SORRY...THIS IS LONG

I’ve tweaked an idea I have shared with you in the past on a possible system for championship play to be structured for 1-A football.

It is predicated on “spreading the wealth” among college football teams by offereing a dual system for post-season play. It is also based on more schools wanting to play at a major status.

It recognizes the absurdity of putting so much emphasis on selecting a national championship when so many schools play 1-A football and the chances of each is minicule. It also recognizes that whatever football sets up, it won’t be an NCAA hoops type tournament which does little to select a true national champion since it virtually embraces all schools. Football will unquestionably be more select in its choosings and will view its champion as a real champion more than b’ball would.

My system is one that values the regular season, gives it credence, and creates the excitement of exciting conference races, while giving hope and interest to teams that will not reach the loftiest goals.

OK, enough talk, this is it:

1. Conferences stablize with 12 members.

2. Hopefully the number of conferences stablizes at 8

3. So we are talking about 96 teams, which would include many of today’s mid majors

4. The system recognizes there are more schools out there with growing enrollments that would at some point reach that total of 96

5. Conferences retain the 2 divisonal set up that currently exists. Let’s use the following for example:

BIG XII
North South
Colorado Okla
Kansas Okla St
K-St Baylor
Missouri Texas
Ia St Tex Tech
Nebraska Tex A&M

6. A schedule is set up to come as close to, or even reach, round robin

7. The best team in the league represents the league in championship play with no regard for th e divisional set up

8. If two or more teams tie for the league championship, a formula is established to select the two who will play for league championship (total points, head to head competition, etc., could be used). If a team wins outright, there will be no conf championship game.

9. League champions (8 of them) play for what we will call the GOLD CUP. They are slated for New Years day bowls in hopefully traditional settings (i.e. B10 vs. Pac Ten in Rose Bowl, SEC to the Sugar Bowl, XII to Orange as the Big 8’s successor). Four teams emerge from New Years bowl to go on to championship play in Jan.

10. Non-divisional conference winners also go into a championship series which we will call the SILVER CUP. These games would also be played during the Dec. bowl season and would continue for four teams with January play, as in the GOLD.

11. Using that XII as an example:

BIG XII
North South
Colorado Okla
Kansas Okla St
K-St Baylor
Missouri Texas
Ia St Tex Tech
Nebraska Tex A&M

Scenerio 1: Oklahoma has best record in league, Nebraska has best record in North. OU goes on to compete for Gold Cup, Nebraska for Silver

Scenerio 2: Oklahoma and Nebraska tie for XII regular season. They play in a championship game. Nebraska wins, goes on to Gold Cup competion, with OU going on to the Silver

Scenrio 3: Colorado and K-State have the league’s best records and Texas has the best in the South. Colorado and K-State play a championship game for league title and K-State wins, goes on to Gold Cup competiton. Texas plays in Silver competition.

BIG POINT HERE: 8 teams go on to championship play (with Gold obviously more important than Silver), so more options for championship play exists. The regular season has the real escitement of a 12 team race. Champions earn their championships. Teams adjust goals (i.e., playing for Silver) as circumstances of season become obvious. If you are the best team out of six, you go on to championship play, if you are best of 12, you compete for a national championship

Again, sorry that was so much...any comments you have would be welcome.

As always, I enjoy getting people's takes on this issue, thanks for your input bgdz. I like this idea, it shows more imagination than most remedies on this form, mine included.

I see one big problem, however. The number of games the champion would have to play seems HUGE, but lets see...If you have 12-teams conferences and want near a round robin, lets say thats ten games. Even if you cut down non-conference play to 3 games from the current 4 or 5, that gets you to 13. If you have a conf. champ. game, 14. Bowl game, 15. Then 2 games after Jan.1... thats 17 games, more than the NCAA would be willing to allow, these are students first supposedly. ;)

Ok, here is my shot at it.
BCS II
Every conference will have there own computer formula which will be checked and verified by each member insitution and one other conference which will rotate every year. The two polls will continue to be used, but together would only have the weight of one computer ranking.

The bowls will be used in a pseudo double elimination based on quads of teams.
example.
1: Oklahoma
2: USC
3: LSU
4: Michigan

Michgan would play at Oklahoma and LSU would play at USC. The winner of each would move on to play each other for 1st and 2nd place. The losers will play each other for 3rd and 4th place. This would work all the way down. I Say the top 32 teams would get to play and participate in the bowls. The first set of games would be played at the higher ranked schools house. the second set of games are palyed in the bowls. Ditch the auto birth for the big bowls.

I see one big problem, however. The number of games the champion would have to play seems HUGE, but lets see...If you have 12-teams conferences and want near a round robin, lets say thats ten games. Even if you cut down non-conference play to 3 games from the current 4 or 5, that gets you to 13.

