Around the 'Shoe

I saw this article yesterday, I think it's a great plan. I'm sure there's a few kinks to work out, but it's the best plan I've heard to this point. Lay you money though that the SEC doesn't go for it, with the thought of having to travel north and play in cold weather. I really like the thought of home field for the higher ranked team, that's the way it should be.

And as much as we may complain about B1G, our conference continues to be pioneers of CFB. Delaney is a smart dude, and if there's anyone that can get the ball rolling it's him.

the best playoff proposal i have read about would be to take each conference champion from the major conferences & use their rankings as the measure for their basis of a home or away game. if it takes 3 games to determine the National champion then so be it. Atleast that would be a lot more fair then allowing the polls to determine the #1 / #2 ranked team in the country & that is the only choice of who will compete for the NCG

Here's my proposal.
1. Take out bye week, or start the season a week earlier, or take season down to 11 games.
2. Have regular season finish on Saturday before Thanksgiving
3. Conference Championships Thanksgiving Saturday.
4 Top 8 play the next two weeks with top seed at home.
5. They could still have all the bowl games only end them on Jan 1.
6. National Championship on Jan 2.

I hate that long break between the last playoff game and the Nat champ game, but this way they can still have all their bowl games and a playoff.

By basing it on conference champion you allow for some mediocre team in a weak conference to play Cinderella, which is a nice storyline but hardly the way to crown a national champion . National Champion us supposed to be BEST team in college football. I would take top right ranked teams.

Another thought on your post...Who is to say the top eight are the BEST. There is a lot of bias in the polls. The BEST can be defined in a lot of ways.

I am all in favor of a playoff (preferably 8 teams over 3 rounds spaced 2 weeks apart starting the mid-December and ending with the NC in the first part of January, which, as someone suggested, would mean starting and ending the regular season sooner) but I am going to play the devil's advocate in this discussion because once you take all the emotion out of the equation, it's an easy position to take.

First, the driving force behind everything in college athletics these days, pure and simple, is money. Greed is what's led to all the conference realignment, and if the dollars and cents don't add up, it will never get off the ground.

Cutting back the schedule to 11 games as someone suggested won't fly because it means a substantial loss in revenue for all the teams that don't get to pay. If they went to 11 games with even 8 conference games, that means one less OOC game, which, for teams like OSU, means one less home game, which means a loss of millions of dollars. Trust me: Gene Smith is not going to give that up.

Which brings up another question: how does the playoff money get divvied up? Only among the teams and conferences that have teams that qualify and keep advancing? Any idea how much Notre Dame would make if they won two playoff games and made the NC game and didn't have to split it with anyone? Tens of millions. Does that seem fair? How would that be for the "betterment" of college football? It wouldn't. The only way a playoff system works is if you have equal revenue sharing between all the eligible schools. That would mean dividing the net proceeds 73 ways (the 67 BCS schools plus the 6 BCS conferences each getting an equal share as the B1G does) or as many as 131 ways (all 120 FBS schools plus 11 conferences). I cannot believe a 1/73rd (1.3%) or 1/131st (0.7%) share of whatever net revenue a playoff system would generate would come anywhere close to the equivalent of the millions of dollars Ohio State makes off a home game.

And it has to be fair by creating a level playing field for everyone. The NFL's system of home field advantage is fair but you can't use the NFL as a model because it is essentially the equivalent of two "super conferences" each separated into 4 divisions who play a divisional round-robin/home-and-away schedule over 16 games to clearly determine home field advantage and then send the winner of that process to play the other conference's champion for the overall championship. There's no way that the NCAA with just six BCS conferences can make a playoff be that simple.

