Tuesday, December 2, 2008

What's This WBS That Everyone's Been Talking About Lately

There has been a lot of talk about Playoffs, and the problems associated with that. With the BCS role in the BIG-12 this year and all the chaos it has caused, it has gotten the nation in an uproar. More people are tuning in to ESPN to stay updated, blogging, making facebook groups, pulling their money together to fly airplanes over games to let people know that their team won a game earlier in the season. The point is that even though the BCS is flawed IT MAKES MONEY! If we had a better system…like… a playoff then people would get bored with it, it wouldn’t bring in as much money, and so forth. BULL-LO-NEE! Just look at NCAA Basketball, Baseball, or Soccer. Wait don’t look, think, talk or even say anything that rhymes with that word. (I am sorry I accidently brought it up and put it in category of Sports.) Take a look at Table Tennis instead…They have a playoff bracket as well. In the words of Michael Crabtree “Last night I had actually dreamed this”, so nation I need your input. Tell me what you think of this system. We’ll call it The Wayne Bass System or the WBS. And, what we’ll do is split the NCAAF into the west and the east. In the East you’ll have BCS Conferences such as SEC,ACC, and The Big East. In the West you’ll have Big-12 and 10 with the Pac-10. I know already it seems lopsided. We could disband the Big East and pull Boise into the Mountain West and make them a BCS then give the Big-10 to the East. Or, we’ll have the oh I don’t know the Red and Blue sides. In the Blue side the BCS Conferences such as the SEC, ACC, and the Big-10 on the Red we’ll have Big-12, Pac-10, and Big East. Mid-Majors will be as followed: In the East or Blue side will have Mid-America, the Sunbelt, and the Independent conference which will give up Norte Dame to the ACC for Maryland, and will also receive 3 teams from the Mid-America Confernce as well as Louisiana Tech from the WAC. This Independent Conference will be renamed The Podjoe Conference. (In reverence to the man who fixed this BCS Mess) On the West or the Red side we’ll have the WAC, MWC, and Conference USA. Anyways, well have everyone play their conferences like normal with a couple non-conf games at the beginning of the season. Each side will have their conf. champs receive a free enter the playoffs spot except if a team is ranked at least 4 spots above a conf. champ they will get their spot. For example say Oklahoma wins the Big-12, but Texas is just a one loss team and is ranked 5th in the West or Red side, and lets say that BYU has lost 2 games but won their conference and is ranked like 19th Texas would go ahead of BYU and get a playoff spot. Keep in mind that BYU isn’t out of the playoff scene completely, because there will be 12 spots in the first round from each side which is 4 weeks of Divisional Playoffs, and then the Champ from each side play in the National Title. Like I said earlier I need your input tell me what you think. What changes would you make to the WBS?

5 comments:

Quinn the Eskimo said...

I've put this some thought into this is well. I'm planning on sending a proposal to President Obama that includes adding me to his cabinet as Secretary of Trivial Things that will still help the President get re-elected.
Then I will just meet with the Commander-in-Chief briefly each week to make sure we have the same agenda, and he can focus on foreign relations and fixing the economy blah blah blah.
My idea is to have a 16 teams qualify for the playoffs. The champion of each of the 11 conferences gets an automatic bid, as well as the 5 highest seeded teams in the BCS that did not win their respective conference.
Seeding would be determined by end of season BCS rankings. The conference winners not ranked in the top 16 of the BCS would take the lowest seeds. Teams would be divided into 2 eight-team brackets.
Assuming that the higher ranked teams win their championship games this week, and that the losers of these games don't drop in the rankings, the brackets would look like this, with the higher seeded team playing on their home field:

Left side of Bracket:
#1 Alabama (SEC) vs. #16 Troy (Sun Belt)
#8 Penn State (Big 10) vs. #9 Boise State (WAC)
#4 Florida (At Large) vs. #13 Cincinnati (Big East)
#5 USC (Pac-10) vs. #12 Ball State (MAC)


Right side of bracket:
#2 Oklahoma (Big 12) vs. #15 Tulsa (Conf. USA)
#7 Texas Tech (At Large) vs. #10Ohio State (At Large)
#3 Texas (At Large) vs. #14 Boston College (ACC)
#6 Utah (Mountain West)vs. #11 TCU (At Large)