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Thanks for input, Gumby.

I'd be content with a 10 game conference schedule (one short of a round robin) with two out of conference games (that makes a 12 game schedule). With two games, maybe there wouldn't be as much of a desire to schedule patsies, actually improving the quality of out of conference games.

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thats 17 games, more than the NCAA would be willing to allow, these are students first supposedly.

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True. But let's face: that is, at some point, what they are going to get anyway. I, for one, can't believe the current computer-picks-two system will last forever. I can't imagine a future scenerio that does NOT include some type of multi-team playoff. And, don't forget, under my system a conference championship is not a given.

bgdz, points for originality! I don't think the SEC or others would be willing to give up their conference championship games, however; Even if the money were handed to them straight up, the publicity and notariety that comes with such national telecasts, especially in the eyes of recruits, would be tough to surrender.

It augments the overall financial issue. The MWC is showing us how few conferences have the market and cache to make a 12 member conference work financially. Supposedly a MWC championship game would garner less than $3 million in revenue, indicating that adding more than 1-2 schools would reduce the per-school take quite significantly.

Perhaps in a play-off scheme the raised stakes and increased national TV money could offset these things. It appears that said networks would have to go that far in order to initiate the changes. And if something like that was proposed, oh the scramble and caterwalling among the schools trying to qualify as #s 80-96!!!!

bgdz, points for originality! I don't think the SEC or others would be willing to give up their conference championship games, however; Even if the money were handed to them straight up, the publicity and notariety that comes with such national telecasts, especially in the eyes of recruits, would be tough to surrender.

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GunnerFan, I see a dilemma coming up. The conference championship game is profitable, but may be less so if, at some point, the Big Ten and Pac Ten join the ACC in also playing one.

Also, I'm fairly convinced the current BCS system is going the way of the dinosaur in light of the OU-LSU-USC mess. I think some sort of play-off is out there.

And, if there is, conferences like the SEC and XII are in a bind. If conference champions are the source of play-off teams, the Big Twelve this year would have run the risk of sending K-State as opposed to OU as conference rep. This is no knock against K-State, but, let's face it.....OU proved over the season to be a better rep than KSU. It seems to me that a conference would really want to put its best team into a tournament if it came to that.

I've said this in other posts...but here is my idea for the BCS, I really like the "BCS" idea, i think there should be some formula in determining the National Championship...I think the BCS needs revision, but overall, it's an okay system...I don't think there should be a playoff, due to football being the physical, demanding sport that it is...you can play 2 or 3 basketball games in a week, but it's mighty hard to play 2 games in a Week in football...Keep the Bowls!!! they give teams a chance to have something, some kind of accomplishment...

Here is my idea...Keep the BCS and pit the top 18 teams in the BCS against each other in 9 Bowls...

it's sort of like the Gold and Silver Idea...

the top 8 teams in the BCS get into the 4 current BCS Bowls...the "Gold" Bowls...

Sugar
Orange
Rose
Fiesta

These Bowls rotate each year to host the National Championship...

the #9-18 in the BCS get into these next Bowls in Line...

Peach
Cotton
Citrus
Holiday
New Bowl in St. Louis, MO(need a Midwest Bowl)


these bowls rotate to host the #9 and #10 teams...

These BCS Bowls get to can get to pick which teams they want into their bowls, but they must pick within their set of 8 teams...so after the National Championship picks the top 2, the GOLD Bowls get to pick between the # 3 and #8...and the SILVER Bowls Do the same, only they pick their choice of teams between the #9 and #18 Ranking...


With the Final Standing the BCS bowls could look like this...

"GOLD" Bowls

(Sugar)
#1-Oklahoma
#2-LSU

(Rose)
#3-USC
#4-Michigan

(Fiesta)
#5-Ohio State
#6-Texas

(Orange)
#7-Florida State
#8-Tennessee

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"SILVER" Bowls

(Cotton)
#14-Purdue
#18-TCU

(Peach)
#12-Georgia
#11-Miami(OH)

(Capital One Citrus)
#9 Miami
#15-Florida

(Holiday Bowl)
#16-Washington State
#17-Boise State

(St. Louis)
#10-Kansas State
#13-Iowa

All other Bowls can be negotiated to a certain number per conference with conference tie-ins and a couple of at-large Bowls...

and yes there are plenty of Bowls to fill up teams with...
This year over 70 teams were Bowl Eligible...so even if you added or dropped a few bowls, there is a good chance that you'll get into a bowl with at-large teams...

And there you have it...It doesn't matter what conference you're in...as long as you have the 18 "best" teams according to a standard formula, you will have the best chance of seeing the very Best teams in Action in BCS Bowls...

