I had a first attempt at a playoff expansion proposal at the end of last season. There were some issues with my proposal. The Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Peach Bowl wouldn’t be equal to the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl. They’d only be playoff bowls one out of every three years and people wouldn’t care about them when they’re not playoff bowls. Here’s what it would have looked like this year under my first proposal:
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. Washington
Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. UCF
Orange Bowl: Clemson vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or Peach Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Notre Dame
Another problem is that you’d end up with weird matchups. Why does Ohio State get to play the lowest ranked team? So yeah, I could live with a system like that, but I never thought it was that realistic anyway. I’ve modified that idea and come up with something much more realistically possible. I don’t anticipate that this is how playoff expansion will happen, but I would love to see it happen this way:
The basic idea is that you have a four team playoff after the bowls. That’s kind of what my first idea was, but now I’m making all six major bowls matter. How cool would it be if you had two days with three bowls each that could actually matter? That would restore some of the tradition of the bowls. For example, in the 1977 college football season, Notre Dame went into the bowls ranked number 5. We beat Texas who was ranked number 1 in the Cotton Bowl. Number 2 Oklahoma lost the Orange Bowl and number 4 Michigan lost the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame won the National Championship. You had three bowls that had a hand in determining the National Championship.
So my new idea is that you have six major bowls. Four of the winners of those games will advance to the playoff after the bowls:
Rose Bowl: Big 10 vs. Pac 12
Sugar Bowl: SEC vs. at large
Orange Bowl: ACC vs. at large
Cotton Bowl: Big 12 vs. at large
Fiesta Bowl: Group of 5 or highest ranked at large vs. at large
Peach Bowl: Group of 5 or highest ranked at large vs. at large
You’d have conference champions plus a Group of 5 representative plus the highest ranked at large team filling up seven of the 12 spots. So this year Notre Dame and UCF would be assigned to the Fiesta and Peach Bowls. I’d give the higher ranked team between the highest ranked at large team and the Group of 5 representative the choice of which bowl they want to go to. So this year Notre Dame would get the choice. Notre Dame might prefer playing in the Peach Bowl because it’s closer. But maybe they’d prefer playing in the Fiesta Bowl based on the opponent. The at large teams would be the highest ranked teams that aren’t are left after those first seven spots are taken. So the question would be how do you assign the at large teams? I think I would just do it randomly. I would avoid rematches from the regular season. I could live with Alabama and Florida playing because they didn’t play in the regular season. But if you wanted to make it so that there wouldn’t be any conference matchups, I’m cool with that too. So I used a random number generator to hypothetically fill out what it could look like this year:
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. Washington
Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. Penn State
Orange Bowl: Clemson vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma vs. Michigan
Fiesta Bowl: Notre Dame vs. Florida
Peach Bowl: UCF vs. LSU
I assume Notre Dame would choose to play Florida in Arizona rather than Georgia, but if we had drawn Penn State, maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference where we played. If there had been an at large team from that Pac 12 that we drew, we’d almost certainly prefer to play in the Peach Bowl.
So they play the games and then rank the winners. The top four go to the playoff with the semifinals happening on the campuses of the two highest ranked teams. Obviously, if the top four teams won with the match ups I have, they’re going to the playoff. If you get some upsets, then it gets interesting. You’d also have a situation where UCF is hoping to draw the best possible team. Beating LSU wouldn’t do much to help their chances of getting to the playoff. If there’s one upset of the top four teams, the Rose Bowl winner probably gets in. But if UCF played Georgia and won, that might get them in ahead of the Rose Bowl winner.
So you’d have six major bowls that all have the possibility of mattering. You don’t necessarily have 12 teams with a chance of winning a National Championship, but you have at least eight. LSU likely has no chance with the matchups that I have. They would have been much better off drawing Clemson or Notre Dame. As the lowest ranked team to get in, Penn State likely doesn’t have a chance, but drawing Alabama would be their best case scenario. Let’s say Penn State, Florida, and LSU all won. At least one of those teams would be going to the playoff. Beating Alabama would probably be enough for them to jump Florida and LSU.
One problem with my plan would be potential conflict with the NFL Playoffs. I’ve long advocated for pushing back the Super Bowl to the day before Washington’s Birthday. I’d also greatly prefer having the National Championship Game on a Saturday. With the calendar this year, my college playoff system, and the Super Bowl on February 17, that would put the National Championship Game and the Wild Card round on the same weekend. My answer to that would be to work out some TV deal where you have two NFL Playoff games that afternoon and then the National Championship Game in prime time. Another possibility would be having the National Championship Game on the weekend between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
I’d make a couple other changes to college football. I’d probably get rid of conference championship games or at least get rid of divisions. Getting rid of conference championship games would eliminate the possibility of a team like Northwestern or Pittsburgh this year being a conference champion. As for divisions, if you look at the SEC and ACC for example, with eight conference games and two seven-team divisions, you’re playing everybody in your division and then only two of the seven teams in the other division. There’s been a move toward nine conference games, but I’d prefer eight conference games and then more good non-conference games. As for getting rid of divisions, you’d be playing some teams in your conference on a much more regular basis. Of course, you wouldn’t be playing the teams that were in your division as much. My answer to that would be to have each team have one or two protected rivals that they play each year, but then you rotate your other conference games each year. I’d actually be for keeping divisions if you have a conference with 12 teams as long as there are no protected rivalries across the divisions. You could play every team in your division every year and then you play every team in the other division once every two years. But the Pac 12 is the only major conference with 12 teams right now anyway.
The other change is that I’d want to get rid of teams playing FCS teams. That might be difficult. Some states might have political stuff involved with state schools playing each other. But I’d definitely make it so that you can’t play an FCS opponent after the second weekend in October (no more of this SEC nonsense of playing FCS teams the week before Thanksgiving). And I’d at least try to limit it to like two FCS opponents every five years or something.
Anyway, I’d love to see playoff expansion happen this way. I’ve heard the possibility of an eight-team playoff with the first round on campus. Then you’d have two playoff bowls (which is what we have now), but the other bowls would be even more meaningless. Would the losers of the quarterfinal games go to bowls? If they do, is there any reason to care about the outcome? If they don’t, now you’re taking four of the best teams out of the bowls. My plan would make the bowls matter more.
Go Irish!
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