Comments on Dan Shanoff: BCS Mess: My Playoff Solution

Why not take the conference champions plus one (pr...

2007-10-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

Why not take the conference champions plus one (probably ND because it's good for ratings most years) and randomly send them into 4 groups. The groups play a round robin, with the top team in each advancing into a semifinal. The winners play for all the marbles (or a big check to share with their conference).

Another alternative is described at [1] using the ...

2006-12-06T01:52:00.000-05:00

Another alternative is described at [1] using the Swiss system tournament. It's specifically designed for short tournaments with large number of participants and provides excellent games in each round and a robust system to determine the beat team.

[1] http://onehundredyards.blogspot.com/2006/12/alternative-to-current-bcs-system.html

Here is my solutionhttp://www.4shared.com/file/682...

2006-12-04T15:27:00.000-05:00

Here is my solution
http://www.4shared.com/file/6827247/baf06760/college_football_solution.html

Thanks,
Hockeydino
http://detroitsportssnobs.blogspot.com

Getting to the party late, as I am in Hawaii for h...

2006-11-22T03:16:00.000-05:00

Getting to the party late, as I am in Hawaii for hte Purdue-Hawaii game, but htat is pure fuckin' genius!!!

Send ONE team from each conference. Leave it up t...

2006-11-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

Send ONE team from each conference. Leave it up to the individual conference to decide who their representative will be. Then throw the one representative from each conference into a playoff. 27 Conferences = 27 teams. Yes, even let the little boys in there. Then add 5 at-large teams.

That's 31 games to be played. Use the existing Bowl set-ups as the game sites. Rotate the National Championship game among the traditional "Big" bowls. As Michael Scott from The Office would say, "It's a Win-Win.... Win." The Tournament contains ALL the league champions plus 5 other deserving teams. You have the potential for huge upsets, which is what makes the NCAA basketball tournament so exciting. Everybody makes money... probably more than before because now the remote bowl games actually mean something and fans might show up for the Tire Bowl, etc.

Here is another idea that we have talked about tha...

2006-11-21T12:31:00.000-05:00

Here is another idea that we have talked about that I thought made sense and liked.

You have a 26 team playoff. This gives you the BCS top 25 + 1. Don't know who the +1 team is and I don't really care. This year is could be Maryland, Texas A& M, TCU, whoever... This can be done by a coaches poll, a committee, or hell even popular voting.

The tournament would go like so:
-You give all BCS Conferece champoins (6 teams) a bye in the first week as a reward for what they have done throuhgout the year.
- This leaves 20 to play in the first round. Leaves 10 teams.
- Add back in the conference champs andyou are now at 16 teams. It can be set up to reseed each round with the highest versus lowest or in a straight bracket style.
- Play down to 8 - 4 - 2 - 1.

You can use the bowls as the tournament sites, with payouts to the winners and losers like it is currently now. (This would make ADs happy, as the longer their team plays the more money they make) There are 25 total games in this system and that should still leave a few other bowls for people that miss it to fill in during the tournament.

Some 1st round games right now could be:

Okla v. Va Tech, ND v. Penn St., Auburn v California, etc...

Just thought that I would share.

I think that Dan's is too far out there. Plus as long as everyone is making money and everyone is talking about College Football like this nothing is going to change...

If you think finding a 1-vs-2 is hard, try figurin...

2006-11-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

If you think finding a 1-vs-2 is hard, try figuring out if the 2/3/4 teams are better than the 5/6/7/8 teams.

You just made the argument in favor of a 4-team playoff. It keeps some of the controversy of the current system, but in the end no one would likely dispute the final champion.

Plus, it doesn't mess with the current regular season.

Now, let's all have on orange whip.

Bowl games need to be included in any new system, ...

2006-11-21T09:20:00.000-05:00

Bowl games need to be included in any new system, so I like your idea NYC-Steelers. I personally think the bowl games should remain for teams that don't make the Championship Tournament. And hell, if it's an eight team tournament, then the top 7 bowls (Sugar, Fiesta, Rose, Orange, Cotton, "Chick-fil-A"/Peach, Cap One or Meineke or Alamo, can all be used, even though that eliminates home field advantage.

Here is what needs to happen but never will...Ther...

2006-11-21T08:47:00.000-05:00

Here is what needs to happen but never will...

There are currently 54 bowls (or something like that)

I think we can all agree that is too many. Let's increase it to 56 (Hear me out)

We make seven 8 team brackets. The top 8 are in the National Championship Bracket. Nine through 16 are in A. 17-24 are in B and so on until we rank the top 64 teams.

