Playoffs, Realignment, and Relegation: A Revamp of the BCS System

by Pete Rossman on Jul 9, 2009 10:03 PM CDT in Michigan State Spartans Football

UPDATE: Thanks for the response everyone. After reading some of the comments, I made a mistake in not pushing Utah up to the Championship Division, they're in the Big 12 now, replacing Baylor.

Look, it's the dregs of college football season. You know it, I know it, and you're fearing that your fascination over recruiting might be culminating in an attraction to the Jonas Brothers. Easy there, we've felt these waves of boredom, and there's one tested way to get rid of all of those feelings: railing against the BCS. Nearly every talking head has screamed over the need for an eight team playoff, but I say, "Why stop there?" Many aspects to the system are currently unfair - how would the ten other Big Ten teams feel if MSU won the league without playing Ohio State? It's not just the postseason process that needs fixing.

After the jump, I lay out our four major changes to Division 1-A (it'll be a cold day in Rio before I call them Bowl Championship teams) that would make the game a dollop more fair and a good deal more interesting. These changes are league realignment, relegation, an eight-team playoff, and a fundamental change in conference scheduling.

REALIGNMENT

All 1-A teams will be assigned to one of twelve leagues each consisting of ten teams. Two divisions - Championship and Subchampionship - will help determine who goes to the playoffs. I'll expand on that distinction later in the playoff section, but in short, only Championship division teams are eligible for the playoffs. Note - to make everything even, I'm bumping Appalachian State up to 1-A, because 34-32 NEVER FORGET. Yes Michigan fans, you can add that to your "Sparty has an inferiority complex" file cabinet.

CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION

Big Ten	Big 12	ACC	SEC	Big East	Pac 10
Illinois	Utah	Boston College	Alabama	Cincinnati	Arizona
Iowa	Colorado	Clemson	Arkansas	Connecticut	Arizona State
Michigan	Kansas	Florida State	Auburn	Kentucky	Boise State
Michigan State	Kansas State	Georgia Tech	Florida	Louisville	California
Minnesota	Missouri	Maryland	Georgia	Pittsburgh	Oregon
Northwestern	Nebraska	Miami	LSU	Penn State	Oregon State
Notre Dame	Oklahoma	North Carolina	Ole Miss	Rutgers	Stanford
Ohio State	Oklahoma State	NC State	South Carolina	South Florida	Washington State
Purdue	Texas	Virginia Tech	Tennessee	Virginia	UCLA
Wisconsin	Texas Tech	Wake Forest	Vanderbilt	West Virginia	USC

SUBCHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION

MAC	Mountain West	Conference USA	Sun Belt	Patriot/J Leman	WAC
Akron	Air Force	Duke	Arkansas State	Appalachian State	Fresno State
Ball State	BYU	East Carolina	Florida Atlantic	Army	Hawaii
Bowling Green	Colorado State	Houston	Florida International	E. Michigan	Idaho
Buffalo	Iowa State	Marshall	Louisiana-Lafayette	Miami of Ohio	Louisiana Tech
Cent. Michigan	New Mexico	Memphis	Louisiana-Monroe	Navy	Nevada
Indiana	Texas A&M	Rice	Middle Tennessee State	SMU	New Mexico State
N. Illinois	TCU	Southern Miss	Mississippi State	Syracuse	San Diego State
Ohio	UNLV	Tulsa	North Texas	Toledo	San Jose State
Temple	Baylor	UCF	Troy	Tulane	Utah State
W. Michigan	Wyoming	UTEP	UAB	Western Kentucky	Washington

More on the reasoning quickly, but first, a quick word about:

RELEGATION

We all know that as of recently, Duke and Washington have had no business playing football in BCS leagues. That's why I'm relegating each last place team in each Championship division league to a Subchampionship league. Likewise, the top team in each Subchampionship division league gets promoted to a Championship division league. This gets the chaff out of the top leagues, while allowing teams like Boise State and Utah a chance to prove themselves. This would have added a morbid curiosity to the Washington-Washington State game this year, which would have been a promotion over simply morbid.

DIVISION REASONING

There were some tough decisions here. For relegation purposes, I went with what team was last in their league/division last year; however, I did move Kentucky and Virginia to the Big East because I did not feel their seasons deserved relegation, and it makes for a decent geographic fit. You'll also see I created another league, the Patriot/J Leman league, to hold the extras from lower division leagues. As for other moves:

Notre Dame in the Big Ten, Penn State to the Big East. It fits geogrpahically, and if Notre Dame wants to still be independent, they can be independent of the playoffs as well.
I just couldn't keep Washington in the Pac 10 after the 0-12 season. Boise State rightfully takes their place.
The Patriot/J Leman conferences I moved most of the weaker teams into, because I feel like J would want Navy in the top tier, and what's alright with J is alright with me.

