National Championship Bowl System-Which do you prefer?

[The Duke]

In light of the fact that the National Championship game will be played this Monday night, and in light of this recent Sports Illustrated article http://sportsillustr...ml?sct=cf_wr_a1 which method do you most prefer in crowning a college football National Champion?

[knapplc]

16-team playoff with the other bowls retained for the roughly 50 other teams that will want to play in a bowl.

 

Begin bowl season just after the Conference Championship Games and run the lower-tier bowls until the week before Christmas. At that point you have your first of four rounds of playoffs on Saturday, and during the weekdays you have the upper-tier bowls. Bowl games during the week, playoffs for four weeks after that, and the voters can determine who the nos. 2-25 teams are.

[The Duke]

16-team playoff with the other bowls retained for the roughly 50 other teams that will want to play in a bowl.

 

Begin bowl season just after the Conference Championship Games and run the lower-tier bowls until the week before Christmas. At that point you have your first of four rounds of playoffs on Saturday, and during the weekdays you have the upper-tier bowls. Bowl games during the week, playoffs for four weeks after that, and the voters can determine who the nos. 2-25 teams are.

Wow that's a fantastic idea knapplc! You must have had this thought through for a while. I like that so much I will add your idea to the poll. I still miss the old days where the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar bowls were all on January 1st. Having the National Championship game so late in the year like it is currently just takes some luster off of the whole event. It loses it's appeal in my opinion.

[The Duke]

I added another question to the poll to keep it related to Nebraska. Out of all the possible systems that could be used to crown a National Champion, which do you think is the most advantageous to Nebraska?

[Bradr]

• 20+16 team playoff, played after conference championships. Games played Fri night, Sat, or Sun.
  
• All other bowls played during week, preferably in evening.
  
• 6 AQ conference champions get bye in first week, rest of top 20 plays elimination round, low seed vs high seed., then 16 team playoff proceeds.
  
• As more conferences introduce conference championships, reduce elimination round games accordingly
  

[Enhance]

The biggest problem with the bowl season is what we witnessed in the Orange Bowl. That last time Clemson played was six weeks before that. It's an entirely different season. Bowl games never really show who the better team is - they just show who was better that day after a lengthy period of time off. It's a ridiculous concept.

 

If you have a playoff, there is a way to maintain the bowls (which is what people want) but also allow teams to keep playing through December instead of forcing them to take an entire month off. Just think about that - not playing a game for an entire month. Somehow a team is supposed to be ready to play a game one month later? It's BS.

[Blaze1up]

Isn't a +1 a 4 team playoff ? Best way to go is 6 teams top 2 getting byes, geeyeah.

[Count 'Bility]

The biggest problem with the bowl season is what we witnessed in the Orange Bowl. That last time Clemson played was six weeks before that. It's an entirely different season. Bowl games never really show who the better team is - they just show who was better that day after a lengthy period of time off. It's a ridiculous concept.

 

If you have a playoff, there is a way to maintain the bowls (which is what people want) but also allow teams to keep playing through December instead of forcing them to take an entire month off. Just think about that - not playing a game for an entire month. Somehow a team is supposed to be ready to play a game one month later? It's BS.

 

December is 6 weeks long?

[krill]

16, or at least 8 team playoff would be my preference. I sympathize with Delany for not wanting to give up the Rose Bowl, and this year's was great, but by enlarge the rest of the bowls have become meaningless and uninteresting, and now there's going to be perennial conference instability jockeying for golden tickets. It would be nice to have a system were A) the champion was undisputed and B) every team in the league, from Alabama to New Mexico, had a path to achieving the end goal.

 

Clearly Nebraska benefited greatly from the old bowl system when OU was down and we pretty much owned the Big 8. I'm not saying it was easy to run the table then at all but we clearly had a much more favorable arrangement than most other conferences.

[HuskerShark]

While I think it would be a tragedy to ditch the bowl system, I really want a small playoff. So I say keep the bowls for teams that don't make the playoffs. One more thing: 16 teams is TOO BIG! If you have a 16-team playoff, this year would have allowed at least three 3-loss teams into the playoffs. That's not right.

 

I would be a supporter of a 6-team or an 8-team playoff. IMO, 8-team is perfect. You use the 6 AQ conferences that we have today, and the champion of each conference makes the playoffs automatically, as long as they are in the top 15 of the BCS standings. Then with the remaining spots, you take the next 3 highest ranked teams from the BCS that haven't already qualified. So this year's 1st round of the playoffs would have looked like this:

 

1 LSU vs. 8 Clemson

2 Bama vs. 7 Wisconsin

3 OkSt vs. 6 Arkansas

4 Stanford vs. 5 Oregon

 

You've got the champions of the SEC, B1G, ACC, Big12, and Pac12. WVU gets booted because they didn't make the top 15 in the final BCS. Then the next 3 teams to make it are Bama, Stanford, and Arkansas. THIS to me (and I would hope most fans) would be extremely attractive to watch.

 

I thought about playing all at neutral sites, but fans don't have that much money to be able to travel to those games, so you would have to have the higher seed get the home game, and then the National Championship game would be at a neutral site.

