College Football

[Matt 1,049]

Terry Bowden did it, too:

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=Au...o&type=lgns

[Hockeytown Red Wings 245]

I'll admit...it would be pretty damn cool.

[timothy1997 0]

I'll admit that would work Matt, but I still like my "and 1" idea. The system would be set up like this.

Rose Bowl USC vs Boise State

Sugar Bowl LSU vs Oklahoma

Orange Bowl Wake Forest vs Louisville

Fiesta Bowl Michigan vs Florida

Winner of the Fiesta Bowl would play Ohio State for National Championship.

[betterREDthandead 58]

The way the BCS is currently set doesn't seem to have the NCAA bleeding money, so how would it dramatically affect them in a playoff? The Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Suger aren't going to crown a national champion. Why not "promote" two of those bowls (say, the Cotton and Citrus) to the "quarterfinals" and rotate the semis among those bowls on a year-to-year basis.

You're still only paying 8 teams. Currently, it's 10. The fifth game was added, for more this reason than any other, because non-BCS conferences were starting to make a real stink about being left out of the pie, and they were starting to have a point. Hence the fifth game, to make it easier. That proposal entirely leaves out the ACC, which would scream so loud you'd hear them in Pasadena; and Notre Dame, which just might drown out the ACC. They will never approve a system that reduces the number of teams getting paid - not only would there be money issues, but PR issues as well - "You're making this a good ol' boys club again!" The 8-team playoff might appear to be more open from a championship point of view, but from a money perspective, it's more money to fewer teams, and wouldn't work.

And timothy, you're a great guy, I like ya, but if you ever again propose a setup wherein Boise State plays in the Rose Bowl, I will gather a posse of furious Wolverine and Buckeye fans and burn down everything you love It's bad enough the Cornvicts and Hurr-Insanes soiled the Bowl in 2002.

[Matt 1,049]

You're still only paying 8 teams. Currently, it's 10.

Play-in game for the 8th spot. Problem solved, kind of.

[timothy1997 0]

And timothy, you're a great guy, I like ya, but if you ever again propose a setup wherein Boise State plays in the Rose Bowl, I will gather a posse of furious Wolverine and Buckeye fans and burn down everything you love It's bad enough the Cornvicts and Hurr-Insanes soiled the Bowl in 2002.

Would you rather have Notre Dame there?? Their was one team I was going to have to cut out.

Play-in game for the 8th spot. Problem solved, kind of.

Let me guess. Play in game takes place in Dayton, Ohio.

Edited December 4, 2006 by timothy1997

[timothy1997 0]

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=Au...p&type=lgns

Link with poll voters explaining why they picked Florida #2 instead.

[mannysBETTER3434 1]

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=Au...p&type=lgns

Link with poll voters explaining why they picked Florida #2 instead.

Once again no good reasons..

1) ITS NOT A RULE YOU HAVE TO WIN YOUR CONFERENCE!!

2) Say what you want about their schedule, but Wisconson is a GOOD football team.

Basically people thought USC would win out, and didn't plan for this to happen. They paniked because they don't want to see a rematch which is wrong because FLA isn't a better team then U-M.

[Cruiser008 37]

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=Au...p&type=lgns

Link with poll voters explaining why they picked Florida #2 instead.

Well so much for objectivity. It blows my mind how the conventional criteria of these Top 25 rankings gets thrown out the window, even though this isn't the first time it has happened.

Forget the BCS, Florida, Michigan, etc. for a moment and let's talk about the rankings themselves. Take any two teams, let's call them A and B. A should be ranked higher than B if and only if A is the better team base on the past performances of both teams, and vice versa.

Now let's get back to the current situation. If the voters truly believe that Florida is a BETTER team than Michigan than fine. But as the article above explains, that is CLEARLY not so. In that case what the voters have just done to rigged the polls to serve an ulterior motive, that being to decide who is more deserving of a chance at the National Championship (of course it could be argued that this 'cause is noble and justified).

[SouthernWingsFan 854]

I honestly don't see why an 8-team playoff system would not work while keeping the integrity of the bowls.

You still have the filler bowls before New Year.

You still have the BCS system determine the standing and get the top eight teams in the BCS standings in a playoff, all starting New Year's Day.

That makes for a seven-game playoff system.

The first round has four games (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5). Since New Year's Day is a national holiday, you can play three of the first round games that day...

