Around the 'Shoe

If they're going to do it, there has to be a decent amount of time between games so the winners can prepare. You can't have 4 weeks to prepare for a semi-final game and then only one week for the NC. At least two weeks.

I say make the regular season end by Thanksgiving weekend. Conference championships are the first Saturday in December. Top 4 in the BCS poll make the playoffs. Semi-final round is the week before Christmas. Championship game is the week after New Years. That way, you're using the playoffs and NC game to "bracket" the traditional bowls, which are generally played the third week in December through the first couple days in January. And the two playoff losers either don't play in a bowl of they play each other in a separate game prior to the NC in another city for third place.

why do you need 2 weeks to prepare .. a PRO team only needs one week to prepare between divisonal playoff and nfc championship game .. why would college kids need more weeks ?

i think that's for build up .. don't you think.

i'd like to see 8 teams .. that would be awesome .. 4 winners of the super conferences and 3 wild cards, and 1 lamb for the wolves like Boise State , TCU or somebody else if they aren't in a super conference

Im all for a playoff system, and naturally its going a several years to get it right. The first layout will not be perfect and neither will the second, and so on. Eventually they will find the right format. College Football is just going to have to be patient.

Because it's completely illogical to give them 4 weeks to prepare for one game and then only one week for the next. Currently, the two teams playing for the NC treat it like any other bowl. They have lots of time to prepare; in fact, they may have too much time, as we saw in 2006.

Imagine that they had a playoff this year and let's say that, for the sake of argument, the finalists were #1 LSU, #2 Alabama, #3 Oklahoma State and #4Stanford. LSU would've played Stanford and Alabama would've played Okie State. Why give them a month to prepare for the semis and then give the two finalists only a week? Not only that, but the two schools and their fans need time to make plans. Flights, hotels, pre-game events, tickets. It's a logistical nightmare on only a week's notice.

The conference championships this year were held the weekend of December 3. The first bowl games were two weeks later on December 17. They were the Gildan New Mexico Bowl (Temple v. Wyoming), the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Ohio U v. Utah State), and the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (Louisiana-Lafayette v. San Diego State). Yeah, those match-ups really got the turnstiles turning. There were 26,000 at the NM Bowl, 28,000 at the Potato Bowl, and a bowl-record 43,000 for the NO Bowl, which filled half the Superdome even though a Louisiana school was playing in it.

So why not insert the first round of the playoffs that same weekend to get the bowl season started off with a bang instead of a whimper? Then the two winners play 2-3 weeks later after all the other bowl games are over, while the two losers go home. They had their shot at glory and lost. The playoff game was their bowl game. Don't like missing out on the traditional bowl experience? Tough. That's the way the national championship cookie crumbles. And no one misses much in the way of class, which has been one of the biggest arguments against a playoff, even though 1-AA seems to make it work.

Finally, the NFL has a two week gap between the conference championships and the Super Bowl because a) the stakes are never higher, and b) they want to milk every iota of publicity and excitement that they can out of the pre-game hype. The Super Bowl's not just a game; it's an EVENT, an unofficial national holiday. I'll bet more people get together at Super Bowl parties than they do to celebrate Easter, Mother's Day or Father's Day. College football needs to take a page from the NFL's PR manual. And unlike the NFL, which has what?--the stupid and impotent Pro Bowl, which may as well be a flag football game for all the players in it don't want to hurt each other or risk being hurt in a game that means absolutely nothing--to whet fans' appetites during that off week, the NCAA will still have all its other bowls between the playoffs and the NC game.

They'll never get it right.
Every year there will be bitching and moaning about which team didn't get this or should have that.
Every scenario solves one problem but creates another.
Who gives a sh*t. Win all your games.

If its conference champs, whoever gets the big east or ACC gets the cupcake game. People will still complain.

4 teams wont work, the first two or three are no brainers but after that it becomes a lot less clear.

agreed!

After the conference championships but prior to the bowls, the BCS's Top 8 looked like this:

1. LSU, 13-0
2. Alabama, 11-1
3. Oklahoma State, 11-1
4. Stanford, 11-1
5. Oregon, 11-2
6. Arkansas, 10-2
7. Boise State, 11-1
8. Kansas State, 10-2

That's 3 SEC, 2 Big 12, 2 Pac-12, one independent.

11-2 Wisconsin was ranked 10th (after 10-2 South Carolina). The highest ranking ACC and Big Least teams were 11-2 Virginia Tech (11th) and 9-3 West Virginia (23rd).

Take the 5 winners of the ACC, SEC, B1G, Big 12 and Pac-12's championship games then 3 at-large teams, which would cover ND's chances as an independent. Or pit the Big Least and Mountain West conferences' regular season champs against one another for a 6th spot plus 2 at-large spots. That would have covered Alabama and Oregon getting in as at-larges this past year.

I vote you in charge!