Sunday, December 6, 2009

BCS 2009

Now for my annual BCS post. Today's announcement that Alabama and Texas will play for the BCS championship may satisfy most people but what about TCU? Cincinnati? Boise State? As I've said before, a playoff is inevitable but probably won't be done in the near future. But sometime, the next step has to be a plus-one. This is how I would do it. It's the same thing as last year with a couple of tweaks.

1. Promote the Cotton Bowl to BCS status. This will keep the 10 team system the BCS has.
2. The champion from each of the BCS conferences receives an automatic berth.
3. The top non-BCS conference champion (or Notre Dame) will receive an automatic berth provided it is ranked higher than the lowest ranked BCS conference champion. If this lowest ranked team is unranked in the BCS, then the non-BCS team (or Notre Dame) must be ranked in the top 25.
4. Fill out the rest of the lineup with the highest ranked teams remaining in BCS order. Ignore the two-team limit per conference.
5. Pull out the Pac-10 and Big 10 champions and place them in the Rose Bowl.
6. The top 4 teams remaining will play each other. The highest ranked of these 4 will play the lowest ranked team of these 4 that avoids a rematch. Then the remaining two teams will play each other. The same will apply to the bottom 4 teams.
7. Once matchups are determined, assign them to bowls. Apply conference affiliations (Big 12-Fiesta, ACC-Orange, SEC-Sugar) with the remaining game to the Cotton Bowl. If a bowl needs to give up a conference affiliated with them to another bowl, that bowl will have priority over the Cotton Bowl.
8. Play the games!
9. After the games are played, run the BCS system one more time and pit the top 2 teams against each other for a BCS champion.

So how would it work this year?

This year's BCS conference champions were 1. Alabama (SEC), 2. Texas (Big 12), 3. Cincinnati (Big East), 7. Oregon (Pac-10), 8. Ohio State (Big Ten), and 10. Georgia Tech (ACC).

The highest ranked non-BCS conference champion was 4. TCU and it gets an automatic berth since it's ranked higher than Georgia Tech.

The highest ranked teams left in the BCS are 5. Florida, 6. Boise State, and 10. Iowa.

Thus, the matchups would be:

Rose: 7. Oregon vs. 8. Ohio State
Fiesta: 2. Texas vs. 3. Cincinnati
Sugar: 1. Alabama vs. 4. TCU
Orange: 9. Georgia Tech vs. 6. Boise State
Cotton: 5. Florida vs. 10. Iowa

Then use the BCS after these games are played and then match the top 2 teams. It allows TCU and Cincinnati to at least have a shot at the championship. Ok, it doesn't solve Boise State, but years down the line when a playoff is viable, that problem will be solved too.

1 comment:

rakeback said...

I think its pointless to argue over which undefeated team is best instead of letting their play decide it on the field.
The BCS clearly only cares about making money, otherwise how do you explain that this is the only sport in div 1,2,or 3 that doesnt have a playoff system to determine its champion.