The only team with 2 losses or less that would be left out of the playoffs would be BYU, and they along with some 3 loss teams like Oklahoma State, Georgia, Oregon and Georgia Tech, may feel screwed when teams like Troy and Tulsa get in.
However, this is what makes every single regular season game important. If you lose more than 1 game in your conference, you know you're running the risk of not making the playoffs. If you can't finish in the top 2 or 3 of your conference, maybe you should consider moving to the SunBelt or Conference USA.
It's much better than the situation now where Texas feels they are getting screwed out of the national championship and Texas Tech and Boise are likely to be screwed out of BCS games altogether as they watch Cincinati, Ohio State, and BC or VTech play in the big money bowls.
This format also rewards the conferences with the better teams for the year instead of "honoring tradition" as the Big 12 gets 3 teams in. The Mountain West also gets 2 teams in while the Big East, Pac-10, and ACC only get 1 each this year.
This way the little guy can't complain as much about getting screwed, and the big boys only have to worry about winning.
Assuming the higher seeds win, the next round of my playoff format would look like this:

#1 Alabama vs. #8 Penn State (Holiday Bowl)
#4 Florida vs. #5 USC
(Sugar Bowl)
#2 Oklahoma vs. #7 Texas Tech
(Cotton Bowl)
#3 Texas vs. #6 Utah
(Rose Bowl)

I'm sure there would be some upsets along the way, but for simplicity's sake, we're going to assume the higher seeds win every game again to help visualize the next round.

#1 Alabama vs. #4 Florida
(Fiesta Bowl)
#2 Oklahoma vs. #3 Texas
(Orange Bowl)

The National Championship game would rotate every year like it does now between the sites of the 4 major bowls. The Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl would alternate every other year with the Fiesta and Orange Bowls between being semi-final and quarter-final games.
The other bowl games I just randomly plugged in, but a system could be organized to rotate those games as well.
The 24 other bowls not included in the playoffs could still be held. There will still be 11 of the BCS top 25 available for these games and there should easily be another 37 unranked teams throughout the nation that have winning records. The quality of the matchups and the viewership of these bowls won't change much as they will all be aired between December 23 and January 1 while the 1st 2 rounds of the playoffs are taking place and people are off from school and work and watching 3 or 4 games a day.
In order to prevent the student athletes from being overloaded, the teams in conferences without championship games will only be allowed to play 11 games. (Instead of the 12 most of them are currently playing) Pac-10, Big East, Moutain West, WAC, etc, would be able to play every team in their conference but would just have 1 less non-conference game.
The teams that have conference championships would be limited to 10 season games plus the conference championship for the 2 teams that qualify. The Big 12, SEC, ACC, etc, would still be able to play all 5 teams in their division. They could also play half (3) the teams in the other division of their conference(alternating each year) and still get 2 non-conference games each year.
This way there are only 2 schools in the entire country whose teams play the maximum 15 games over the course of the year.
It's not a flawless system yet, but it's close.

wayne bass said...

Dude Quinn that's freakin' awesome man! Is it Ok if I start a facebook group called Quinn Merrill for Secretary of Trivial Things

Quinn the Eskimo said...

Yes to the facebook group, and if I get the position I will put you on my council as College Football Chairman.
Your job would be to get former greats to publicly support our cause. We need some of the all-time greats from every conference.
SEC: Herschel Walker
PAC 10: John Elway
Big 12: Barry Sanders
ACC: Deion Sanders

You get the idea.

Also, I really do think I'm going to be a single issue voter next election. The economy is going to rebound no matter what the president does, but if we have a college football playoff instituted within the next 4 years, then Obama 08 baby.

Erich said...

I totally agree there brother! The BCS is just a way for the big name schools to give themselves a shot at the national title year in year out. Until there is a playoff system in college football there will never be a clear national champ. Lets just hope that OU doesn't choke in that Big 12 Championship or in the national championship. Erich

Jolayne said...

Okay, we need an update... BIG 12 CHAMPS!!!

PS... I'm a fan of Quinn's playoff championships. Let's do it!