I remember growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s with New Year’s Day as the A#1 best sporting day of the year. There wasn’t even a number two. I would wake up New Year’s morning like a kid on Christmas, spend the next 12-14 hours plastered in front of my television screen and would go to bed with a treasure trove of memories. There wasn’t even a real national champion – it was always referred to as a “mythical” national championship – but that didn’t seem to matter. College football didn’t have a true champion but it had the best sporting day of the year. It seemed like a fair trade.
Then came the Bowl Alliance in the mid-1990s, the forerunner to the BCS and the eventual destruction of New Year’s Day and the bowl system. With the dissolution of tie-ins and the creation of one national championship game, the other bowls on New Year’s Day were left to fend for themselves. The games were no longer in the business of putting together the best matchup possible in hopes of getting a national title game, they had been reduced to simply trying to sell the place out. That was it. The joy of college football was slowly being sucked away by the loss of New Year’s Day.As we survey today’s landscape, we see the title game takes place a whopping nine days after New Year’s Day. To watch all the BCS games, I can’t just invest my New Year’s Day. I need to invest my New Year’s Day, my Jan. 3rd, my Jan. 4th and my Jan. 10th. I’m a college football nut, of course I’ll be there for all four days. But what about the casual fan? What do they do?
It would be one thing if this had led to the creation of a true national champion year in and year out. Instead, the BCS has managed to screw up, well, just about everything. They took away the traditional bowl tie-ins. They took away New Year’s Day. They haven’t given us anything.
Throughout the 1990s, as split national titles became alarmingly frequent, the call wasn’t for a playoff – it was for a plus-one. Sure, there were playoff proponents but nowhere near the outcry there is now. People loved the bowls. But people wanted a champion. And to decide that true national champion, all the power conferences had to do was institute a plus-one after the bowls. But of course, that would’ve been too easy.
What we’re left with now is, quite simply, a mess. The double-hosting model has bloated the BCS, strung it out and left it looking like most bloated, strung-out corporate messes. The college presidents can go on and on about the glory of the Rose Bowl or the sanctity of the Sugar Bowl, but those games haven’t meant what they did in nearly two decades now. There’s a whole generation of student-athletes who have absolutely no idea why playing on New Year’s Day is a big deal.Hope remains though. College football doesn’t need a playoff. College football doesn’t need the current BCS. College football needs a compromise. College football needs to look back at its past and reclaim its future.
My plan is simple – go back to four big bowl games on New Year’s Day. The Rose Bowl gets its traditional matchup. The SEC champion goes to the Sugar Bowl. The ACC champion goes to the Orange Bowl. The Big XII champion goes to the Fiesta Bowl. Those three bowls make at-large selections to match up with its champion and the bowl with the highest ranked champion picks first. The Big East champion is one of the selections, along with two at-large teams. There are no restrictions on the at-large selections. The games can do what they want. They’ll want to pick the highest rated team.
Because after the four bowl games are played on New Year’s Day, we do the polls again, we recalculate the computer rankings based on everyone’s bowl games and we come up with a true #1 and #2. Those two teams then play for the national title a week or two later at whichever of the four bowls is “double hosting” that year.
My plan solves all of college football’s problems. The bowls mean something again. New Year’s Day means something again. We’re closer to a true national champion. The bowl results will matter, they will no longer be called meaningless exhibitions by sportswriters desperate for a new angle. No longer will a team be “disappointed” to play in the Sugar Bowl like Alabama in 2008 or the Rose Bowl like USC in 2006.
From day one of practice, the goal of teams will be set in stone. Every Big Ten and Pac-12 team can again shoot for the Rose Bowl, without the caveat of hopefully playing in a bigger game. There will be no bigger game.
The best part of my plan, though, is how it almost completely eliminates the BCS bashing by creatively pushing it to the side. As it stands now, as soon as the BCS bowls are announced, 118 teams have effectively been eliminated from national title contention. That leads to complaints, which lead to controversy, which leads to the BCS chaos so many love. In my plan, no one has technically been eliminated yet. The season doesn’t end until the end of New Year’s Day.
And when those games are completed and the title game is set – the complainers have little recourse. There are no more games for them. There will only be two teams playing in one, true national title game. There will be no vote after the title game, no chance for a split title. Just one game for the crystal ball – heck, call the title game the Crystal Bowl.
The only thing that really changes is that the number of BCS teams will be reduced from 10 to 8, but I can live with that. The BCS is supposed to be special. Did Notre Dame in 2007 or Ohio State in 2008 or 2010 really deserve a BCS spot? No, they received those spots based on ticket sales and commercial appeal. Why not send those teams to the lower bowls and spread the wealth? The BCS still gets its five games, only with eight teams and more on the line.
The best way to illustrate how it would work is to see how my plan would have played out in the past five seasons, since the dreaded “double hosting” model was foisted upon us. As you will see, the system provide a much more compelling slate of games and settles several debates that caused BCS controversy during those particular season.
You will also note that the ACC is severely dragging down these matchups in total to a much greater degree than the Big East. Since we’re reducing the number of games by one, there has to be stricter qualifications to keep an automatic bid. I don’t know where that would be but I’m thinking that the champion has to have an average rank of 10th over a four-year period.
