Yup. As expected, we're running into the problem of which lucky teams get to face off for the National Championship...and which get left behind...

I love reading the comments on ESPN.com regarding the BCS standings and how Iowa managed to jump up to #4. I especially love the comments by what must be fans of Boise, TCU and Cincy... good lord they're pissed! And I don't blame them...

Last year, Iowa couldn't get a close win if their postseason depended on it. 4 losses by a combined total of 12 points. Everything changed after that magical night last year we upset Penn State and Iowa seems to find ways to win....including 4 wins by a combined total of 8 points. And even the games two of the games they've won by more than 2 points have been come-from-behind 2nd half efforts. All in all, Iowa hasn't won pretty, but it has won...and now has a win streak of 12 games dating back to last year. If by some miracle, Iowa goes 12-0 this year...it would be extremely difficult to discount them from the NC, as they're SOS and win record would probably boost them to the top 2 in the BCS. Meanwhile, you have teams like TCU, Boise, Cincy, etc who're beating up on their weaker opponents...but barely moving in the rankings.

So now you have the totally expected pileup starting, with only 4-5 games left in the season and you have all the homers coming out of the woodwork, posting how their team deserves to be in the NC. Iowa fans who vehemently defend Iowa's shot at the NC (assuming a improbable 12-0)...Boise and TCU fans defending their terrible strength of schedules...Texas fans trying not to get boned for the second year in a row. Probably OSU and USC fans closer to the end of the season...

All those comments got me thinking... how would you like to see college football's post season to be played? Continue the current bowl system? Keep the general bowl system but revamp the way teams get placed? Playoffs? Force the Big10 to finally pick up a 12th team, break up into 2 divisions and actually play a conference title game?

Put in a playoff system. Too many teams are getting robbed of any chance of getting into the National Championship, and the whole system just defeats the purpose of a post season.

In case someone hasn't seen this yet.

OK. Lets assume we have playoffs...how would it work?

Would you include the conference champions from all 11 conferences within the FBS system? I mean, you have the "Big 6": BigTen(11), Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East, Pac-10. Followed by the "Little 6" in the form of the WAC, Sunbelt, cUSA, MAC, Mountain West and Independents.

I can't think of a great way to include the best teams in the country, while giving all teams a fair shot at the playoffs (assuming they make...say...a 7-5 record)...

Heh, this isn't as easy as some think... People are bound to say "Pick up Notre Dame! They're an independent team that falls within the Big10 boundaries..." The Big10 has given up on trying to get ND in the conference, not to mention, a transition to Big East would be much easier for ND as they play Big East Basketball already.

The logical choices for the 12th Big10 team would be Pitt, West Virginia, Missouri or Iowa St. Picking up Pitt would give Penn St. an opportunity to rekindle the in-state rivalry between those schools that existed before Penn St. joined the Big10. West Virginia and Missouri are logical options because they're in states that are contiguous to the current Big10 states (a condition of the conference). Of those two, I'd like to see WV because I'd love to see Rich Rod face his old school on a yearly basis... (Spoiler alert: Michigan St. fan here). Finally, Iowa St. for the same reasons as picking up Pitt.

As for the poll, I'm for keeping things as they are. I believe that if a Utah, Boise St., or TCU wants to play for the national championship, they should have schedules that reflect that they are one of the best teams in the nation and their conferences don't provide that.

Texas got ripped off last year, make a playoff system!

Yea, ND would be the most logical choice for a 12th team...if they wanted to join (but they've got a good thing going as an independent). More than just the fact that they're independents, they have strong rivalries with several Big10 schools. But, like you said, ND going B10 is pretty unlikely...

Another option would be to pick up another school from the Dakotas, but not sure if they would qualify.