Game #1 - 12:00 ET start, Orange Bowl

Game #2 - 3:00/4:00 CT, Sugar Bowl

Game #3 - 4:00/5:00 PT, Rose Bowl

This way the Rose Bowl integrity isn't completely compromised, still being on New Year's Day. You play Game #4 of the first round on the evening of Jan. 2 at the Fiesta Bowl.

The second round, the winner of 1-8/4-5 play against each other, and 3-6/2-7 play each other. These games are played 1 week later, on Jan. 7 & Jan 8.

The winner of those games play in the final round, the following weekend either to maintain high TV ratings.

It's simple, practical, and doesn't compromise the integrity of bowls all that much and it isn't too long/too short of a process.

[Lou_Siffer 1]

An 8 team playoff is too many, i'd be more in favor of 4. Let the BCS system decide the 4. The problem with the 8 teamer is that it does detract somewhat from the regular season. The beauty of college football is knowing that if a team loses twice, theyre DONE....and in some cases even just 1 game and theyre done. Just adds to the excitement! Seeing some 2 loss teams in a playoff would just suck imo.

[SouthernWingsFan 854]

An 8 team playoff is too many, i'd be more in favor of 4. Let the BCS system decide the 4. The problem with the 8 teamer is that it does detract somewhat from the regular season. The beauty of college football is knowing that if a team loses twice, theyre DONE....and in some cases even just 1 game and theyre done. Just adds to the excitement! Seeing some 2 loss teams in a playoff would just suck imo.

Four would be fine with me, anything to make the process a bit more fair.

Six would be the perfect ideal number if the games were balanced out I think.

[eva unit zero 271]

The next step is a playoff.

After the way the Hartris poll was so blatantly rigged (Florida earns a 1st place vote with an unimpressive win over 10-3 Arkansas, and idle Auburn jumps idle Notre Dame) they have no choice but to create a system that decides it on the field.

Currently, the top 14 teams in the BCS Standings are BCS bowl eligible. All major conference champions are automatically granted a BCS bid.

So do this;

Take the champions of the six major conferences, as well as the six highest non-champions. Twelve team playoff, the top four teams get byes.

That would get us:

1. Ohio State (Conference Champ)--bye

8. Boise State vs 9. Auburn

2. Florida (Conference Champ)--bye

7. Wisconsin vs 10. Oklahoma (Conference Champ)

3. Michigan--bye

6. Louisville (Conference Champ) vs 11. Notre Dame

4. LSU--bye

5. USC (Conference Champ) vs 12. Wake Forest (Conference Champ)

A playoff bracket that looked like that would most likely play out as follows--predictions made based on common opponents if possible.

Round 1

Auburn d. Boise State

Wisconsin d. Oklahoma

Notre Dame d. Louisville

USC d. Wake Forest

Round 2

OSU d. Auburn

Florida d. Wisconsin

Michigan d. Notre Dame

USC d. LSU

Round 3

OSU d. USC

Michigan d. Florida

Round 4

OSU d. Michigan

Regardless, Michigan fans can take consolation in two things.

One, Florida vs OSU guarantees Michigan will finish second in the final polls.

Two, the 'master coaches' poll, considered to be the authority on who the best team really is, ranks Michigan ahead of Florida.

[eva unit zero 271]

It's college football, so I acknowledge that it can't be completely void of some form of polling -- but it can be fixed so the 2006 Michigans, 2004 Auburns and 2002 USCs don't get shafted.

01-02...Nebraska goes to the title game despite failing to win their conference. Oregon, who is ranked second in both polls, but fourth in the BCS, is the 'more deserving team' in the eyes of the media.

Notes: After this season, margin of victory, the 'culprit' in the Nebraska selection, is drastically reduced as a BCS factor.

03-04--USC, LSU, Oklahoma. USC receives the same treatment in the AP poll that Florida received this year. The team two spots ahead of them lost, so they were jumped into that spot while the team directly ahead of them did not move. Even after the loss, Oklahoma remained ranked #1 in the computer polls, with LSU second and USC third. LSU should have been a consensus national champion in 2004--the Tigers, not the Trojans, were the shafted team.

Notes: USC would have likely finished second in the BCS rankings if margin of victory had not been drastically reduced the prior offseason. Strength of schedule, ruled to be the culprit this time around, was drastically cut back as a deciding factor.