This is just a rough draft, but i think it could work anywhere from 10 to 20 teams using this format...I hope something like that can come into passing...Let's hear your thoughts...

Interesting proposal, Micheal.

The only real negative I see is that it tries to seed the top eight teams rather than give them a chance to earn a championship on a level playing field. If I were in the second ranked bowl (for the 3rd and 4th best teams), why wouldn't I stillthink I should be in the championship game instead?

you're quite right about conferences wanting their best team to move on, but they also want the money and overall representation. I don't think the play-off is a certainty, except in the notion of a single game after the bowls. It's much like the mid-majors that see good teams miss out on the NCAA's because of a loss in the conference tournament; The conference chooses the method to define its champion, and while every agrees the regular season is a better indicator, taking away the title from the post-season tournament reduces it's meaning and TV appeal.

I think what's missing here is the overall Bowl-Conference relationship. I imagine that the BCS conferences would care less about which bowls or how many schools they have represented so long as they get roughly the same amount of money. ie; If the net difference between 1 and 2 BCS schools was reduced, there'd be less clamour over non-BCS involvement or a provision restricting involvement to conference champions.

(Bear with... I'm thinking this up as I go along!)
The BCS conferences should find a way to tie the BCS with non-BCS bowls from the BCS conferences such that the #2 team from each conference would make about the same $$ whether it was in the BCS or not. Basically, find a way to reduce the per-team allotment and increase the guaranteed BCS league payout.

This may involve having the second tier of "BCS" bowls, which all happen to be 100% (or 90%, etc, depending on logistics) BCS conference match-ups. The result is telling the non-BCS schools "You're guaranteed 2 spots in the top 4-5 bowls, and 1 spot in the next tier. But, the per-team payout remains $4 million throughout the duration of the contract, and the annual guaranteed payout to non-BCS schools will remain what it is now." Over time the BCS conferences accrue a higher guaranteed payment, and the urgency to send a second team to the BCS is reduced.

I'll work on the logistics and see if my refinements offer anything better.

Gunnerfan,
We may not be on the same page, but it looks like we might be singing from the same hymnal. Your idea is similar to my proposal to allow teams that are conference champions, or have no more than 2 losses to have a second bowl game if they are not in a championship game. The BCS divison winners would play a each other, and the #3's and conference champs in the Big 10 and Pac10 would play the non BCS champs in minor bowls. The BCS bowls would then take the winners, and the losers could to the lesser bowls. Ususally, the BCS teams would win, and go the the big bowls, but the mid-majors would still have their chance.

FBfan

I see nothing wrong with your scenarios except this one. I see no need for CU and KSU to play a championship game. They've already played, so I say take the head-to-head winner with no championship game.

I really like the originality of the Gold & Silver tournaments. I definitely like a three round tournament for the top 8 teams in the country. Perhaps using the current BCS games, plus a few more bowls would achieve this.

I would change up the silver tournament though. Rather than having one Silver Cup why not turn many of the bowls into mini tournaments themselves.

What I'm proposing is that rather than having the Cotton Bowl, have the Cotton Bowl Tournament. Right now the Cotton Bowl picks from the Big XII, and the SEC. In my scenario have them pick up two more teams. Perhaps the Con USA Champ, and a Big Ten rep. Have the Big Ten rep and the SEC rep play at the higher ranked teams home stadium. Have the Big XII rep play the Con USA rep at the higher ranked teams stadium. These two games could be played the first or second week in December. Have the two winners meet in the Cotton Bowl on New Years Day. The two losers could meet in a lessr bowl during bowl week.

Another scenario could be the Holiday Bowl. Currently the Big XII and the Pac Ten square off. This tournament could be expanded to include the Mountain West Champ, and an ACC rep. The first round matches to be played the first week of December could pit the PAC Ten versus the MWC Champ, and the Big XII versus the ACC. These games would be played at the higher ranked teams home field with the winners meeting in the Holiday bowl, and the losers meeting in a lesser bowl.

A Peach Bowl tournament would also be interesting. Matchups could be as follows:

First Round on higher seeds campus.

SEC versus Big Ten

ACC versus Big East

Winners to meet in Atlanta on New Years Day.

I would only allow for one team per conference to enter each tournament. I would also limit the numer of these tournaments to four five. This would ensure that the teams would have good records, and that no 6-5 or 6-6 teams get in. I think that this would also give non BCS conferences more meaningful opportunities. In this scenario the Peach Bowl might gamble on bringing in a MAC Champ if they know they can pair them against The Big Ten runner-up in the first round.

This is a little bit different take on the Silver Cup, but I think that sometimes the teams ranked 10-30 are pretty indestinguishable/interchangeable.

Does this interest anybody? Is it workable? What are the 4-5 Bowl Tournaments that you think would be interesting, and which conferences would you include?