[Enhance]

The biggest problem with the bowl season is what we witnessed in the Orange Bowl. That last time Clemson played was six weeks before that. It's an entirely different season. Bowl games never really show who the better team is - they just show who was better that day after a lengthy period of time off. It's a ridiculous concept.

 

If you have a playoff, there is a way to maintain the bowls (which is what people want) but also allow teams to keep playing through December instead of forcing them to take an entire month off. Just think about that - not playing a game for an entire month. Somehow a team is supposed to be ready to play a game one month later? It's BS.

 

December is 6 weeks long?

From early December to early January, it's more like a month, granted. But the point still remains. The longest time off anybody gets in the season is one week, and they get it twice for a bye. A whole entire month is just absolutely ridiculous if you really think about it. The championship teams get five weeks off. Have you ever not done something for five weeks and then tried again? You're never quite like what you were five weeks earlier.

 

It's like the start of a season. We win early games because we are that much better than the weaker teams we play. Imagine if Fresno St. had the caliber of athletes USC or Michigan has. It very well could have been another blowout loss. They popped us in the mouth, but we overcame it because of our talent. When we got popped in the mouth by better teams with better athletes, we ended up losing.

 

But that's somewhat regardless of the point. I just think the huge lay off in time between games is unfair to both parties.

[Comish]

DEATH TO THE BCS (like the name of the book)!

 

IF we're passionate about this....................can we vote more than once.....???

[Mavric]

I think an 8 team playoff would be best but that wasn't one of the choices.

 

"My" playoff (similar to knapplc) would go as follows:

• Take any conference champion as long as they're in the Final BCS Top 12
  
• Fill in the remaining 8 teams using BCS rankings and seed 1-8
  
• These 8 teams will go to the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar & Orange bowls; remaining bowls filled just as they are now
  
• Higher seed hosts first-round game 1-2 weeks after CCGs
  
• Winners of the first round games are matched up in two of the "BCS" bowls; losers matched up in the other two
  
• Winners of the winners play one week later for the National Championship
  
• "BCS" bowls rotate who hosts winners and losers and National Championship (one of the "loser" bowls gets the NC game)
  

So, the bowl system is preserved, we get a playoff and the season isn't any longer. Problems solved.

 

This year, the playoff would look like this:

 

#8 Wisconsin @ #1 LSU

#5 Oregon @ #4 Stanford

#6 Arkansas @ #3 Oklahoma St.

#7 Boise St. @ #2 Alabama

 

I can't decide if the two teams per conference should be kept or not. If it was, K St. would be the #7 seed, Boise St. would be #6 and Arkansas would be out.

 

The only two-loss teams included (Oregon & Arkansas) have both their losses to other teams in the tournament. The only one-loss team not included would be Houston.

[HuskerShark]

I think an 8 team playoff would be best but that wasn't one of the choices.

 

"My" playoff (similar to knapplc) would go as follows:

• Take any conference champion as long as they're in the Final BCS Top 12
  
• Fill in the remaining 8 teams using BCS rankings and seed 1-8
  
• These 8 teams will go to the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar & Orange bowls; remaining bowls filled just as they are now
  
• Higher seed hosts first-round game 1-2 weeks after CCGs
  
• Winners of the first round games are matched up in two of the "BCS" bowls; losers matched up in the other two
  
• Winners of the winners play one week later for the National Championship
  
• "BCS" bowls rotate who hosts winners and losers and National Championship (one of the "loser" bowls gets the NC game)
  

So, the bowl system is preserved, we get a playoff and the season isn't any longer. Problems solved.

 

 

This year, the playoff would look like this:

 

#8 Wisconsin @ #1 LSU

#5 Oregon @ #4 Stanford

#6 Arkansas @ #3 Oklahoma St.

#7 Boise St. @ #2 Alabama

 

I can't decide if the two teams per conference should be kept or not. If it was, K St. would be the #7 seed, Boise St. would be #6 and Arkansas would be out.

 

The only two-loss teams included (Oregon & Arkansas) have both their losses to other teams in the tournament. The only one-loss team not included would be Houston.

This is really close to what I outlined in my post above, with 2 differences.

1. You limited it to top 12, I said 15. Therfore, mine included Clemson.

2. The location that you said to have the games. I said in my explanation, and I'll say it again. I think it is too much to ask to expect fans to fill neutral stadiums for more than one week. That's why I think that if you do a playoff, you have to have home games for the higher seeds. If you go to neutral sites, you will end up with a national championship game with a half-full stadium because fans spent their travel budget going to the semifinal game that their team played in. That's just my thoughts on the whole thing.

[chamrocck]

Do a +1 or Final 4 at most. I would hate to see a long playoff in college football. The reason college football is so good is because EVERY WEEKEND IS LIKE A PLAYOFF!

 

Teams make their cases in the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange bowls that already have great traditions and histories. After these bowls, you have one more final game based on final BCS rankings of the top 2...or take the 4 winners for a Final 4 playoff.

 

I would also add that you move the schedule to as follows:

New Year's Eve:

Orange Bowl 5pm est kick-off

Sugar Bowl 8:30pm est kick-off

New Year's Day:

Rose Bowl 5pm est kick-off

Fiesta Bowl 8:30pm est kick-off

 

Following week is 4 team playoff or +1 finale.