Simple College Football Idea

It's been a good year for the bowl games. I enjoyed the great Tennessee - UNC game, and it's only one of many great (or at least interesting) story lines in the bowls. But, like nearly everybody, I hate that we can't be sure of a true national champion. Isn't there a simple way of keeping everything together? The idea I've heard most often is making the playoffs the bowl games, but I don't think that could ever happen.

Here's my idea. Take a close look at the schedule. There is nothing going on on the 11th and 18th of December for this year except the Army-Navy game, and three lesser bowl games. Couldn't we have the quarterfinals and semifinals of an eight team playoff in those weeks? Have the championship be the last game like we have it now? And then have the bowls run as usual? No playoff is going to affect the early bowls, such as the New Mexico Bowl, because those teams won't be in the top eight. And the six losing teams would just slot into the other early January bowl games.

The one complaint would be the playing of a couple of extra games, and right near exams. Of course, nobody cares about this in I-AA, Div. II, or Div. III football, so that's just something the bowls say to protect their position. That isn't a problem here, I think, because the bowls remain intact. On the plus side, the networks love it, and we get Saturday football in December again since the NFL has largely abandoned it.

Just for fun, this is how the Dec. 11 games would have gone this year (this leaves out Arkansas and Ohio State of the ten BCS teams):

1. Auburn hosts 8. Connecticut
2. Oregon hosts 7. Virginia Tech
3. TCU hosts 6. Oklahoma
4. Stanford hosts 5. Wisconsin

I'd be in. Would you not be? What would you not like?