One final, important note: each promoted team from one league would go to a specific league, and each relegated team would go the same league. Here are the alignments:

Big Ten: MAC
Big East: Patriot/J Leman
Big 12: Mountain West
Pac 10: WAC
ACC; Conference USA
SEC: Sun Belt

For the most part, all these leagues are decent to good fits geographically, depending on which team is promoted in a given year.

PLAYOFFS

Each winner of a Championship Division league would earn an automatic berth to the playoffs. From there, a selection committee (suggest members in the comments, I'm open to suggestion seeing as MSU has not sniffed a national title in about 40 years) would choose two of the second-place teams in the championship tier to also go to the playoffs. The selection committee would seed the teams as well. Not a perfect system, but people complain much less when basketball does it this way. I also think having several computer rankings factor in the decision seems arcane, impenetrable, and awkward, much like every dance I went to in high school. All games would be at neutral locations, with the first round around December 18th, the semi-finals around Christmas, and the finals on New Year's Day. Added bonus - put the semi-finals and finals at one site for a whole week of fun and drankin'.

SCHEDULING

Each league has ten teams, thus nine league games each year. Four of these games will be home, another four away, and one at a neutral site. In the Big Ten, every team could schedule the neutral game in Chicago - no advantage except for Northwestern, and let's face it, any game in history at Ryan Field has been neutral. This eliminates the edge when a team has five home games compared to another team's four.

As for nonconference games, schedule whoever you want. This will promote better nonconference matchups as teams might want to improve their stock with the selection committee in case they finish second. And when I say anyone, I truly mean anyone from divisions 1-3. This will mean Penn State will achieve their dream of scheduling three schools for the deaf during nonconference.

SUMMIN' IT UP

All of these changes would help promote fairness in college football, but let's face it: There's no way that any of these are going through because of finances, the inertia inherent in any system, and the fear of potentially losing a fan (and donor) base due to relegation. In my world though, that would be the way things were, and Michigan State would have most likely been relegated a few years ago to the MAC.

Sometimes it's better when dreams don't come true.

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Comments

Good idea but...

I think the first round games of the playoffs could be named after the existing bowls. The rose bowl could stil be between the big ten and pac ten winners… etc.

by groverj3 on Jul 9, 2009 11:15 PM CDT reply actions

I like it

Soccer fan, I assume?

I’d considered a similar idea with ten 12-team conferences instead, and a round-robin among the winners of each upper-division conference rather than a playoff (much like the Champions League). The trouble with this is that it would eliminate non-conference games aside from bowls and the championship group. I think the 10-team conferences probably work better.

The round-robin championship idea would still work for your alignment (although you’d probably have to cut back to two non-conference games, since it would be five extra games for those teams instead of three in a playoff). Second through sixth in the upper divisions and first through third in the lower divisions go to bowl games (23 bowls if you take two of the runners-up for the playoff, 24 if you go to the round-robin). Bowls could look something like (if we assume the round-robin, and try to mix pairings around so every conference can play every other):
Rose Bowl: Big Ten #2 v. Pac-10 #2
Cotton Bowl: Big XII #2 v. SEC #2
Orange Bowl: Big East #2 v. ACC #2
Sugar Bowl: SEC #3 v. ACC #3
Fiesta Bowl: Big XII #3 v. Pac-10 #3
Citrus Bowl: Big East #3 v. Big Ten #3
Peach Bowl: SEC #4 v. Big East #4
Alamo Bowl: Big Ten #4 v. Big XII #4
Insight Bowl: Pac-10 #4 v. ACC #4
Music City Bowl: Big Ten #5 v. Sun Belt #1
Outback Bowl: SEC #5 v. MAC #1
Gator Bowl: ACC #5 v. Mountain West #1
Sun Bowl: Big XII #5 v. CUSA #1
Holiday Bowl: Pac-10 #5 v. Patriot #1
Car Care Bowl: Big East #5 v. WAC #1
Motor City Bowl: Big Ten #6 v. MAC #2
Poinsettia Bowl: Pac-10 #6 v. WAC #2
Humanitarian Bowl: Big XII #6 v. MWC #2
Independence Bowl: SEC #6 v. Sun Belt #2
GMAC Bowl: Big East #6 v. Patriot #2
EagleBank Bowl: ACC #6 v. CUSA #2
Liberty Bowl: Sun Belt #3 v. WAC #3
Texas Bowl: MWC #3 v. Patriot #3
International Bowl: MAC #3 v. CUSA #3

Another possibility: rather than just relegating one team, maybe have second-to-last in the upper division play off against the lower-division runner-up for their upper-division place. (This could be in place of the bowl game for the lower-division team.)

by SpartanDan on Jul 10, 2009 1:20 AM CDT reply actions

Wow.

