Mr. Cuban, please let me run the CFB playoff

Here is the jvquarterback plan for a playoff system to start next years in college football.



Buy three bowl games (semi-finals and championship game).



Take the top three Non-BCS conference champions (we don't need no sun belt) and the top five at-large teams that will accept invitations.



Set up 4 games the first weekend of December (conference championship weekend) and call them the inter-conference championship games (to be played at the home stadium of higher seeded teams with green turf) and get the same waiver conference championship games are given (alternatively have teams schedule an 11 game season leaving the first weekend in December open).



Two-three weeks later have your first two semifinal games in Hawaii and Puerto Rico (to take advantage of the Hawaii rule and get an extra game).



Two weeks later play the national championship game.



Present the winner with a national championship trophy and call the teams that won't participate pansies. 3-8M per team for participating, 12M for the semi-finalists, 20M for the runner-up and 25M for the winner. No sharing the pot with conferences (whoever says there should be more equitable revenue sharing is a loser). Teams that say they are willing to participate beforehand can be given something for their guarantee to participate if chosen. First and second round losers can still play in other bowl games.



This year the eight team tournament could have looked like this:

TCU, Nevada(or Boise or Hawaii), Central Florida, Michigan State, LSU, Missouri, Florida State, West Virgina.



100M invested and we can sell the television rights for a fortune. We'd be profitable from day one and the BCS would crumble within three years when we would be able to expand to a 16 teams playoff with all teams involved.



Anyone have any better ideas?

Why not let the top 16 in the BCS ranking hold a playoff? If a Sun Belt team can get into the top 16 then they play. If two MWC teams get into the top 25 then they play. If an Indy ND or BYU get into the top 16 then they all play. If the SEC gets 6 teams into the top 16 then they play. People want to see the big names play in December and letting the BCS top 16 fight it out would be great TV.

CAFB_04-12 wrote:
Why not let the top 16 in the BCS ranking hold a playoff? If a Sun Belt team can get into the top 16 then they play. If two MWC teams get into the top 25 then they play. If an Indy ND or BYU get into the top 16 then they all play. If the SEC gets 6 teams into the top 16 then they play. People want to see the big names play in December and letting the BCS top 16 fight it out would be great TV.

Though I agree in part, I think that this still would rely too much on polls that can be manipulated and leaves no chance for a real "Cinderella" team, which is a huge part of March Madness appeal. Do 16 teams: 11 conference champs and five at-large bids. You'll be getting at least 11 of the top 16 ranked teams (6 BCS conf champs and 5 at-larges) and you still give the schools from other conferences a chance to prove that even though their conference may suck, they still have one team that can duke it out with the best of 'em.

I think you are right on jvquarterback. Somebody like Cuban needs to just setup his own unofficial playoff and market the hell out of it. As far as I know there would be nothing to stop someone from doing this, except maybe conference bowl contracts, I'm not sure how that would effect it.

I've thought the same thing for a long time. Build a playoff and they will come. The BCS will become an old relic and if they insist of maintaining the "tradition" of the bowls (rose, sugar, orange, etc) those will become irrelevant as well. Just get the playoff and crown someone NC (which would be just as legit as a bcsNC) and the BCS is done.

Schmoe wrote:

Why not let the top 16 in the BCS ranking hold a playoff? If a Sun Belt team can get into the top 16 then they play. If two MWC teams get into the top 25 then they play. If an Indy ND or BYU get into the top 16 then they all play. If the SEC gets 6 teams into the top 16 then they play. People want to see the big names play in December and letting the BCS top 16 fight it out would be great TV.

Though I agree in part, I think that this still would rely too much on polls that can be manipulated and leaves no chance for a real "Cinderella" team, which is a huge part of March Madness appeal. Do 16 teams: 11 conference champs and five at-large bids. You'll be getting at least 11 of the top 16 ranked teams (6 BCS conf champs and 5 at-larges) and you still give the schools from other conferences a chance to prove that even though their conference may suck, they still have one team that can duke it out with the best of 'em.

I don't mind having a field of 16 made up of conference champs, but your first round TV ratings would suck. You'd have games like Northern Illinois versus Oklahoma and Florida International versus Auburn.



Compare that to the top 16 only. Round 1 would have games like Auburn versus Alabama (rematch), Oregon versus Nevada, TCU versus Oklahoma St, Stanford versus Virginia Tech, and so on. Week one would be great, week two would be awesome, week three would be off the charts. TV ratings solid for the entire month of December. Championship game in early January. Everyone else gets to go to the various bowls that celebrate 6-6 mediocrity!

The drawback, of course, is that whoever makes it to the championship game will play something like 16 games to get there.

CAFB_04-12 wrote:

CAFB_04-12 wrote:
Why not let the top 16 in the BCS ranking hold a playoff? If a Sun Belt team can get into the top 16 then they play. If two MWC teams get into the top 25 then they play. If an Indy ND or BYU get into the top 16 then they all play. If the SEC gets 6 teams into the top 16 then they play. People want to see the big names play in December and letting the BCS top 16 fight it out would be great TV.

Though I agree in part, I think that this still would rely too much on polls that can be manipulated and leaves no chance for a real "Cinderella" team, which is a huge part of March Madness appeal. Do 16 teams: 11 conference champs and five at-large bids. You'll be getting at least 11 of the top 16 ranked teams (6 BCS conf champs and 5 at-larges) and you still give the schools from other conferences a chance to prove that even though their conference may suck, they still have one team that can duke it out with the best of 'em.

