[NU Sports] Playoff time!

[Jonathan Hodges]

The 4-team playoff (i.e. "plus one" model) is the only feasible way to fit a
playoff into the current bowl system.  The fact is that the current bowl
system will not go away due to fan popularity, money, and the history
involved in the bowls.  No, it won't be perfect, but it will calm many
people's qualms about the current scenario.  Also, apparently the BCS and
university presidents are open to the plus one model since it can be played
under the current setup (since the national championship game is a week
after the other BCS bowls) and wouldn't add more than one extra game.

A true 8/16/24 team playoff would add a signifiant amount of games to the
schedule for the teams involved and would require changing the format of the
season and the bowls, which would upset the system too much.  Maybe in 20+
years this can be discussed, but the fact is that it took this long to get
to the current 2 team playoff BCS system (for many years nobody even tried,
then came the Bowl Alliance and then the Bowl Coalition, and finally the
BCS).  The next logical step would be the 4 team playoff, which apparently
those in charge are open to.

Of course these changes would not be possible until the current BCS contract
concludes (after 2010 I believe).

Jonathan


On 12/3/06, Jim Bendat <thehaze at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I agree that we should have a 4-team playoff.  Yet, logistics might
> prove to be a problem many years.  Here's what I mean:  if you set up
> the bowls to have 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in the semis (or 1 vs.3 and 2 vs.
> 4 in order to avoid an inter-conference matchup in the semis), I assume
> you'd want to rotate the sites.  So, what happens in years when it's not
> the Rose Bowl's turn to host any of those big games?  -- You're going to
> have, for example, SC, Michigan and Ohio State all playing in the
> semi-final sites other than Pasadena, and the Rose Bowl gets stuck with
> Wake Forest or Boise State?  I don't have an answer, but I could see
> many scenarios where we have problems as I've suggested.
>
>
> Arthur Miller wrote:
> > I agree that we should keep the bowl system, but reluctantly have come
> to
> > believe a four-team playoff system would be workable.  Take the top 4
> BCS
> > teams, seeded according to their place in the BCS standings, then add
> hold
> > the BCS Championship two weeks after the BCS bowl games.  It would only
> add
> > one additional postseason game, and would still maintain the importance
> of
> > regular-season games.  To me, an 8- or 16-team playoff would be
> ludicrous.
> >
> >
>
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-- 
Jonathan W. Hodges
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