While I agree about the "BCS Busters" having to pick up stronger schedules to be considered for the NC, my concerns with the current system also include the fact that undefeated major-BCS-conference teams will get left out, simply due to the subjective nature of the polls. For example, say Iowa did win big in their games against UNI, Arkansas State, etc. I still think they'd get voted below Texas because of the fact that they're not Texas and because they're in the B10 (even though Iowa has a stronger SOS)... Same goes with teams like Florida, Alabama, etc. Heck, even within conferences, you can have messes like last year's entire Texas vs OU vs Texas Tech conundrum. Or two years ago when the Big 10 almost got away with an OSU/Michigan rematch for the NC. Or every year where USC has lost to some random Pac-10 team, yet still made it back in time for a shot at the NC...

I don't have any problem with the 'normal' bowls (except perhaps the sheer number of them), but the National Championship definitely needs to decided via playoff system.

I think they should do an 8-team playoffs, but in doing so, grab two bowls and upgrade them to 'BCS' caliber, then have them rotate the semifinals on a three year basis. One year, say... the Rose Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl will be the national semifinals. The next year the Sugar and Orange Bowl will be national semifinals. Et cetera. The remaining four bowls will be the national quarterfinals.

So, for example, let's use the Cotton Bowl and the Gator Bowl as our two new BCS-caliber bowls. The Rose and Fiesta will be our national semifinals in this example, and I'll use the current BCS standings.

#1 Florida v. #8 Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl, winner goes to Rose Bowl
#2 Alabama v. #7 Boise State in the Sugar Bowl, winner goes to Fiesta Bowl
#3 Texas v. #6 Texas Christian in the Cotton Bowl, winner goes to Fiesta Bowl
#4 Iowa v. #5 Southern California in the Gator Bowl, winner goes to Rose Bowl

Then the winner of the Rose Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl play in the BCS National Championship. Et voila.

As for Iowa fans, they need to remember that in their opening game, they had to block two last-minute FGs to defeat Northern Iowa. NORTHERN IOWA. If you get that close to losing to a I-AA/FCS/whatever-the-blazes-they're-calling-it team, you don't deserve to sniff the national championship until everyone else falls out of the way. I'd rather see TCU or Cincy in the title game before Iowa.

I'm a Texas fan. Guess which I chose?

Oh, whine whine whine. UGA got screwed over in 2007, so get over it.

Scrap bowl, 12 team playoff. 6 current BCS, 5 other + independent


Also voted for "want bball season to start"

Dissolve most of the current conferences. Rebuild them as 8 new Conferences.

Play primarily within conference, allowing each conference to determine how the conference championship is won.

The 8 conference champions are ranked 1-8. 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5. First round of bowl games.

Then winners face off, leaving 2 teams left. Second round of bowl games.

Those 2 teams play the College Championship game.

Nice and easy, and there's very little absurd ranking issues.

Playoff is best idea. And you could even keep the bowl system around by letting them be the venues for the playoffs. And it should be big playoff. Like NCAA basketball size playoff. Just shorten the regular season if people are worried about too many games. Remove all fluff and out of conference games.

Yes there is an absurd ranking issue. Unless you really mess with the conferences, only Florida or Bama could enter the playoffs this year with that system. You're cutting out at least one team that is undeniably top 4.

I say you just take the top 8 teams in the BCS and have a playoff series.

get rid of the BCS its the worst idea ever in sports history. i think the best possible way is a playoff system. its not that hard to do a 16 team playoff system. each conf has 1 automatic bid and then (like NCAA BBALL) have 5 at large bids (which i know the bigger we have more money schools will get) and then you seed them 1-16. no one can whine or !@#$%* because everyone from every conference has a shot. im a boise state fan and i think we getting screwed right now its annoying people talking about are sced when teams like Iowa played 2 D2 schools.and people were riding high on OU after they beat idaho state (who were 1-11 last year) and saying there back on track. but when boise state plays a few bad teams everyone wants to say they don't play enough tough teams. i say differently BSU and also TCU play plenty tough teams ex Fresno might not have the record but they can and have hung with the big boys in the (so called) bigger conferences and BSU plays them every year.

Iowa didn't play 2 D2 teams. It played and almost lost to a FCS team (UNI) and it played and almost lost to Arkansas State, which is an FBS team.

