College Presidents,

With all but a few games between this season and the bowls, it is time to preview the morsels available for the college football fan to satisfy his/her hunger before the New Year’s Day Games. The best team in the land according to all polls will continue their hibernation another 32 days before reappearing next year to show the world they deserve the ranking. Give them a bye week for sure, maybe two for good measure, but 6 weeks off. Don’t we want teams playing at their best? Don’t we want to see the best teams play?

Let’s have an eight team playoff using the bowls for the final, semi-finals and those losing out in the first round. The games will make money. And if you are really worried about student athletes not getting to class, get rid of the mid week games. Oh, you can do that for basketball and baseball, too.  I forget, their tournaments don’t get in the way of any real school work.

Back to the playoff system. Wouldn’t it be great if every week, we could look forward to a couple of top 10 teams squaring off to determine who gets to the title game. All are guaranteed a first round game and a bowl game. The last two standing play in a third game to take home the crystal. Why is this so hard?

SportsCrossfire

Clemson welcomed Florida State into Death Valley for Bowden Bowl 9 and stunned Dad and company through the beginning of the third period.  By the time the Seminoles realized this was a real game, the time remaining was too little to complete the comeback.  They join Michigan outside this week’s top 25.

Tennessee, the other top 25 to begin 0-1, put up 31 on California yet gave up 45 points including a punt return for a TD in the loss. Auburn survives a scare from Kansas State scoring with 2:01 left in the 4th quarter to take the lead. The remainder of the Top 25 took care of business mostly with lopsided scores. Here are some notables or should we say embarassments for both the losers and those setting the schedules:

Penn State 59 – Florida International 0
Oklahoma 79 – North Texas 10
Nebraska 52 – Nevada 10
Hawaii 63 – Northern Colorado 6

The SEC took 7 of the top 10 spots in this year’s ranking. The ranking from rivals.com:

1. Florida
2. USC
3. Tennessee
4. LSU
5. Texas
6. South Carolina
7. Auburn
8. Notre Dame
9. Georgia
10. Alabama

Let’s go way out on a limb and put together a fourteen team playoff in order to use the games played during the bowl season.  Let’s line ‘em up and see what may have been a December to Remember!

NCAA First Round Games December 10, 2006 – Hosted by higher seeded team.  Ohio State and Florida get byes

Home              Away

Michigan         USC
Oklahoma        Boise State
Louisville        Wake Forest
LSU                Notre Dame
Wisconsin        Arkansas
Auburn            Nebraska

Second Round – December 17, 2006

Ohio State       Boise State
Florida             Wisconsin
LSU                Louisville
USC                Auburn

Semi-finals New Years Day Bowl Games (Consolation games get placed in other bowls)

LSU                USC
Ohio State       Florida

Other bowls

Boise State      Wisconsin
Louisville        Auburn

Final  held January 8^th, 2006

Ohio State       LSU

Winner – you pick it.

Just look at the match-ups we would have seen.

Have we mentioned lately that earning it on the field seems to be desired by most people? How about the one where a teams waits 50 plus days to see a team play for all the marbles is a knucklhead idea?

Not likely with the current BCS system. The Michigan Wolverines will likely get the nod and leave the Gators to head to the Sugar Bowl and play Notre Dame.

Michigan is more than a good team and deserves a spot in the debate. They also had their shot at Ohio State and did not get it done. Ohio State took care of them and don’t need to do it again. Give the Gator’s their shot.

Worst case scenario, Michigan and Ohio State after a 53 day layoff meet aganin and the Wolverines squeaks out a win. What happens then, a split championship? College Presidents, please get a clue. Let the teams play it out and earn this final shot via a playoff.

Sounds as good as any reason outside of “EARN IT ON THE FIELD”, which I guess winning your conference championship suggests.

This is about as close to a playoff as the BCS can afford. If we end the year with USC, Florida and Michigan all having just one loss, two programs, players, coaches and fans will get the short straw. They will play in BCS bowls a month from now, playing aginst their scout squads when they could be playng each other to determine the best teams to play for the national title.  This is what may have been.

Number 1 Ohio State plays number the ACC Championship Game Winner.  Number 2 Michigan plays number 7 LSU. Number 3 Florida the SEC Champ plays number 6 Oklahoma the Big 12 winner.  Number 4 USC plays number 5 West Virginia.

The four winners play in the first round in the BCS bowl games. Ohio State meets USC.  LSU meets Florida.  LSU meets Ohio State for the title.  You decide who would win these games, because no one will ever know.  Now that’s a shame or is it a sham?

Yes, I would like to see these two play each other again.  But I would prefer they spend the next 50 days playing 2 or 3 rounds of games to get to that final game.  If they both win 3 more then suit ‘em up.  I got 50 days 23 hours and 11 minutes before the championship game.  It is a damn shame we won’t see this Ohio State team play a down during that time.  Presidents, come off it and figure out a way to put a playoff in.  The BCS is not working for the fans or the teams.

At Sports Crossfire, our Top 25 and Computer Polls are split with the Computers picking Michigan, while our human pollsters put Ohio State on top. Florida, USC and Notre Dame round out the top 5 in both polls. With USC and Notre Dame playing, we could have 3 strong one loss teams (including the loser this weekend in Columbus) with legitimate arguments to play on Jan. 7th.

We pick it Ohio State 24 Michigan 17.

Here are the stories we are following:

ESPN’s video game simulation picks Ohio State

The big game debate had Ohio State with a slight edge

SI picks Ohio State Cheerleader of the week

And, of course the Horse Shoe, Lego style

Ohio State and Michigan remain unbeaten heading into their matchup next week. Game of the week, you think? Notre Dame and Arkansas win big. Florida squeaks by South Carolina at home. The Gator offense is simply not getting the points necessary to move them up in the polls.

If a Big East team wins them all, they should be in the title game. Will they? West Virginia with there high powered offense and the show they put on last year in the Sugar Bowl should put them high enough in the polls to get there. Louisville will have to win out impressively, especially, next week against West Virginia. Rutgers will not get a shot at the title. Yes, undefeated they should, but with the likes of USC, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas, Auburn or Florida ending the year with only one loss the BCS gods will not bless Rutgers with a spot in the game.

If the Big East beats each other up – look no further than the SEC – they will get one team in a BCS game and we will look elsewhere for Ohio State / Michigan’s opponent. Florida with a win over Auburn in the SEC Title Game gets the nod. However, they are much more likely to play Arkansas and if they end with one loss along with Auburn and Tennessee, it is a difficult choice. Give the shot to the title winner. That’s the team that would get the bid for a four or eight team playoff format. We should talk about that a little more I think.

Other possibilities are Texas coming off a win in the Big 12 Title Game; USC after wins over Cal and Notre Dame; Notre Dame after beating USC; Cal with wins over USC. There are other possibilities but let’s focus on these for now.

Notre Dame needs USC to beat Cal and then to win that game convincingly. They also need some help from the SEC. I don’t see them getting there.

Cal with a win over USC, especially if USC wins all the others puts them high on the list. The computers will like them and the polls will too. Cal won’t get past Florida winning an Auburn rematch, but they could get past all other SEC scenarios.

How do the Boise State Broncos figure into this? Title game, they don’t. BCS game, they should and with a little help from the SEC, they will get a spot in one of the big games.
Oh, did we leave the ACC out of this. Yes, we did.