Roger Lewis Great Plan

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MAIN ASSUMPTION NUMBER ONE:

The bowl system is for making money and rewarding teams for doing well, but mostly for making money (City, Teams, Conferences, TV and a few Rich Dudes). The bowls want fans to plan vacations to and spend money in their City. The Teams are NOT playing for much of anything, except a little pride and having fun. The coaches use this time to RECRUIT new and better players, so they (the coaches) can get higher paying jobs. This is the system. The system works.

SO, we keep the system. This will make more sense later.

MAIN ASSUMPTION NUMBER TWO:

The BCS system SUCKS. It is very narrow, focusing on finding just two teams to get the opportunity to play the “FINALS” of college football. Every year there are teams that feel cheeted. There are teams (like the 2005 Oregon ducks) who get shut out of a BIG BCS bowl game. There are teams (like the 2005 Florida State Seminoles) who get a BIG BCS bowl game with THREE (3) losses and get to play the Number 3 team in the BCS ranks, even though they were Number 17.

MAIN ASSUMPTION NUMBER THREE:

If you try to use the BCS Bowl games as part of a playoff system, the “vacation” aspect of the bowl games will be lost, which means that LOTS OF MONEY WILL BE LOST.

ROGER’s Great idea…

Playoff at the end of the season.

Include the top 16 BCS teams (too bad number 17, you shouldn’t be number one anyway).

CREATE Playoff bracket based on top 16 seeds.

Use the BCS to seed the teams (less open to complaints). Highest seed hosts the game. Fans can travel to a fairly normal away game or STAY HOME for their high seeded team.

First weekend – EIGHT GAMES – BIG BIG TV $$’s – Oregon would host a game and have a chance. If you are number 3 (i.e. Penn State), you have a chance. All anyone wants is that chance. If you lose you can’t complain, because you got your chance to PLAY FOR IT.

First weekend – EIGHT LOSERS get selected to four BCS bowl games.

First weekend – WINNERS continue playoffs. Highest seed hosts game.

Second weekend – FOUR GAMES – BIGGER BIGGER TV $$’s – Play on…

Second weekend - FOUR LOSERS get selected to two better BCS bowl games.

Second weekend – FOUR WINNERS pay semi-finals. Highest seed hosts game.

Third weekend – TWO GAMES – off the chart TV $$’s.

Third weekend – TWO LOSERS get to go to some wonderful BCS game.

Third weekend – TWO WINNERS get to play in a REAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.

The only variation might be to play the semi-final games as bowl games with the Championship game one week later, but I like the home field advantage semi-finals with only the Championship on bowl game turf.

This is a WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN for the bowls-schools-TV-ncaa and me the fan. If your team gets into the playoffs and lose, you can go to a bowl like always, but you are happier because your team had its chance. Happier people spend more money.

NOTE: The teams ranked 17 and lower get the same bowls as these teams normally get (i.e. holiday, outback, liberty, etc.). Last year (2005), the only team to really suffer would have been Florida State, because with three loses they lucked into a big BCS big money game and this would not happen with my system. To bad.

I have attached the 2005 bracket based on the final 2005 BCS ranking. Other than a couple of weirdnesses (i.e. USC vs UCLA in the first round), it is pretty good. With a little bit of NCAA trickery and secrecy (like in basketball bracketing) there could be a secret final ranking and bracket announcement so that they could play with the bracket and avoid UCLA vs USC (probably put FSU instead of UCLA and knock the bruins out). It would be secret so no one would know. They could pay me to do the ranking for them so that everyone would blame me.

This is the BEST solution. I have listened to experts and talk shows and sportswriters and idiots BUT NOBODY gets it. They are all trying to either have a playoff or have a bowl system. My system has both AND in a way that would make everyone HAPPY to be there.

Do you think the Oregon Ducks were happy to be in the Holiday bowl ranked number 5 and losing only to number 1 USC..?? Do you think it was fair to put FSU vs Penn State in a BCS game instead of Oregon vs Penn State..?? My system has some minor faults, but never will they be HUGE GLARING ONES like the BCS system, unless the NCAA secret bracketing gets out of hand.

PS- maybe switch UCLA and Texas Tech seeds (not much difference), just go make the games more interesting.