But I'm kinda split about Boise's schedule. Iowa, for instance, has the 7th toughest schedule based on cumulative opponents...probably boosted by the fact that 3 teams it has defeated are in the BCS top 25, and we still have one to play (OSU). On the other hand, BSU has the 97th toughest schedule, since it's opponents haven't done too hot (with the exception of Oregon, I guess). It would make sense to rank teams based on this, except USC has the 26th toughest schedule, followed by Texas at 28, Bama at 33, and Florida at 62nd! TCU and Cincy have the 75th and 77th, respectively.

Now, this is not to say Iowa is a stronger team than Boise, but as long as Boise, TCU, Utah, etc remain in conferences like the WAC, etc...you guy's will never get any credit because when one team in the conference dominates all others, and the others also get dominated by bigger non-conference games...it brings the whole conference down.This is the reason for a playoff, in my opinion. As long as CFB pollsters stay on their knees for the SEC, Big 12, and certain other teams, teams like Boise will never have a shot at the NC unless there is no other option left.

Well the SEC championship game should have the #2 vs the #1, and will probably be better than the BCS championship game. When that happens, there is a problem. I want a playoff, it should fix the problems that the BCS has quite a bit.

The SEC championship is ALWAYS better than the National Championship, as no one can stand up to the awesome power that is the SEC

eh i give no respect to any of the BCS conferences school. they all over paid programs. i understand that yeah the bottom of the WAC and mountain west is weaker than the bottom of the big 12 of pac-10 ect ect ect. and i think that what hurts programs like Boise state and TCU ect. is that you get more respect beating Washington or Baylor (who both sucked for years) than beating up U of I or UNLV. i know conferences like the WAC normally have 1-3 really good teams and the mountain west normally has BYU utah and TCU that normally play really well but the bottom of the conferences are pretty bad. but you got to be honest a playoff system would solve any problems people have with who the NC is

I would actually keep all the bowls and keep the BCS ranking system.

lets say you want to put 8 teams in the playoff, the top 8 are in.

There is no need to force someone from the Big east or the sunbelt in, if they aren't good enough, you just give all the top teams a chance to prove they are number 1.

as for keeping the bowls, the top Bowls are used for the playoff games, so maybe the Rose Bowl is the national championship, the Sugar bowl is one of the semi-finals, etc...

Then you can still do all the other myriad of bowls for the non-playoff teams.

I wouldn't mind seeing home field advantage during the early part of the playoffs. Higher seeds should get home field advantage.

On a total sidenote, I'd love for USC to play a bowl game AWAY FROM HOME! Seriously, they have the easiest bowl travel...the stadium is just a 5 hour drive from theirs!

Top 8 playoff system and keep the bowl games for the teams who dont make the playoffs

Iowa woulda stayed undefeated had Stanzi not gotten hurt. Also I'm gonna laugh if Iowa plays a high-caliber SEC team in a bowl game and kicks the snot out of 'em like they did last year with South Carolina and a few bowl games before that with Florida.


I hate the SEC

Last year, when an ACC team played an SEC team, the ACC team won the majority of the time (And Florida and Bama made up the majority of the SEC wins) and right now the two are tied. Three good teams don't make a good conference.

South Carolina /=/ a high-caliber SEC team.


The SEC usually has more than three good teams, but recently we've had a streak of "going to be good next year" teams.

You mean like when Georgia Tech beat LSU and Boston College beat Vanderbilt?

OH WAIT LOL

Iowa isnt that good BTW. I will laugh when they lose to Ohio State, again.

How about when Georgia Tech beat Georgia or when Wake beat Vanderbilt?

See, I can pull out random games too.

But neither of those were Bowl games

Oh, I'm sorry, was that me pointing out that we win in games that matter?

Yes, yes it was.

//bowl games trump regular games.

Boo.

To be honest, as an Iowa fan, I've taken this game as a loss since before the season even started. I thought we might be close to having a shot after Ohio State started sucking it up for a while and Iowa's offense showed up at the right times. But now Iowa's lost it's starting QB and RB, is missing one of its better defensive backs, and a couple wide receivers...and OSU is playing their best football. This one could get ugly...quick...

If it helps you any, OSU tends to buckle against good teams.