04-05--Three undefeated teams. Two places in the final game. Auburn never proved to voters they were better than Oklahoma, and USC would have had to lose to fall out of first due to voters feeling sorry for them after the 03-04 season.

Notes: Auburn had the strongest schedule of any team i nthe nation and went undefeated. Under a prior system, they make the championship game ahead of one of USC or Oklahoma. After this season, the human element is considered to 'not have enough influence' and the polls are redesigned to subdue the impartial computers and give more influence to conference biases and voting to get matchups rather than voting a true top 25.

See---if people hadn't demanded changes after a fluke of mathematics sent Nebraska to the title game, the system would have produced the 'correct' results of USC v LSU and Auburn v USC/Oklahoma.

The only viable way to produce a championship with no disputed result is a playoff.

You could complain about your #9 or #10 team getting left out, or whichever teams would be just outside the bracket. But when the team that did make it over your team gets stomped in the first round, that complaint is done as the 'deserving' team likely wouldn't have done any better.

[betterREDthandead 58]

Playoff junkies think it's so simple. Just play it out on the field and everything will be fine. Everything solved neat and clean.

Nobody thinks of all the little details that have to be worked out - and once you do try to work them out, what used to be so simple becomes extraordinarily complicated. BEWARE - I'm about to write a friggin' manifesto, so only read if you've got time. But it's well worth the time. At the very least I hope you'll all read before proposing yet another playoff system without thinking it through.

For starters, you cannot propose a system that has any less than 10 teams. Absolutely impossible, because of the money. Sponsors will not pay the big bux for costume jewelry bowl games outside the playoff system. The BCS is, among other things, a revenue-sharing system, designed to bring in money to the five BCS conferences and placate the smaller conferences so they don't sue. They will not cut down the number of teams participating in the money games.

So any 4, 6, or 8 team playoff is dead. A nonstarter. A complete nonissue that isn't even worth talking about.

So, what about the bigger ones? 10, 12, 16 teams?

Where, for example, will the games be played? You could force them into the current bowls. But the bowls are not operated by the NCAA. Start with the issue that, even if you rotated the championship game and semifinals, one current BCS bowl will have to be a quarterfinal game each year, and you'll have a hard time convincing the bowl officials to take that kind of a prestige hit. The bowl officials will also have to be convinced to accept the teams foisted upon them, rather than having the leeway to negotiate their conference affiliations and invite teams of their choosing. Who gets the guaranteed cash cow Notre Dame (whose fans travel very, very well) and who gets forced into the laughable Wake Forest matchup (which is the 3rd smallest DI-A school and not likely to bring huge amounts of fans to the game)? In a 12-team playoff, do you contract with 11 bowls (meaning enormous complexity) or do you double up and have some bowls host two games? Either way, it's important to remember that the NCAA doesn't operate the bowls and therefore, it requires a lot of juggling and back-scratching to get that done.

But you could avoid that by playing the games at the home fields and maybe the championship at a neutral site. This is a popular choice, because the argument has been that the regular season would still matter because teams would fight for seeding and home-field advantage. Shall we ignore the fact that we've then just screwed 5, 6, or 8 once-prestigious bowl games out of a lot of money and very good matchups? Look how the matchups would be:

Rose Bowl - BCS: Michigan/USC ; Playoff: Penn State/Cal

Fiesta Bowl - BCS: Oklahoma/Boise State ; Playoff: Nebraska/Oregon

Orange Bowl - BCS: Louisville/Wake Forest ; Playoff: West Virginia/Georgia Tech

Sugar Bowl - BCS: LSU/Notre Dame ; Playoff: Arkansas/Texas

Only one of the new bowl participants has less than three losses. But it gets better:

Citrus Bowl - BCS: Wisconsin/Arkansas ; Playoff: Purdue/Tennessee

Cotton Bowl - BCS: Nebraska/Auburn ; Playoff: Georgia/Texas A&M

So we've absolutely wrecked the Rose Bowl, among others, by allowing just any ol' fourth place team in. We've turned the Orange Bowl into the Gator Bowl. Don't forget we've lopped six bowls right off the bottom, because we don't have enough bowl-eligible teams - a loss of money that isn't coming back.

And that aside, how do you split the gates?

- You could divide all the revenues equally among the playoff teams, which would piss off the winners of every game, because they have to spend all that extra money to travel, but earn nothing extra. You'd end up with more money by losing in the first round.