In the National Championship Bracket the first round games would be obvious 1 v. 8, 2 v. 7, 3 v. 6, 4 v. 5. They would each be played at a current bowl site. You can use the current 5 BCS bowls plus the two created ones. You could easily rotate the seven bowls as the National Championship.

I realize the lesser brackets would generate significantly less buzz, but I think that a mini tournament would generate more buzz for the Motor City Bowl than it currently has.

This scenerio would also eliminate a lot of those really crappy 6-6 BCS conference teams from making a bowl game. There would be half as many teams making bowls thus really putting a lot of weight on the regular season.

I know this idea will not happen, but I think if the most important thing is to keep the bowl sponsors happy, this would work.

Also, you'd have to cut the season down by only one game since only 16 teams would end up playing 14 games so it's feasible, just not gonna happen.

I bet this is confusing since I didn't really think out my formatting before starting typing, so sorry for that!

Let's just forget about playoffs and the BCS and g...

2006-11-21T08:39:00.000-05:00

Let's just forget about playoffs and the BCS and go back to the old system. At least there was less confusion that way.

I'm beginning to think the 4-team playoff may be t...

2006-11-21T08:33:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to think the 4-team playoff may be the best solution. It is the most workable from the current system. You can think that if you were designing the system from scratch how to make it perfect, but you are not. Incremental change is the only way to make it work. Start with something simple, and change it slightly, and maybe eventually you'll get your 8 or 16 game playoff.

Obviously Dan's idea is ridiculous, both in the fact that it doesn't make much sense, but also since there is not a chance in hell of the people making money off the current system changing things up so drastically. But, by changing it to a 4-team playoff, rotating the semifinal games rather than the title game among the 4 BCS sites, and then having a national championship game which was bid on in a way similar to the superbowl (I liked someone's idea of using N'Awlins every year, but then you'd have the orange, fiesta, and rose bowl people squawkin about how unfair it was, and they wouldn't let it pass). Seriously, if we're having a theoretical discussion, we can entertain anything (even Dan's ideas); but if you are trying to make things happen, you have to have a sellable idea to pitch to the people who can actually make things happen, which is the old boys clubs that run the major conferences and the big bowls - you gotta make sure they still make their money (that's the only reason they ever considered even allowing a BCS vote to set up a national championship game). Otherwise, well, it just won't happen.

Give me one example of a year where a team ranked ...

2006-11-21T07:19:00.000-05:00

Give me one example of a year where a team ranked outside of the top four had a legitimate gripe about not being in the championship game.

Exactly. And you'd think Dan would jump all over a 4-team playoff. Every now and again he likes to tell us the regular season is a de facto playoff--but then he backs off of that when the regular season fails to produce a clear 1 and 2.

Well, if you expand the title contenders to 1, 2, 3, and 4 then the regular season will almost always work as a playoff to whittle things down to a final four.

If you look back to the past few years, this would have worked (almost) every time.

2001: Miami v. Colorado, Nebraska v. Oregon

2002: Miami v. Georgia, Ohio State v. Iowa

2003: USC v. Michigan, LSU v. Oklahoma (Bonus points because this actually happened, setting up USC v. LSU--which would have been an amazing championship game)

2004: USC v. Utah, Auburn v. Oklahoma

2005: USC v. ?, Texas v. Penn St. (Last year is the only recent problem year. But it's not even that big a deal. I think we can all agree Texas and USC would have won their semifinal games, but winning the semifinal games would have made them even more deserving champs. As far as who was #4--do you take a conference runner up like Ohio State? Or a 2-loss conference champ like Georgia? Still, this is a hell of a lot better than trying to pick from among 3 teams for the #2 spot.)

This is the single worst idea I have ever seen.Who...

2006-11-21T00:40:00.000-05:00

This is the single worst idea I have ever seen.

Who said that all controversy had to be eliminated? That's never going to happen. You still have controversy with the 65 team NCAA men's b-ball tournament. That's ok. Someone's always going to bitch. Just make sure that whoever's bitching doesn't have much right to.

Dan, I love the blog, but this is the stupidest th...

2006-11-20T23:30:00.000-05:00

Dan, I love the blog, but this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

4 team playoff wouldn't work, huh? What a load of...

2006-11-20T23:26:00.000-05:00

4 team playoff wouldn't work, huh? What a load of crap. Give me one example of a year where a team ranked outside of the top four had a legitimate gripe about not being in the championship game. The most recent example of a team getting hosed is Auburn, and they were ranked 3rd. If there isn't a year that you can think of, then I would say that a 4 team playoff is indeed a legitimate playoff system. If you aren't in the top four by the end of the year, tough crap.

Need to cut divison 1A to 8 conferences x 12 teams...

