Sign Up | Lost Password

Knudson: It Could Work!

By Mark Knudson, The Mtn. Insider
November 22, 2011
 
I’m mad that I didn’t come up with this idea first. The folks that run the BCS beat me to it. They’ve floated a new plan that is the second best idea they could offer in terms of how to fix the mess that passes for College Football’s postseason.

Keep reading. We’ll get to the best idea shortly.
 
The BCS folks are thinking seriously about bailing out. Not completely, mind you. Oh no, that would not make sense. No, they still want to be a “getting paid” part of the equation. But they’re ready to hand back control of the big four bowl games, which currently make up the top highest paying afterthought games, back to the NCAA and focus completely on the BCS Championship Game. And, they’re ready to turn that game into a Super Bowl sort of thing with a rotating game site that is not tied to any of the other bowl games.
 
Brilliant!
 
The best part is that under this new plan, the coveted Automatic Qualifier status that is so blatantly unjust and controversial would be gone and along with it much of the motivation for teams like Boise State and Air Force to switch conferences. It will level the playing field (in terms of bowl games) that should’ve been level all along. It will force the Big East Conference to conduct business on the same manner as conferences they aren’t better than, including the Mountain West.

Of course, this doesn’t have an immediate impact on regular season TV money, which is the other part of the conference re-alignment equation, but it’s a great start.
 
This new plan basically amounts to a return to the short-lived Bowl Alliance formula of the mid 1990s with the Big 10 and Pac 12 joining in. The old Alliance between all the other conferences guaranteed a #1 vs. #2 match-up unless a Big 10 or Pac 10 school was involved. Then, we could still be left wondering at the end of the season. For example, the Alliance matched #1 Nebraska vs. #2 Florida after the 1995 season, but two season’s later, #1 Michigan did not play #2 Nebraska in a bowl game. Rather, the Wolverines beat eighth-ranked Washington State in the regularly scheduled Rose Bowl and Nebraska hammered #3 Tennessee in the Orange Bowl. Both teams won and they split the National Championship. It was the final year for the Bowl Alliance.
 
That won’t happen under this formula. It’s guarantees #1 vs. #2 and it lets the conferences go back to their old self-arranged bowl tie-ins. In other words, the Rose Bowl can always have the Big 10 vs. the Pac 12, just not necessarily the conference champ, who could instead be playing in the title game. In that case, they get the conference’s runner up.
 
Yes, this idea is wonderful, but I say it’s second best because I do think there’s an even better way to handle this and make everyone, including the sports so-called “purists” happy. Instead of just one game between the two top-ranked teams, make it a Final Four of College Football. Use the current BCS formula or football’s version of the Ratings Performance Index (RPI) and take the top four teams, not just the top two, and have a mini series. #1 plays #4, #2 plays #3, and the following week, the winners play in the title game the week before the Super Bowl. This Bowl Championship Series would in no way lessen the importance of the regular season and would preserve the bowl system that means so much to so many while still providing us a mini playoff to choose a true National Champion.
 
It would be very doable to nudge the bowl schedule up a bit in December so that there’s a little less time between the end of the regular season and the start of bowl season (with the much needed allowance for final exams week) and have everything concluded during semester break. As a conclusion to the bowl season, you take the four existing major bowl games – plus the Cotton Bowl, which somehow had it’s status as a big New Year’s Day bowl game stolen away some years ago – and you guarantee the conference champion from every Division IA (FBS) conference.

Most certainly, the Mountain West gets a spot in one of these major bowl games. That’s 10 slots for the teams not among the top four. Surely no one will have a problem with that.
 
Yes, by downsizing itself, the BCS would be doing the best thing it could do for college football.

I just wish I’d thought of it first.
See all of Mark Knudson's blog entries HERE.