A Modest Proposal to the BCS

Did you know that there were 35 bowl games played this year?  That doesn't even count the all-star bowl games like the Senior Bowl, the Shrine Bowl and even a Texas vs. the World bowl.  I devised a system that would fill those spots with qualified teams, featuring 22 playoff and consolation games and 13 exhibition bowl games.  You could start off with the top 32 teams qualifying for the playoffs, while 20 teams would vie for a spot in one of the 13 games.

For the Conference final week, there would be 32 teams divided into two groups of 16.  The AQ group would be comprised of the 12 AQ finalists and 4 top at-large teams.  The winner of the games in this group would get a bye, while the losing team is relegated into the first playoff round.  The second group of 16 would be comprised of the 10 non-AQ finalists and 6 top at-large teams. The winner of these games go into the first playoff round, with the AQ runners up.  The losing non-AQ teams in the conference round would be put into a pool of 26 teams to play one last bowl game.

So now we'd have 24 teams.  These teams are guaranteed one more consolation game, should any of them lose during the three rounds leading up to the championship.  The 8 losing teams in the non-AQ group are now in the 26-team pool, the 8 winning teams in the AQ group earned a bye and the remaining 16 do the playoff round in which the winner advances further into the playoffs, while the losing teams are added into the 26 team pool, which now needs 10 more teams.  This could be decided by a 20 team pool in which the winning team is placed into the pool, while it's "better luck next year" for the losing team in the 20 team pool.  This round is done the week after the conference round, so we could call it the post-conference round.
The bowl season, which now begins the weekend before Christmas should begin a week earlier to start the first playoff round.  The second playoff round (elite eight), would take place the week of Christmas.  The semi-final round would take place on New Years Day.  And either the Rose Bowl becomes a semi-final or the consolation between the Big 10 champion and Pac 12 champion, if they have reached the second round.  What games become the semi-final and elite eight consolation would obviously be up to the BCS.

During this time, there's 13 exhibition bowl games to enjoy, along with 22 playoff and consolation games.  The biggest feature to this plan is that spots are earned and not just given.  This could even open the door to more bowl games.  In this playoff, the eliminated teams get a final consolation game in the next round.

So the first round of 8 games would lead up to the week before Christmas, then the 8 games of the second and first consolation round would lead before Christmas.  The semi-final round would be New Year's Day and the Rose, Sugar, Fiesta and Orange Bowls would have the semi final and consolation games.

Finally, we get amped for the BCS National Championship, but not before the final consolation game, which could be the Cotton Bowl.

So in all, there would be up to 5 additional games for the playoffs.  And that once and for all ends all debates, does away with all the silly polling politics and ensures that each game will have a quality and some excitement to it.

So in summary:

• 32 teams play in the conference round
• 8 teams get a bye, 16 play in the post-conference round
• the eliminated 8 join the 8 non-AQ runners up and 10 qualifying round winners to play in one of the 13 exhibition bowl games.
• the remaining 16 play four rounds of playoff and consolation games leading up to the championship and consolation final.

So that's my modest proposal...

What do you think?

Alabama! Surprised? No!

Some of you watching the BCS Championship game are probably asking yourselves how it is that the team that beat them before is now leading and is quite likely to win it all.  I'm surprised at all.  I watched the first game.  The fact is that LSU got lucky winning that meeting.  Alabama made more scoring attempts than LSU did.  The Tigers only won where it counted.

The fact was that the Tide moved the ball forward better than the Tigers did at their first meeting.  They only had an unlucky kicker that day.  If he scored the other three, there would have been no dispute and it would have been the OSU Cowboys there instead of LSU.

It was simply the way the Tide played against LSU the first time around that kept them in the hunt as the number 2 team.  They did outplay LSU, but didn't have the luck with them.

But tonight, LSU will have run out of luck.