- You could split it between home and visitors, which also pisses off the better teams, because earning a bye actually costs you money. It would also piss off Auburn and Boise State (under eva's scenario) because they have to play their game in a 30,000 seat stadium, which is 1/3 the size of the rest of them out there.

- You could divide it proportionally by assigning a percentage of the revenues in order of finish - winner gets X%, runner-up gets Y%, semifinal losers get Z%, and so on. But remember - the whole idea of revenue-sharing in the first place was to avoid a rich-get-richer scenario. Nobody in charge is willing to risk the chance of losing out on millions that way. They're in it to make money, not gamble.

I have yet to even touch on how we decide teams will make the playoffs. Or the obvious ruination of the regular season, which I believe I addressed earlier. What formula would we use to seed the teams? What would we do about the many other teams that have just as legit a claim to that 12th spot or 16th spot as the team that actually got it? Remember - under the current system, if a team gets screwed out of the championship game, they still get the big payout. Under a large playoff (and you can't have a small one), a team that gets screwed loses the chance to play for the title AND the money. How about the academic year? Will the big schools sacrifice regular season games (hint: lose money) so the playoff can finish on time? Survey says no. Would it be a good idea to eliminate regular season games? Again, survey says no - the fewer regular season games you have, the more muddled the seeding picture would be, and the more controversy you get.

This isn't about D-II or D-III, no matter how smoothly a playoff might seem to go there. The comparison is apples and oranges. D-III schools aren't even permitted to offer scholarships. They play fewer regular season games. It's not even close.

So why is the money so important? It'd be fine and dandy to pine for the purity of athletic competition for competition's sake, but that's not going to happen. Easy for us to bash the presidents, commissioners, and ADs for chasing the money, because we get none of the money. But that money pays for all those other sports. Football money pays for Title IX. Gender equity and all that. Football money pays for other sports to have nice facilities. Football is part of the prestige and acclaim of a school, like it or not. For some schools, it's the best thing they do. Think Michigan would attract so many students without football? As long as so many millions of people take an interest in what goes on on the field, and pay good money to get into the stadium to watch, there will be money involved. Money drives this thing. Trying to draw up a playoff system without taking into account the money is absolute foolishness.

To summarize, it comes down to this:

There's only three ways to run a playoff: Home fields, neutral sites outside the bowl structure, or bowl adaptations.

- Home fields and neutral sites devastate the bowl system. Who's willing to turn the Granddaddy Of Them All into a sideshow for mediocre outfits? And it complicates the revenue issue so that it's practically impossible to set up.

- Bowl adaptations would be colossally difficult to pull off, because they are contracted, not operated by the NCAA.

[eva unit zero 271]

Playoff junkies think it's so simple. Just play it out on the field and everything will be fine. Everything solved neat and clean.

Nobody thinks of all the little details that have to be worked out - and once you do try to work them out, what used to be so simple becomes extraordinarily complicated. BEWARE - I'm about to write a friggin' manifesto, so only read if you've got time. But it's well worth the time. At the very least I hope you'll all read before proposing yet another playoff system without thinking it through.

For starters, you cannot propose a system that has any less than 10 teams. Absolutely impossible, because of the money. Sponsors will not pay the big bux for costume jewelry bowl games outside the playoff system. The BCS is, among other things, a revenue-sharing system, designed to bring in money to the five BCS conferences and placate the smaller conferences so they don't sue. They will not cut down the number of teams participating in the money games.

So any 4, 6, or 8 team playoff is dead. A nonstarter. A complete nonissue that isn't even worth talking about.

So, what about the bigger ones? 10, 12, 16 teams?

Where, for example, will the games be played? You could force them into the current bowls. But the bowls are not operated by the NCAA. Start with the issue that, even if you rotated the championship game and semifinals, one current BCS bowl will have to be a quarterfinal game each year, and you'll have a hard time convincing the bowl officials to take that kind of a prestige hit. The bowl officials will also have to be convinced to accept the teams foisted upon them, rather than having the leeway to negotiate their conference affiliations and invite teams of their choosing. Who gets the guaranteed cash cow Notre Dame (whose fans travel very, very well) and who gets forced into the laughable Wake Forest matchup (which is the 3rd smallest DI-A school and not likely to bring huge amounts of fans to the game)? In a 12-team playoff, do you contract with 11 bowls (meaning enormous complexity) or do you double up and have some bowls host two games? Either way, it's important to remember that the NCAA doesn't operate the bowls and therefore, it requires a lot of juggling and back-scratching to get that done.

