Well, we have reached the end of the BCS Era ... sort of. Next season, the NCAA Football Champion will be named after a four-team "playoff". I will continue to assert the necessity of an inclusive, 16-team tournament to decide a True National Champion. Every other level of football, every other NCAA sport gives each member an equal change of winning a championship. Every conference puts forth their first place team against every other conference. Only the FBS decides which teams have a change to play in the title game before the season even begins. Anyways, the NCAA took a step towards correcting the wrong, just not far enough in my opinion.
So let's get to this year's unbelievable NCAA championship. With the dissolution of the Western Athletic Conference, only 10 teams receive automatic births into the playoffs. That means an additional at-large team comes from the BSC rankings. Additionally, the wild ending to the season completely changed the BCS to provide some interesting match ups.
Remember the first-round games are played at the home of the higher-seeded team. After that, the tournament heads to the sites of the major bowl games, spread throughout the states. I really like a few, first round match-ups: Oregon at Ohio State and two rematches: South Carolina at Missouri and Oklahoma at Baylor.
The Quarterfinals present some interesting potential match-ups: FSU-Missouri (Peach Bowl), Michigan State-Stanford (Fiesta Bowl), Alabama-Baylor (Capital One Bowl), Auburn-Ohio State (Cotton Bowl)? Anything could happen.
Let me know that you think would happen in my hypothetical playoffs that would at once create more revenue and more parity than the current system. Even better, everything would get started next week! Vote for your National Championship game in the side panel and/or provide your comments below.
