Diego)
7. Oregon vs 10. Iowa at the Capitol One Bowl (Orlando)
8. Ohio State vs 9. Georgia Tech at the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (Atlanta)

Second Round, Saturday, December 26th

1. Alabama vs 8. Ohio State/9. Georgia Tech at the Orange Bowl (Miami)
2. Texas vs 7. Oregon/10. Iowa at the Cotton Bowl (Dallas)
3. Cincinnati vs. 6. Boise State/11. Virginia Tech at the Gator Bowl (Jacksonville)
4. TCU vs. 5. Florida/12. LSU at the Liberty Bowl (Memphis)

Semi-Finals, Friday, January 1st

Game One at Sugar Bowl (New Orleans)
Game Two at Fiesta Bowl (Glendale)

Finals, Thursday, January 7th

Rose Bowl (Pasadena)


Is it perfect? No, teams from Florida (i.e. Florida) get a huge advantage because so many of the bowl games are played in their home state. Different bowl sites might have to be used every year, but honestly, wouldn't this be so much better than the way things currently are?

Of course, we have to simulate this to figure out who the real National Champion is. Once I get/steal a copy of NCAA 10 from someone, it will be done. Stay tuned.