Imagine that you were given the task of designing a tournament for more than 100 teams. The tournament should provide each team with a dozen or more competitive games and ultimately produce a champion by pitting the best two teams against each other. The obvious choice is a pool-play tournament followed by a championship bracket. If only we could do this for college football.The full proposal is at http://playoffs.vroospeak.com.
Guest Blog: The Bowl Playoff Championship Series Proposal
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Bruce Leban (Guest Author)
This post is part of an ongoing series that allows guest writers to highlight their playoff proposals. This post was written for PlayoffPAC.com by Bruce Leban, creator of the Bowl Playoff Championship Series proposal.
Imagine that you were given the task of designing a tournament for more than 100 teams. The tournament should provide each team with a dozen or more competitive games and ultimately produce a champion by pitting the best two teams against each other. The obvious choice is a pool-play tournament followed by a championship bracket. If only we could do this for college football.
In fact, we've already got most of this. Each league or division works exactly like a pool. And at the end of each season, we have some championship and bowl games. What's missing is the connection between the two. Instead, the current system asks judges and computer programs to pick two teams to play each other for the championship, even though the system is very likely to produce multiple legitimate contenders.
The Bowl Playoff Championship Series—a system that I’ve proposed—would choose the national champion using head-to-head play among the best teams in a four-round bracket, without using polls or computer rankings. The season would be the same length as it is now and all teams that play bowl games now would still play in those bowl games. Here's a synopsis:
- The regular season would function as the pool-play round, with the winners of league championship games automatically advancing to the quarterfinals.
- Since not all leagues have championship games, the remaining quarterfinal teams would be selected based on win-loss record and tie-breakers.
- Quarterfinal games would be played before the bowl games.
- Two bowl games host the semifinals.
The national championship game would be played after all the other bowl games.
How is it possible that we can add playoffs without making the season longer? The secret is making the season shorter instead. For conferences with a championship game, each team would schedule one less game than it does now. That would enable scheduling the league championship games one week earlier, and the schedule would work out with the championship game played at the same time it is now.
But if teams failed to make the championship game, they wouldn't get cheated out of a game. Instead, we would get something better. We would match up conferences and each team would play a correspondingly ranked team from another conference. Take the Big 12 North as an example. The champion, of course, would play the Big 12 South champion, with the winner of that game advancing to the quarterfinals. The remaining Big 12 North teams would play some other conference, for example, the ACC Atlantic, with #2 vs. #2, #3 vs. #3, etc. Ever wondered whether the Big 12 or the ACC is a stronger conference? Now you can find out!
Under the Bowl Playoff Championship Series, bowl games would be played after the inter-conference games and the quarterfinals. Teams that lose in the quarterfinals would go on to play a bowl game. And after all the bowl games, the winners of the semifinal bowls would play each other for the national championship.
The Bowl Playoff Championship Series would add a dramatic finish to the college football season. For more details, read the full proposal at http://playoffs.vroospeak.com.
Gruyere Security
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