Groverj3 got the ball rolling, then SpartanDan just took it to its completion. Nice job you two.

As for the relegation playoff you described – that sounds like an awesome idea as well. That way the only teams that don’t really have a postseason in the championship division are the 7th and 8th place ones.

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 10, 2009 11:20 AM CDT up reply actions

Rio

Listen, I’m from the country, some family in Rio. It does get cold there sometimes. Not -12F cold, but a respectable 50F. Don’t laugh, you’d be cold at 50F if you lived in a brick and cement house built with no concern for insulation. Just saying.

Great playoff concept, though!

by DP99 on Jul 10, 2009 2:09 AM CDT reply actions

I used to live in Houghton

Believe you me, I learned the meaning of cold there.

Mostly though, it was a reason for me to post 80s music, and what I think is Duran Duran’s best song. I know a lot of dudes on this board would’ve been happier if I posted the music video, but I have to keep this site as SFW as possible, and I trust you can all find that on your own.

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 10, 2009 11:22 AM CDT up reply actions

The Yoop...

…isn’t as cold as Minnesota. International Falls and such. The big lakes keep it from being that cold. I grew up 20 miles or so south of Houghton.

by witless chum on Jul 12, 2009 4:21 PM CDT up reply actions

I like the idea

I have a few quibbles with the execution:

Would the relegated teams from Championship Conferences be rotated based on last season’s performance – i.e. could University of Washington move back into the PAC 10 if it won the WAC, to be replaced by the last place team in the PAC 10 from the previous season? It’s true UDub hasn’t been good since the ‘90s, but they do have a fairly storied football history and relegating them to permanent sub-championship status is, I think, inappropriate. I think you intend this to rotate based on results but can’t tell for sure. I’d be in favor of relegating last place teams annually. Traditional members of conferences should have the chance to rejoin their conference if they improve.

My other quibble is with the alignment of the Big East and ACC. Penn State absolutely needs more competition than you have given them in the Big East. To that end, I would move Miami and BC back into the Big East (where they were prior to ACC expansion) and put Virginia and Kentucky, Louisville, or Rutgers in the ACC. They’d still fit in the ACC fairly well geographically and traditionally have not been nearly as strong as the teams replacing them.

by TheCrestedHelm on Jul 10, 2009 10:59 AM CDT reply actions

To answer the questions:

- If Washington won the WAC, they would move back into the Pac 10, and be replaced by the Pac 10’s last place team. It’s just that after an 0-12 season, I couldn’t let the Huskies stay in a top tier conference for another second. It’s how you say it is – relegation would happen annually.

- Penn State in the Big East is a rough idea, because they would be the dominant team in that conference. However, I think everything runs in cycles, and I’m pretty sure Pitt, Cincy, or WVU might be able to give them a run for the money. I’m not sure moving Miami or BC in would make a huge difference, because Miami has looked positively mediocre in the past few seasons, and BC’s been good, and might be a good addition. If I had to redo it, I might split the difference and exchange Rutgers for BC.

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 10, 2009 11:32 AM CDT up reply actions

I came up with a similar scenario…twelve, 10 team conferences. In one I suggested small changes to the current conferences…in the other radical changes based on geographic location. 13 game schedule: 9 conference games 4 OC games.

My thought was the 12 conference winners and 4 wild cards square off in a 16 team tournament. One small problem however…South Alabama is a D-1 school next year 121 schools throws my concept out of whack.

by MSULaxer27 on Jul 10, 2009 11:01 AM CDT reply actions

South Alabama? Hmm.

The first thought that came to my head: 4-team relegation tournament between the 4 last place teams with the worst records in the subchampionship division. Loser goes to 1-AA, the 1-AA champion gets bumped to 1-A. That might create problems based on geography though.

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 10, 2009 11:35 AM CDT up reply actions

Playoffs

I’m of the hope that if any playoff system ever comes about, that they go home games in the first round. More reward for a tougher schedule, and the possibility of snow bowls.

