Thursday, January 5, 2012

Guys It's Cool I Fixed The BCS Problem

Everyone knows we need a playoff. Nothing has ever been more clear. The problem is deciding who gets to play in the tournament. Well... I fixed it. Start with a 16-team bracket, and fill it up like this:



(note: obviously, if a team is banned (looking at you, Ohio State), then they are not allowed to make the tournament and the next-highest finisher will take their place)

Automatic Qualifying Conferences
ACC
Big East
Big Ten
Big 12
Pac-12
SEC
The winner of each of these conferences gets a spot. Simple as that.

Sorta Automatic Qualifying Conferences
Conference USA
Mid-American
Mountain West
Sun Belt
Western Athletic
The winner of each of these conferences makes the tournament if they are ranked in the top 25 of the final regular season BCS standings.
Note: no more than one team per conference can automatically qualify. The berth goes to the higher-ranked team.

Fucking Notre Dame and BYU, and the Military Schools
Notre Dame
Brigham Young
Army
Navy
Any of these teams will qualify for the tournament if they are ranked in the top 25 of the final regular season BCS standings.
Note: the "fucking" part only applies to ND and BYU, not to the military academies. Join a goddamn conference already... Please? Looking at you, Mountain West and Big East.

At-Large Teams
The rest of the spots (the number will vary by year) will be given out similarly to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The most deserving teams will get a shot to play for the title. Personally, I'd just fill it with the rest of the SEC. But that's really biased. So try this, at-large teams must:

  • have at least 9 wins during the regular season
  • be ranked in the top 25 of the final regular season BCS standings
  • not be banned from postseason play by the NCAA or by their Athletic Director
  • not exceed 3 at-large selections per conference (sorry, SEC)

Selecting the At-Large Teams and Seeding the Bracket
A panel of 9 experts will select the teams to receive the remaining bids and seed the bracket. The panel's members can change yearly or they can stay the same except for this: the last spot on the panel will be reserved for the coach of the team ranked #1 in the final regular season BCS standings. Giving the coach the opportunity to influence who his team plays in the first round is their reward for being the best team in the country over the past few months. 
Note: the selection of teams doesn't have to be in order of the final BCS standings. But the seeding does. The computer is good for something, in this case. 
Just like the Men's Basketball bracket. The "best team" will play the "worst team" in the first round and the bracket will be set up so that the "best team" and "second-best team" should play for the title. But come on, when has that ever happened? We need some excitement and some upsets, NCAA! Check out this year's Bulletsblog bracket:

Automatic Qualifiers
ACC - Virginia Tech
Big East - Cincinnati (Seriously? Not WVU? I think we found an at-large team)
Big Ten - Michigan State
Big 12 - Oklahoma State
Pac-12 - Oregon
SEC - Louisiana State
These six schools are in. 

Sorta Automatic Qualifiers
Conference USA - Houston
Mid-American - Northern Illinois
Mountain West - Texas Christian
Sun Belt - Arkansas State
Western Athletic - Louisiana Tech
So, Houston and  TCU are in. The rest of you can go home now.

Fucking Notre Dame and BYU, and the Military Schools
Nothing doing this year. Sorry, America, Ireland, and Mormonism.

That's eight schools so far. That gives us eight at-large bids.

At-Large Panel 2011-12
Tim Tebow
Erin Andrews
Kirk Herbstreit
Rece Davis
Joe Schad
Ivan Maisel
Lee Corso
Brad Edwards
(Coach) Les Miles
I e-mailed all of the committee members and heard back from eight of them about their selections. Tebow never responded, so I just went to church and prayed about it for like twenty minutes. That's good enough, right? Here's what they had to say:

At-Large Bids
Alabama (SEC)
Stanford (Pac-12)
Boise State (Mountain West)
Arkansas (SEC)
Wisconsin (Big Ten)
South Carolina (SEC)
Michigan (Big Ten)
Baylor (Big 12)

The Bracket


The Logistics
Well, there's this: the last day of games was Saturday, December 3. That was the conference championship games. The BCS Championship this year is scheduled for Monday, January 9. There are five weekends in between those two dates. Guess how many rounds we have to play for this bracket? Oh, five. That's really convenient of the calendar.

Prediction
This post is long enough as it is, so I'll keep the predictions short: LSU, Stanford, Ok State, Alabama. Then LSU over Alabama. This is one of the years where I think everyone would just pick the #1 seed over the #2 seed. But at least the tournament format gives other teams a chance at glory. 

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