As many of you know, the matchups were announced last week for the 2003 1AA playoffs. Taken into consideration by the committe were such aspects as financial concerns and better regionalization.

The outcome has caused a few strange matchups. UMass, who lost to Co-A10 champ Delaware, at Delaware in 3 OT with their only other loss coming at then #5 1A Kansas State, were not given a home game and must travel to #4 seed Colgate. UMass is ranked 5th in the 1AA poll with Colgate 6th. Delaware, the #3 seed was given a home game, but it is against the S. Illinois, ranked 4th in the 1AA poll. Other problematic areas include Montana, who lost last week to Montana St. AND also lost to a D2 school being given a home game simply because they have strong attendance numbers.

The concerns of the committee are noted. They are attempting to save money for many of the programs who can't afford travel over what could be very large distances.

Ideally, each program would be well funded and the committee could seed the top 16 teams in the playoffs in a manner so that the #1 team would play the #16 and so on. This isn't the case.



Here's a concept that might be worth looking into: considering, but not as drastic, the financial and regional concerns. Here's the idea:

* Setup 4 regions, similar to the NCAA basketball tournament.

* Award 1 and 2 seeds for each region, with these teams getting the home games.

* Try to break down the geography to relieve SOME of the travel costs, while rewarding teams that earned both home games and weaker opponents.

* Include 1, maybe 2 home games that will be revenue generators IF NEED BE.

* Higher seeded teams that advance would host games.

* Schools could defer hosting a game if they were concerned about operating costs vs travel costs.

( I'm sure Southern Illinois would not pass on hosting a game as they did this year, if the alternative was flying to Arizona and then Montana for a second round game)


So the field of 16 could look like this:
(first # indicates 1AA poll ranking, second # is 2003 seed. BOLD = Home game)

East:
1) DELAWARE(#3, #2)
4) Jacksonville St. (#17)

3) UMass (#5)
2) COLGATE (#6, #4)



South:
1) MCNEESE ST. (1, 1)
4) Bethune-Cookman (14)

3) Florida Atlantic (13)
4) WKU (9)



Midwest:
1) WOFFORD (#2, #3)
4) North Carolina A&T (18)

3) W Illinois (10)
2) NORTHERN IOWA (7)



West:
1) SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (4)
4) N. Arizona (16)

3) Montana St (24)
2) MONTANA (11)




Is it perfect? Not at all. But you are better rewarding teams for their regular season success.

_________________


@ncaasports csi.com/facebook


Like the new CSI Userbar? Feel free to use it here and any other forums.
You can save and host it yourself or link from here.

I have an idea for a 20 team playoff...each conference Champ gets a bid...except for the Ivy League cause it doesn't participate in post season play

20 slots
-13* Conference Champs
- 1 Independent Bid(Highest Ranked Independent)
----
6 at-large slots

These 6 at large slots can be given to the conferences with the highest number of teams...or with the most top 25 teams

1-A-10
1-SWAC
1-MEAC
1-Gateway
1-Southern
1-Big Sky

All teams are seperated into 4 regions(northeast, southeast, southwest, west)

Teams are seeded based on National Rank...

the number 4 and 5 seeds play a "play-in" game with the winner going to face the number 1 seed in the region...

Example-Northeast Region

#1-
#4- }#1--
} #4- |
#5- |
|---#1 Northeast-- National
#2- | | Champ
}#2-- |-------#East Winner
#3- | vs.
#1 Southeast--
#West Winner


This would take probably 1 week longer than the current format...It gives a chance for all the conferences to get into the postseason...

I think it'll work

The reason some conferences don't make the playoffs is because they just aren't that good. Giving those conferences automatic berths would cut out teams that deserve to be in the postseason and make the playoffs a joke. Plus, adding a week to the current schedule would mean someone would be playing two days after Christmas??

Yeah, that guy obviously didn't know anything if he wasn't even cognizant of the distinction between scholarship and non-scholarship. Also, SWAC no longer participates in I-AA Playoffs in favor of a conference championship game. Does anyone know what the current status of the Patriot League is vis-a-vis scholarships?

The Patriot is still need based only.

The Ivy just doesn't participate. but technically the SWAC does, from what a media guy told me. It's just that the SWAC has no automatic bid as the division champions compete for a game on the first day of the playoffs. So the SWAC's 2nd place divisional teams could in theory get an at-large if they were ever good enough.

As for other notes, the Big South and Great West also are playoff participants.