Light a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a day.
Light a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

by Seer on Jul 10, 2009 12:36 PM CDT reply actions

Agreed

Leaving aside the added incentives for the top teams, there’s also the logistical issues: you can’t reasonably expect fans to travel three times, twice on very short notice, to pack 80,000-seat stadiums.

by SpartanDan on Jul 12, 2009 8:19 AM CDT up reply actions

Indiana to the MAC

lolololol

"Do not cheat your team or your teammates. Know your plays. Block. Protect. Add to what we are trying to do."
The Only Colors

by LVS on Jul 10, 2009 1:37 PM CDT reply actions

So...

An undefeated Utah team still can’t sniff the playoffs? It has to go undefeated and then win the Big 12 the next year? I think those two at large bids should go to a bottom six conference champ. I have no sympathy for a conference runner-up. If you’re not the best in your conference, you’re not the best in the country.

by Bama Hawkeye on Jul 10, 2009 3:37 PM CDT reply actions

Well, that year, no.

One of my biggest gripes with a future playoff system is that a team like Utah can play a AAA schedule (the Utes probably want to schedule harder, but let’s not lie, that’s how it is) and then have essentially the same shot as a Florida or Oklahoma who went through a gauntlet to get the same chance.

I like it my way better, because it gives a team like Utah or Boise State the chance to prove themselves with an honest schedule before going to play for a national title. I do see your point though about a conference champion being legit though. However, there are cases where runner-up teams could easily go to another conference and clean house (imagine Texas in the Big East this past year). I feel like they shouldn’t be left out just because they had an absolute powerhouse they ran into.

OK, I’m rambling. Now’s a good time to stop.

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 10, 2009 6:00 PM CDT up reply actions

The question is

Are you trying to find the best team in the country, or the best 8 teams in the country? If you want the best team, second place in your conference should automatically ice you out of a tourney. If you want the best 8, then you may well find three of them in one conference.

by Bama Hawkeye on Jul 13, 2009 8:28 AM CDT up reply actions

I think best 8

I don’t know any other sensible way to pick the teams going into a playoff.

This system at least makes explicit what the BCS glosses over, that smaller conference teams have not shot of playing for the title. This gives them a path to do so, which the BCS doesn’t.

I’d like the idea of making subchampionship conference champs eligible for the championship playoff, though. Mostly, Texas is going to make it over WMU, but I don’t think it hurts anything to make the MAC champ at least eligible. If they played a terrible schedule, a selection committee of non-fools will take one of the second-place teams.

I don’t think neutral site playoff games work, though. I’m not sure I agree about the too-much traveling. Making the playoffs will be a much huger deal than making a bowl game or the b-ball tourney. It won’t be every year for most. It would be hardship for some (though while we’re reforming society, we can have President-for-life Pete mandate French-length vacations for everyone), but what I love about it is the idea of some school from the south or Cali shivering on the sidelines in December East Lansing. A snowcovered Urban Meyer just makes me chuckle evilly. And that’s the best way to chuckle. So maybe, first round, home fields of the highest seeds.

Looking at it again, this system really makes a postseason special. Only eight teams, rather than 50-some. That’s the way it outta be in my mind, though remember MSU fans, the Spartans would have only played in the post-season once since Duffy days. I’m fine with that. It’d make it just insane when it happened.

by witless chum on Jul 13, 2009 10:03 AM CDT up reply actions

Point well taken

It’ s very well that the three best teams could be in one conference. A nice compromise would be where the selection committee could take into account a third place team, however rare that might be.

I also think that upon further consideration, you’re right about Utah. I’d move them into the Big 12 to start off and switch Baylor to the Mountain West

Co-Manager: The Only Colors

by Pete Rossman on Jul 13, 2009 9:00 AM CDT reply actions

I guess my thought with moving Miami

and BC back to the Big East is that they are traditional members and VA has always been in the ACC (I also would not be opposed to moving VA and South Fla into the ACC). Penn State could get some decent competition from West Virginia, but that’s pretty much it. Miami has been down for the past few years but if you had to answer the question . . . which of the following teams do I see competing successfully on an annual basis with a traditional top tier power like Penn State? And you had to choose between Rutgers, Pitt, Miami, or Cincinnati, which team do you think 90 percent of impartial observers would pick? Despite their recent swoon, I think most would see Miami as the most likely team to play that role.

Pitt hasn’t had a sustained period of excellence in decades, and Rutgers and Cincy, despite promising recent seasons, are not established powers. Miami hasn’t been good for three years but I think people still view them as something of a sleeping giant. I’d be OK just swapping VA and Miami so that VA can stay in its traditional conference and PSU has a little more competition.

by TheCrestedHelm on Jul 13, 2009 10:05 AM CDT reply actions