My thoughts on the National "Championship" Game

Originally Posted, Thursday, January 7, 2010

    When I set out to write this blog, I was pretty set on keeping my thoughts on a local level. I really didn’t want to stray too far from high school sports, heck, there’s enough national pundits out there spilling word after word about college and professional sports, but as I sit here less than eight hours from the start of the BCS “National Championship” game, snowed in, with all the local sporting events postponed by mother nature, I though I’d put a few things in words on my take on the BCS game. I’m not a big fan of the current system, and if you asked me what the letters BCS stand for, my answer would not include the words “bowl” and “series”!

    The current system is a joke, one has to look no further than the Fiesta Bowl to see what I mean. The Fiesta Bowl matchup between Boise State and Texas Christian University, while intriguing, and pretty fun to watch, made absolutely no sense. What did either school have to gain from that matchup? What did either conference have to gain from that matchup? The short answer is NOTHING!

    For the past few years, the “little guys” the “mid-major” conferences have been screaming that their teams, while rolling up gaudy numbers against arguably inferior competition were worthy of playing the “big boys” in the high dollar bowl games AND were worthy of competing for the so called “National Championship”.

    The pollsters have gone along with that notion, pushing the undefeated teams to the top of the list like it was their right. Since they were unbeaten, the deserved to be highly ranked, and for the most part the computers have agreed, thus we see unbeaten teams like Cincinnati, Boise State and TCU ascend the charts and knock on the door of the holy grail of NCAA Division I football the “BCS National Championship” Game.

    Now, none of those teams have gotten that far, and it’s unlikely, given the current system that any of them will, short of an act of congress or a presidential decree, or some other legal wrangling. But, they have pushed their way into the BCS Bowl games, and have, at least, gained the right to face off with the “Big Boys”.

    That brings me to point number one. Why in the hell did the Fiesta bowl take Boise State AND TCU. Wasn’t the whole point of this exercise to see if the mid-majors could compete with the BCS Conferences? Wouldn’t a Boise State vs. Iowa and a TCU vs. Georgia Tech matchup be more fun? We got to see what Cincinnati was made of in the Sugar Bowl, and they proved to be not quite ready for prime time when they faced the Florida Gators.

    Now, Boise State shocked Oklahoma a couple of years ago in one of the most memorable “David and Goliath” battles ever in the Fiesta Bowl, they proved that a mid-major could take on a storied program, go toe to toe and come out a winner. I would have rather seen if Boise State could have handled Georgia Tech, and seen what TCU could have done against Iowa. Then we might know a little more of what might happen if one of these “Cinderella’s” ever make it to the big dance.

    And that brings me to point number two -- the current system SUCKS!

    Every other sport has a playoff, but not the NCAA FBS division. There’s that “BS” part again, and I guarantee you my version doesn’t end in “bowl subdivision”. I still don’t understand why there can’t be a playoff. All the arguments from “it will take too much time away from the classroom” to “it will kill the bowl system” is a bunch of you know what!

    Here’s my idea -- Take the current 120 FBS teams and add eight more, forming eight conferences with 16 teams each (Notre Dame will HAVE to join a conference). Each team will play a 12 game schedule (7 division games and 5 non-conference games) in the 13 weeks between the first Saturday in September and the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Each team will be trying to ultimately win the DIVISION Championship, because that will get them into the CONFERENCE Championship game which is the first layer of the PLAYOFF system. Non-Conference games will not count against the DIVISION record, so the really great regional and national match-ups we all love can still be played. In effect, each team enters the playoffs the day conference play begins.

    Once the 16 Division winners are determined, the eight conferences will play their championship games on the first two Saturday’s in December, leaving eight Conference Champions who will advance to the final rounds of the playoff.

    Here’s where the current bowl system comes back into play. On New Year’s Day (remember that USED to be THE day to watch College Football), the eight conference champions will be seeded 1 through 8 and will be matched up in four current bowl games (we’ll use a rotation of the current BCS games and add the Gator and Cotton Bowls for example). So in this example seeds 1-8 would play in the Gator Bowl, seeds 2-7 in the Cotton Bowl, seeds 3-6 in the Fiesta Bowl, and seeds 4-5 in the Sugar Bowl. 

    One week later the Orange Bowl and Rose Bowl would host the national semi-final games, and one week after that the true “National Championship” Game could be held at one of the current bowl venues, or put out for bids like the Super Bowl.

    As soon as the Conference championship games are played the other 30 or so bowl games could then fill their slots with any team OTHER than the eight Conference Champions. All other bowl games would need to be played BEFORE New Year’s Day.

    This system would add one extra game for four teams and another for the two teams playing for the national championship, but that’s it. There would be no lost classroom time, because most schools don’t start up again till mid January anyway, and with this system, the National Championship game would be played on January 14th each year.

    Now it would be harder on the fans of the teams that advance. There would have to be some decisions made as to what level of the championship run to attend, but that’s life.

    Is this a perfect system, no. But as long as the bowls exist, there will never be a perfect system. But it’s sure better than what we’ve got, and it sets up a system whereby on the first day of September EVERY team enters play with a chance to win the title.