I don't know how getting ideas like this get passed but I do not believe the BCS or the NCAA has carte blanche to do whatever they wish; rather, I am assuming it would need to be ratified by the conferences and their member schools and this idea will never fly if you don't have the warm weather schools and their conferences on board. That's the SEC, the southern 1/2 of the Big 12, at least 1/2 of the Pac-12, and 2/3 of the ACC. They comprise more than half of the BCS schools. A simple majority would be hard enough much less unanimous agreement. They will see this for what they'll think it is--the B1G trying to gain some kind of competitive advantage. Why would they do that, particularly the SEC, which just had two of its teams play for its 6th straight NC? I can tell you the warm weather schools are NOT going to want to travel to the Midwest for a playoff game. The B1G can sponsor this idea and we can rail all we want about leveling the playing field and forcing them to play in a cold weather venue for once but that's a contradictory statement because that arrangement still favors cold weather teams. By claiming it's fair, it becomes unfair. The only "fair" compromise is a neutral field. A home field advantage for any team, regardless of where it's located, is unfair to the visiting team. This isn't Akron coming to the Shoe or Kent State playing at Alabama knowing they will get their asses kicked but at least they get to make some money; this is about two teams each wanting a fair shot at the NC. That's why the NCAA basketball tournament does not permit schools that are hosting rounds to play in their own arena.

Moreover, the bowls, as we have all heard for years, are fearful that they will be rendered irrelevant with a playoff. Already they have witnessed erosion in terms of ticket sales and TV ratings and ad revenue. And it's because they pair up teams that just don't make for intriguing match-ups. I mean, seriously: UConn blown out 48-20 by Oklahoma in the 2010 Fiesta Bowl? Va Tech blown out by Stanford 40-12 in the 2010 Orange Bowl? Talk about blah. Neither one of those games sold out and their ratings sucked. Does anyone really think the Rose Bowl wants to host a game between the B1G and Pac-12 runner-ups because their champions made the playoffs? If the bowls want to be relevant again, they need to host playoff games. Change is inevitable, the only constant; running away from it won't make it go away so you may as well embrace it and find a way to make it work for you.

Finally (there's more but I don't want to drag this out any longer), you have to consider the logistical nightmares. One week to prepare for an unscheduled home game isn't enough time; two weeks probably still isn't enough time. It's not like you just flip on a switch and host a home game on a week's notice. It would be easier to be the visiting team where all you have to basically do is coordinate air and ground transportation and hotel accommodations for your traveling party of 150+ people. But finding a hotel that can easily take that many people on a day's notice isn't going to be easy. Now, think of everything the home team would need to do. It's a logistical nightmare.

That's why as much as I hate the current BCS system and want a playoff, it makes more sense to have a) neutral locations, and b) reformat the current bowls into a playoff. Neutral sites make it fair (and indoor arenas would make it even more fair--we just saw two northern teams in the Super Bowl but they played indoors), and suddenly, those games would become meaningful again because it's win and move on or lose and go home. Fans would show up. The bowls already have the infrastructure in place to host playoff games. And unlike the schools themselves who wouldn't have a lot of advance notice, the bowls would know about it a year in advance and have lots of time to prepare--reserve hotels for the 2 teams, etc. The logistics are being handled over 52 weeks, not 2 weeks.

Don't get me wrong: I am all in favor of a playoff. I just don't see the B1G's idea of higher seeded teams hosting games being very practical. There's just going to be too much red tape and resistance and politics involved. What it does do, though, is get the conversation started. And that's the most crucial step. As long as there's a dialogue, there's a chance for progress, i.e., if you don't like it, fine, why not give us a better idea?

What the hell are you talking about cased closed? That makes absolutely no sense. Your response was has nothing to do with the context of the conversation between ziggie and myself. Oh well...if that closes your side of the conversation then thank you for your well thought out opinion.

Just to show you the shallowness of this response...nine is better than eight, ten is better than nine, 11 is better than ten...and so on...and so on...and so on... Therefore, case not closed.

It's certainly a better idea than what we have now! The warm weather teams will balk at it though.

So if there are eight teams in the playoff. Will the losers play in a bowl game after the playoff game or are they done?

Agree on all points.

I think the conference champions of the SEC, PAC12, BIG, Big 12, & ACC sould be automatic qualifiers, and there should be 3 at large teams. Seed 1 through 8 as suggested, NFL style.

Iowa: I know you were playing devil's advocate, but I really don't see the points you raised as major obstacles. The beauty of this system is that it would improve the bowl games as the teams losing in the play-offs would still be bowl eligible. This would allow the bowls to resume their historical conference rivalries.

Yes, there would be haggling, but I don't see how anyone could be against this scenario over money. It's growing the pie. Two home play-off games in the Shoe in December...can't imagine anything better than that.