I don't mind having a field of 16 made up of conference champs, but your first round TV ratings would suck. You'd have games like Northern Illinois versus Oklahoma and Florida International versus Auburn.



Compare that to the top 16 only. Round 1 would have games like Auburn versus Alabama (rematch), Oregon versus Nevada, TCU versus Oklahoma St, Stanford versus Virginia Tech, and so on. Week one would be great, week two would be awesome, week three would be off the charts. TV ratings solid for the entire month of December. Championship game in early January. Everyone else gets to go to the various bowls that celebrate 6-6 mediocrity!

TV rating don't matter if we are serious about getting rid of the inequality that is the BCS. Put the top teams in the playoff even if their school name has a direction in it. They've deserved it.

Whatever you do it has to be profitable or it will never happen.



Unless you have a Mark Cuban who will sink billions and not mind.



A 16-team playoff with the top 16 in the BCS with integration with existing bowls would be a huge cash cow, and would satisfy the old-money teams that complain all the time about teams like Boise and TCU getting into the BCS.



I also like the idea of conference champs getting an auto bid into the playoff, but that means you're only going to get one team from the big conferences, which won't be accepted by the powers-that-be.



How would independents qualify for one of the 5 at-large bids?

CAFB_04-12 wrote:
How would independents qualify for one of the 5 at-large bids?

top 5 teams that were not conference champions in the final BCS rankings.

Had a long discussion with a friend about who would get into a 16 team playoff and he was arguing for all Conference Champions to get in, regardless. I argued for the top 16 rated and he said that that destroys the conferences. After a while, we came to the conclusion that a good idea might be to guarantee all conference champions WITH 1 LOSS OR LESS (this keeps out a 4 loss UCONN or a crappy MAC team) and still allows ALL conferences a shot at the playoff. After the Conference Champions with 1 loss (could make this 2 if needed) or less, you go straight from the rankings and round out the available spots.



Does anybody see any holes in this?

runbyu1 wrote:
Had a long discussion with a friend about who would get into a 16 team playoff and he was arguing for all Conference Champions to get in, regardless. I argued for the top 16 rated and he said that that destroys the conferences. After a while, we came to the conclusion that a good idea might be to guarantee all conference champions WITH 1 LOSS OR LESS (this keeps out a 4 loss UCONN or a crappy MAC team) and still allows ALL conferences a shot at the playoff. After the Conference Champions with 1 loss (could make this 2 if needed) or less, you go straight from the rankings and round out the available spots.



Does anybody see any holes in this?

When's the last time there was a one-loss team that wasn't in the top 16? I'm just curious if that has ever happened. UNR is #15 this season.

Yeah, maybe it should be Conference Champs as long as they have only 2 LOSSES or less

Do conference champs regardless, otherwise you get a further watering-down of OOC schedules. But if you have all conf champs and five at-large, with more emphasis on SOS, then you'll get more big time OOC games during the regular season, something that rarely happens in the BCS system. Also, even if ratings are a little lower during the first round (which I doubt, because everyone will have filled out brackets and have an interest in every game), if a lower-seeded team like FIU beats Auburn you're gonna get huge ratings for the rest of their games and a great story line. This also rewards the #1 seed with someone like the Sunbelt conf champ. Not to mention you'll still get great match ups in the rest of the playoffs like Oh. St vs Oklahoma, etc.

If conference champs made up the bulk of the teams in a playoff I really think you'd see teams in top conferences like the SEC dividing themselves up among conferences that are easier to win like the ACC, Big East, Mid-America, ConfUSA, etc.

CAFB_04-12 wrote:
If conference champs made up the bulk of the teams in a playoff I really think you'd see teams in top conferences like the SEC dividing themselves up among conferences that are easier to win like the ACC, Big East, Mid-America, ConfUSA, etc.

Why don't they do that already? The Big East and the ACC are there for the taking. They'd still get two teams into the playoff just like they get two teams into BCS bowls.

What about if a conference champion is outside the top 16, and have MORE than one conference loss, they don't qualify. But if they were 7-1 in conference, but 3-1 in OOC, they'd still qaulify.

I wont fully support a playoff that doesnt include each conference champion. Otherwise we will just see the polls become more arbitrary to exclude the little guys. Take the conf champs and then the final spots go to the highest ranked non conf champs.

hawkwing wrote:
I wont fully support a playoff that doesnt include each conference champion. Otherwise we will just see the polls become more arbitrary to exclude the little guys. Take the conf champs and then the final spots go to the highest ranked non conf champs.

Probably the fairest way.



"But those little conference champions aren't very good!" Right and they'll be out of the tournament very quickly. If you happen to be in a big boy conference, then you better be good. There are still five at-large bids for you to earn.

The 1vs16 games are my least favorite things about the NCAA basketball tournament. So take the eight best conference champions (or independents) and the eight best at large teams for a sixteen team tournament.



The problem is that isn't going to happen without some impetus. Even if you start with the two best NonAQ champions and the two best teams that won't get BCS invites and have them play in Honolulu the first weekend in December. The winners play a +1 game the night before the BCS national championship. You could do this next year. Step it up to an eight team tournament the year after and you have something to compete against the BCS. Either the BCS responds with a tournament of their own or they're done in a few years.



For instance this year if Stanford had been #5 in the BCS standings they wouldn't have gotten an invite, you could have taken them Michigan State, TCU and Boise the first weekend of December and have the winners play in a bowl game in January.