2006-11-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Need to cut divison 1A to 8 conferences x 12 teams. Add the WA/MAC/ or conference USA. ND joins the big 10 and PAC 10 snipes 2 teams from somewhere. Everyone plays 12 games, nine conference and 3 other BCS teams, no DIV 1AA. Everyone has a conference championship game, nd the 8 winners are seeded at random for an 8 team playoff.

I'm sure plenty of traditionalist will bitch at me, but i think it is a fair system.

The thing with the big east this year (if one team had been undefeated) is that they are a BCS league, so they should be in the title consideration. And ND should be in a BCS conference, and not just in because of history and a side contract. my 2 cents.

Wow...over 50 commenters, and nobody likes your id...

2006-11-20T22:18:00.000-05:00

Wow...over 50 commenters, and nobody likes your idea, Shanoff. Think that tells you something?

But what's with people saying you need all 11 conferences represented in a playoff? It should be the top 8/16/whatever teams, no matter what conference they play in.

YOu should be a politician. You can't reach a simp...

2006-11-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

YOu should be a politician. You can't reach a simple decision and want the most ridiculous unworkable solution. The 9th place team in the BCS has no right to claim to be the best team. Top 8 is fine. YOu select them the same way you choose #1 and #2 right now. Simple. You are #9 and you are out. They do it in the NCAA Hoops Tourney and it can be done in football as well. Top 8 in, everyone else out.

teams are playing 13 games a season right now. Cu...

2006-11-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

teams are playing 13 games a season right now. Cut the regular season to 10, and at MOST we will have 2 teams playing 14 games per season with a 16 team playoff.

didn't KSU play 15 games a few years ago? OSU won 14 in 2002. Not asking them to storm the beaches of Normandy here.

Army, Navy and Temple...they don't count in this discussion. Sorry. Join a conference, and learn how to play football (in the case of Temple). Air Force is in one, you aren't better than them.

Screw it, they should all just join the Big East. ND has the basketball ties, and the rest of them are right there geographically.

"Student athletes" Oh man that's a good one drunke...

2006-11-20T19:50:00.000-05:00

"Student athletes" Oh man that's a good one drunken loo. Funniest joke of the day.

There is a reason that football isn't set up like ...

2006-11-20T19:47:00.000-05:00

There is a reason that football isn't set up like basketball... injuries are a lot more common in football. The longer these kids play, the more likely they'll get injuried. We can't be having 11-12 game regular seasons and 4 game playoffs. Its way too much, plus what happened to the idea of "student athletes"?

Everybody just wants a system to help their team out... well guess what? This system is perfect since it screws everybody equally.

Also, we're not having a problem trying to find the #1 team in the country. We're having a problem trying to find a team to dethrone them.

Michigan had their shot and blew it. You can sing all you want about being away, but great teams perform in all situations... this isn't a who's-the-best-on-a-neutral-field... this is a who's-the-best-team-whenever-and-wherever and that's decided by the score. I'm sure you guys remember what it was, right?

Whoever finishes #2 earned their shot. If its SC, Florida, or even Michigan, they've earned it...

Interesting idea. But I fear that heart attacks a...

2006-11-20T19:41:00.001-05:00

Interesting idea. But I fear that heart attacks and freak-outs will rise precipitously for coaches if they are forced to develop and practice a gameplan in six days (since they won't know whom they're playing until Sat. night). By the same token, methinks the smartest players would be in much higher demand.

I like Ken's idea (above) for two reasons:1) It st...

2006-11-20T19:41:00.000-05:00

I like Ken's idea (above) for two reasons:

1) It still uses the BCS formula, so we won't get stuck with bad division winners.

2) It gives the top rated teams bye-weeks, which they should have (there should be some incentive for teams to have a perfect regular season, or else games like last week's OSU-UM mean less).

Brian: In D-IAA, not all of the conferences are gu...

2006-11-20T18:58:00.000-05:00

Brian: In D-IAA, not all of the conferences are guaranteed a spot in the tournament. And let's face facts here: the mid-majors aren't as good as the big 6. That said, the best team from those five conferences (and possibly two teams, as it was two years back with Boise State and Utah) do deserve a shot. I think that after 2-3 years of an 8 team system, if the gap starts to close just by giving the mid-majors a champ, then we up it to include all 11 conferences and 5 at larges.

freky, I realize that Notre Dame isn't the only in...

2006-11-20T18:53:00.000-05:00

freky, I realize that Notre Dame isn't the only independent. I just threw them out there because they're the perennial contender in discussion. If Army, Navy, or Temple had a great season, they should be considered as well.

That said, I think all four should just join some damn conferences. I know Temple's going to be in the MAC for football.