But you could avoid that by playing the games at the home fields and maybe the championship at a neutral site. This is a popular choice, because the argument has been that the regular season would still matter because teams would fight for seeding and home-field advantage. Shall we ignore the fact that we've then just screwed 5, 6, or 8 once-prestigious bowl games out of a lot of money and very good matchups? Look how the matchups would be:

Rose Bowl - BCS: Michigan/USC ; Playoff: Penn State/Cal

Fiesta Bowl - BCS: Oklahoma/Boise State ; Playoff: Nebraska/Oregon

Orange Bowl - BCS: Louisville/Wake Forest ; Playoff: West Virginia/Georgia Tech

Sugar Bowl - BCS: LSU/Notre Dame ; Playoff: Arkansas/Texas

Only one of the new bowl participants has less than three losses. But it gets better:

Citrus Bowl - BCS: Wisconsin/Arkansas ; Playoff: Purdue/Tennessee

Cotton Bowl - BCS: Nebraska/Auburn ; Playoff: Georgia/Texas A&M

So we've absolutely wrecked the Rose Bowl, among others, by allowing just any ol' fourth place team in. We've turned the Orange Bowl into the Gator Bowl. Don't forget we've lopped six bowls right off the bottom, because we don't have enough bowl-eligible teams - a loss of money that isn't coming back.

And that aside, how do you split the gates?

- You could divide all the revenues equally among the playoff teams, which would piss off the winners of every game, because they have to spend all that extra money to travel, but earn nothing extra. You'd end up with more money by losing in the first round.

- You could split it between home and visitors, which also pisses off the better teams, because earning a bye actually costs you money. It would also piss off Auburn and Boise State (under eva's scenario) because they have to play their game in a 30,000 seat stadium, which is 1/3 the size of the rest of them out there.

- You could divide it proportionally by assigning a percentage of the revenues in order of finish - winner gets X%, runner-up gets Y%, semifinal losers get Z%, and so on. But remember - the whole idea of revenue-sharing in the first place was to avoid a rich-get-richer scenario. Nobody in charge is willing to risk the chance of losing out on millions that way. They're in it to make money, not gamble.

I have yet to even touch on how we decide teams will make the playoffs. Or the obvious ruination of the regular season, which I believe I addressed earlier. What formula would we use to seed the teams? What would we do about the many other teams that have just as legit a claim to that 12th spot or 16th spot as the team that actually got it? Remember - under the current system, if a team gets screwed out of the championship game, they still get the big payout. Under a large playoff (and you can't have a small one), a team that gets screwed loses the chance to play for the title AND the money. How about the academic year? Will the big schools sacrifice regular season games (hint: lose money) so the playoff can finish on time? Survey says no. Would it be a good idea to eliminate regular season games? Again, survey says no - the fewer regular season games you have, the more muddled the seeding picture would be, and the more controversy you get.

This isn't about D-II or D-III, no matter how smoothly a playoff might seem to go there. The comparison is apples and oranges. D-III schools aren't even permitted to offer scholarships. They play fewer regular season games. It's not even close.

So why is the money so important? It'd be fine and dandy to pine for the purity of athletic competition for competition's sake, but that's not going to happen. Easy for us to bash the presidents, commissioners, and ADs for chasing the money, because we get none of the money. But that money pays for all those other sports. Football money pays for Title IX. Gender equity and all that. Football money pays for other sports to have nice facilities. Football is part of the prestige and acclaim of a school, like it or not. For some schools, it's the best thing they do. Think Michigan would attract so many students without football? As long as so many millions of people take an interest in what goes on on the field, and pay good money to get into the stadium to watch, there will be money involved. Money drives this thing. Trying to draw up a playoff system without taking into account the money is absolute foolishness.

To summarize, it comes down to this:

There's only three ways to run a playoff: Home fields, neutral sites outside the bowl structure, or bowl adaptations.

- Home fields and neutral sites devastate the bowl system. Who's willing to turn the Granddaddy Of Them All into a sideshow for mediocre outfits? And it complicates the revenue issue so that it's practically impossible to set up.

- Bowl adaptations would be colossally difficult to pull off, because they are contracted, not operated by the NCAA.