Also, there is a lack of non-AQ teams as Utah in 2008 and Boise State in 2009 missed the cut. This likely wouldn’t happen in the future since there would be more stringent restrictions on automatic qualifiers, particularly for the Big East and ACC, and the non-AQ schools are receiving more credit from voters. I compiled these matchups based on the final BCS standings at the time. Last year, for example, undefeated Boise State was ranked #6 – would that still happen today? Something to consider.
2010
Fiesta Bowl
Big XII Champion vs. At-Large
#7 Oklahoma (11-2) vs. #4 Stanford (11-1)
Rose Bowl
Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
#5 Wisconsin (11-1) vs. #2 Oregon (12-0)
Orange Bowl
ACC Champion vs. At-Large
#13 Virginia Tech (11-2) vs. UConn (8-4)
Sugar Bowl
SEC Champion vs. At-Large
#1 Auburn (13-0) vs. #3 TCU (12-0)
Analysis: Just about perfection. Auburn plays TCU in a de facto semifinal game. Oregon controls its own destiny. If Wisconsin wins, the other title game slot would be determined between Stanford and Wisconsin, provided Stanford was able to beat Oklahoma. And, since the at-large selection order is determined by rank, the Orange Bowl goes last and gets UConn, which means the two least attractive BCS teams are confined to one game. We get three games with national championship implications. I like it.
2009
Fiesta Bowl
Big XII Champion vs. At-Large
#2 Texas (13-0) vs. #3 Cincinnati (12-0)
Rose Bowl
Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
#8 Ohio State (10-2) vs. #7 Oregon (10-2)
Orange Bowl
ACC Champion vs. At-Large
#9 Georgia Tech (11-2) vs. #5 Florida (12-1)
Sugar Bowl
SEC Champion vs. At-Large
#1 Alabama (13-0) vs. #4 TCU (12-0)
Analysis: The best example of how this would work, if we forget undefeated Boise State is shut out. We get two national semifinals between the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl, giving Cincinnati and TCU a chance to prove their worth. The Rose Bowl gets its traditional matchup. And the Orange Bowl goes from an okay game between Georgia Tech and Iowa to a guaranteed sellout with Tim Tebow’s last college game.
2008
Fiesta Bowl
Big XII Champion vs. At-Large
#1 Oklahoma (12-1) vs. #4 Alabama (12-1)
Rose Bowl
Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
#8 Penn State (11-1) vs. #5 USC (11-1)
Orange Bowl
ACC Champion vs. At-Large
#19 Virginia Tech (9-4) vs. #12 Cincinnati (11-2)
Sugar Bowl
SEC Champion vs. At-Large
#2 Florida (12-1) vs. #3 Texas (11-1)
Analysis: An odd year that again gives us what appears to be two national semifinals, though I think USC would be in the discussion if it produced a big enough victory over Penn State. Utah, undefeated and #6, is the obvious team left out thanks to the Big East and the ACC dragging down the Orange Bowl again. The most important improvement to this lineup, though, is that Texas gets a chance to play for the title if they beat Florida, as opposed to being left on the sidelines because of politics and rankings and that whole fiasco that was 2008.
2007
Fiesta Bowl
Big XII Champion vs. At-Large
#4 Oklahoma (11-2) vs. #9 West Virginia (10-2)
Rose Bowl
Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
#1 Ohio State (11-1) vs. #7 USC (10-2)
Orange Bowl
ACC Champion vs. At-Large
#3 Virginia Tech (11-2) vs. #6 Missouri (10-2)
Sugar Bowl
SEC Champion vs. At-Large
#2 LSU (11-2) vs. #5 Georgia (10-2)
Analysis: Remember how 2007 made absolutely no sense? Remember how LSU went from #7 after Thanksgiving to #2 in the final standings because of it? Well this takes all that chaos and creates one unforgettable day of football. LSU and Georgia, the SEC’s top two teams, didn’t play in the regular season so they get an incredible bowl matchup. The 2007 Ohio State team didn’t deserve to play for a title – maybe this Rose Bowl would expose them. Missouri does not get left out of the BCS for Kansas because, at #6, they would have an outside chance at playing for a national title. In face, we get FOUR games on New Year’s Day that could impact the national title. This is what college football should be all about – one day of the best teams playing the best teams.
2006
Fiesta Bowl
Big XII Champion vs. At-Large
#10 Oklahoma (11-2) vs. #4 LSU (10-2)
Rose Bowl
Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion
#1 Ohio State (12-0) vs. #5 USC (10-2)
Orange Bowl
ACC Champion vs. At-Large
#14 Wake Forest (11-2) vs. #6 Louisville (11-1)
Sugar Bowl
SEC Champion vs. At-Large
#2 Florida (12-1) vs. #3 Michigan (11-1)
Analysis: Remember the vigorous debate of who should play Ohio State – Florida or Michigan? Well, that debate gets settled in a big way in a Sugar Bowl game that would’ve been enormous. On the other side, Ohio State gets in with a win. If they lose, does USC go to the title game? Does LSU? Does Louisville? Likely, three games with national title implications. But, if LSU lost and USC won ugly, Louisville could’ve snuck in.
In conclusion, all I ask is for you to look at the bowl matchups I’ve created and compared them to what actually happened.
Which would you rather have?
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