The Division II playoff started with 16 teams on Nov 18th, and will end on December 16th.

There's two answers to this--a no-bowls in a playoff and bowls included.

Realistically, you could bump the start of the season one week earlier-the season started on the last weekend in August in 02 and 03, so no 'that's too early' statements.

First round of the playoff would be Nov 18th this year, with the four teams that had byes getting a week of rest.

Playoff is finished by mid December, just like every other Division. If teams still go to bowl games, they can go under the old conference affiliations.

A second alternative includes the bowl games. This playoff would have to either happen entirely after Christmas, or be split up--with the first two rounds perhaps being played on the last weekend in November and the first in December.

As for the BCS bowl quarterfinal thing? Here's the solution.

Two bowls for the semis, one for the championship, and one for the consolation.

[betterREDthandead 58]

The Division II playoff started with 16 teams on Nov 18th, and will end on December 16th.

There's two answers to this--a no-bowls in a playoff and bowls included.

Realistically, you could bump the start of the season one week earlier-the season started on the last weekend in August in 02 and 03, so no 'that's too early' statements.

First round of the playoff would be Nov 18th this year, with the four teams that had byes getting a week of rest.

Playoff is finished by mid December, just like every other Division. If teams still go to bowl games, they can go under the old conference affiliations.

A second alternative includes the bowl games. This playoff would have to either happen entirely after Christmas, or be split up--with the first two rounds perhaps being played on the last weekend in November and the first in December.

As for the BCS bowl quarterfinal thing? Here's the solution.

Two bowls for the semis, one for the championship, and one for the consolation.

Once again. Not including the bowls in a playoff system devastates the bowl system. Destroys it. Absolutely takes a giant crap on over 100 years of Rose Bowl tradition and decades upon decades of the other bowls as well. Also, it lops off 5-8 bowls off the bottom of the system, which would be a loss to the NCAA of about $10 million. So not including the bowls means the playoffs have to pay out $10 million more than the current BCS just to break even.

Remember that the reason they played games on the last weekend in August in '02 and '03 was because those weekends fell at the very tail end of the month. Saturday was August 31st and then the 30th. The calendar basically put an extra week into the season. These past years, that hasn't happened. You can't finish a playoff before Christmas without going through finals, removing bye weeks, or lopping a game or two off the regular season. None of which will happen - do you want to remove bye weeks, for example, and force 18-20 year olds to play 16 straight weeks of football? Obviously you will not see games taken away from the regular season due to money. Especially not conference championship games. Division II plays a no-bye, 11-game regular season, with a one-week break for the playoffs. The regular season is over a month before the Division I-A regular season. You won't get the regular season truncated for a playoff. Won't happen. Too much money at stake. Again: apples and oranges.

Bowl games have to be included then. But how do you get 11 games (minimum) to participate? You're asking fans to travel three times to see their team in the playoffs. Suppose we applied 12 bowls to the 12-team playoffs you propose (I picked what I think are the better bowls):

Sun Bowl: Auburn d. Boise State

Liberty Bowl: Wisconsin d. Oklahoma

Outback Bowl: Notre Dame d. Louisville

Holiday Bowl: USC d. Wake Forest

Peach Bowl: OSU over Auburn

Gator Bowl: Florida over Wisconsin

Citrus Bowl: Michigan over Notre Dame

Cotton Bowl: USC over LSU

Fiesta Bowl: Michigan over USC

Orange Bowl: Ohio State over Florida

Sugar Bowl: USC over Florida (consolation)

Rose Bowl: Michigan over Ohio State (the hell I was gonna suggest the other way round )

Are OSU fans going to travel to Atlanta, then Miami, then Pasadena? Are Michigan fans going to go to Orlando, then Phoenix, then Pasadena? Are USC fans, having just been to San Diego, Dallas and Phoenix, going to bother getting to New Orleans to watch a meaningless game? Florida fans going to Jacksonville, Miami....then New Orleans for the same meaningless game? You'd have to be both rich and a diehard fan (not to mention entirely without family commitments) to make all three. You're just not going to fill the stadium for the early rounds, and who's going to bother going to the consolation game? I'll bet you the Holiday Bowl would rather continue to take enthusiastic fans of a more local team than Wake Forest, especially ones that know they're only gonna have to travel once. This is just unworkable.

[RockyMountainWingGal 108]

Once again no good reasons..

1) ITS NOT A RULE YOU HAVE TO WIN YOUR CONFERENCE!!

2) Say what you want about their schedule, but Wisconson is a GOOD football team.

Basically people thought USC would win out, and didn't plan for this to happen. They paniked because they don't want to see a rematch which is wrong because FLA isn't a better team then U-M.

If the BCS would come out and say you had to win your conference to be in the NC game, that would be fine - everyone would know at the beginning of the season where they stand. UM and OSU would know on the morning of Nov 18th only one of them would be eligible to go by the afternoon. But like you said, it's NOT a rule, and I don't like people using that as an excuse to not vote for a team as stated.

Here's one thing to consider about the conf championship thing:

Not all conferences have equal championship systems. The Big Ten and Pac 10 don't have a championship game. They would need 1 and 2 more teams in their conference respectively to even consider having one. And remember, Notre Dame has turned down the Big Ten at least once on that note.

There's another point: Notre Dame is it's own conference. Therefore they win it every year, and would always be eligible. Lets say they beat USC this year, and Fla lost to Arkansas, and UM wasn't eligible because they didn't win the Big Ten: ND could play in the NC game, but Michigan couldn't - f*&ed up.

Also consider this year if Ark had beat Fla, leaving Michigan the only 1 loss team near the top 5 (OK I'm ignoring Boise State); then you would have 2 loss USC or 2 loss Ark playing OSU for the title. If one of those teams beats OSU, the Buckeyes still only have one loss. Does the 2 loss team get the title? That's why just stating you have to win your conference doesn't always work.

Everything said, I'd still be OK with it IF they made it a rule from the beginning............

[Hockeytown Red Wings 245]

Without the BCS, Michigan is playing in the Outback Bowl...at least in pre-BCS terms.

[mannysBETTER3434 1]

Screw FLA, and U-M!! Michigan Tech should be in the NC!!!! Heres why.....

Michigan Tech beat

Findlay who beat

Charleston WV who beat

West Liberty St who beat

Duquesne who beat

Fordham who beat

Albany NY who beat

Lehigh who beat

Villanova who beat

James Madison who beat

New Hampshire who beat

Northwestern who beat

Iowa who beat

Iowa St who beat

Missouri who beat

Mississippi who beat

Vanderbilt who beat

Georgia who beat

Auburn who beat

Florida

[Happy Pancake 6]

Without the BCS, Michigan is playing in the Outback Bowl...at least in pre-BCS terms.

After coming so close to the national title, I don't really care if we got the Rose Bowl or the Motor City Bowl. Any bowl short of the big one is a huge disappointment this year.

[BlakChamber 8]

Screw FLA, and U-M!! Michigan Tech should be in the NC!!!! Heres why.....

Michigan Tech beat

Findlay who beat

Charleston WV who beat

West Liberty St who beat

Duquesne who beat

Fordham who beat

Albany NY who beat

Lehigh who beat

Villanova who beat

James Madison who beat

New Hampshire who beat

Northwestern who beat

Iowa who beat

Iowa St who beat

Missouri who beat

Mississippi who beat

Vanderbilt who beat

Georgia who beat

Auburn who beat

Florida

Well, by that logic, Grand Valley should be playing for the National Championship, since they beat Tech.

Make sure to watch GVSU, this Sunday on ESPN2

[betterREDthandead 58]

Screw FLA, and U-M!! Michigan Tech should be in the NC!!!! Heres why.....

Michigan Tech beat

Findlay who beat

Charleston WV who beat

West Liberty St who beat

Duquesne who beat

Fordham who beat

Albany NY who beat

Lehigh who beat

Villanova who beat

James Madison who beat

New Hampshire who beat

Northwestern who beat

Iowa who beat

Iowa St who beat

Missouri who beat

Mississippi who beat

Vanderbilt who beat

Georgia who beat

Auburn who beat

Florida

Michigan Tech?? F that! Grand Valley! They beat Tech AND are undefeated.

edit: Blak beat me to the punch. I'll be watching this weekend. My brother started at Grand Valley this year.

[BlakChamber 8]

BRTD and I agree on a team to cheer for in college football. Who'd a thunk it?

[mannysBETTER3434 1]

I'll be rooting for GVSU for sure! That school is becoming a powerhouse in every sport they have. I believe GVSU has the longest win streak in all of college football. Some of my friends are planning on going to Alabama to watch them in the finals.