BCS proposes four college football playoff models

By Kevin Kelley -

BCSBowl Championship Series officials have narrowed their discussions for a college football playoff to four options, USA TODAY has reported.

Among the scenarios is a controversial “four teams plus” format. Under that proposal, the field would contain six teams and would preserve the traditional Big Ten vs. Pac-12 match-up in the Rose Bowl.

…the four highest-ranked teams at the end of the regular season would meet in semifinals unless the Big Ten or Pac-12 champion, or both, were among the top four. Those leagues’ teams still would meet in the Rose, and the next highest-ranked team or teams would slide into the semis. The national championship finalists would be selected after those three games.

The “four teams plus” format isn’t a true playoff because the two teams that would face off in the championship game would be “selected” by the committee. That would still create BCS chaos because a team that won their first-round playoff game could conceivably not advance any further.

This proposal is, of course, backed by the Big Ten and Pac-12. The two conferences are trying to maintain their bid to the most prestigious BCS bowl game.

Here’s a look at the other three options under consideration:

  • BCS With Adjustments – Maintains the current system but eliminates automatic qualification, eliminates limit on number of teams from each conference and play games closer to January 1. This option would also create a format that would “accommodate different conference champions participating in different bowl games.”
  • Original “Plus One” – After the completion of the bowl games, the committee would select two teams to play in the National Championship Game.
  • Four-team Event – This format would have seeded semifinals and a championship game with four options:
    1) All three games played in bowls.
    2) All three games played at neutral sites through a bid process. Games would not be branded as bowl games.
    3) Semifinal games played in bowls and the championship game site would be determined through a bid process. The championship game would not be branded as a bowl game.
    4) Semifinal games played at campus sites (presumably hosted by higher seeded team). Championship game site would be determined through a bid process.

My preference is for a “Four-team Event” using option 2, 3 or 4. That would be the closest format to a college football playoff as you can get with only four teams, and it should provide the most revenue through bidding.

The BCS meetings are scheduled for April 24-26 in Hollywood, Florida. There won’t be any final decisions made until sometime after the conferences’ spring meetings in May and June.

“There is no a leader in the clubhouse,” BCS executive director Bill Hancock told USA TODAY Sports, “and frankly, that’s just fine at this stage.”

Comments (21)

I just watched the basketball playoffs and i believe using the exact way they do playoffs would be great
The elite 8 could play at 8 of the bowl sites
The final four could play at other bowl sites
The final could be at the rose bowl or bowls could bid and up in elite eight or final four based on the bids
No exceptions

The exceptions are what make everything unfair

I’m with Deborah. I want to see an Elite 8 format. The regular season would remain critical, and we would get 7 great playoff games. The Rose Bowl tradition is great and everything, but I would gladly sacrifice that tradition for a proper playoff…

The BCS with adjustments is solely there because that’s what the SEC wants. They’ve been complaining that they deserve more than 2 teams in the BCS because they are supposedly the “best football conference in the world.” It’s a bunch of BS. DO AWAY WITH THE BCS ALL TOGETHER. The four-Team event is the best of these options, and any of those proposals work. I’ve been one of the major people saying they could use the bowl locations/ bowl games as neutral sites for the playoffs, which is why option 1 would work on the four-team event. However I personally say we need a true playoff all together. They claim they don’t want finals to be interfered with. Yet that doesn’t stop the FCS Playoffs. That doesn’t stop the D2 or D3 playoffs. Just get a real playoff system, with each conference champ getting an automatic spot so smaller conferences (like the WAC, MWC, and CUSA can show they can compete) and you won’t need to discuss it again anytime soon.

Assuming you mean all conference champs get invited, that’s 11 included. Are you going to include anyone else? 11 is way too mean to begin with – is this pro or college? Its already on the verge of simply being too many games – strengthening the athletes argument to be compensated by more than a scholarship. We’ll say for sake of argument there is one at large, which would have been Alabama last year. Based on that, the top four would get byes, which would likely be as such (prior to bowl games):

(1) LSU (SEC Champ; #1 in BCS), (2) Alabama (At Large; #2 BCS), (3) Oklahoma State (Big 12 Champ; #3 BCS), and (4) Oregon (PAC-12 Champ; #5 BCS).

And potential first round match-ups would have been:
(5) Wisconsin (Big Ten Champ; #11 in BCS) v. (12) Louisiana Tech (WAC Champ)
(6) Clemson (ACC Champ; #15 BCS) v. (11) Northern Illinois (MAC Champ)
(7) TCU (MWC Champ; #18 BCS) v. (10) Arkansas State (Sun Belt Champ)
(8) Southern Miss (CUSA Champ; #21 BCS) v. (9) West Virginia (Big East Champ; #23 BCS)

Who is going to attend the TCU/Arkansas State game unless its on campus? How about Clemson and Northern Illinois? Are you expecting the NCAA, a business, to sacrifice profit for “fairness”? Here’s what’s fair: Play a legitimate schedule and win your games. If you play a tough schedule, you have more wiggle room to lose a game or two. Play a weak schedule and you’re forced to avoid any slip ups. What’s so impressive about beating a bunch of teams that could be in Division II?

Where is Stanford you ask? Eliminated, based on the above. So if we are serious about having the best teams in, get rid of the rif raf. And lets stop the nonsense about mimicking the NCAA Tournament. Have you seen the attendance at those games? Unless its the Elite Eight on, they simply don’t draw very well.

FYI, Boise State wouldn’t have been included either, as they didn’t win their conference.

I think option 4 of the 4-team event would work best. Personally I would like to see a “Final Four” format where all teams convene at one site; but if the two semifinal games are on different days it’ll be biased, and if they’re on the same day it may not be feasible to use the same stadium.

John… What does your comment have anything to do with the article. I’ve always found it annoying and pointless when people post comments boosting their team, while not adding an opinion or creative thought to the article at hand.

SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big East(Did I mention SEC?)Will never allow the Pac 12 and Big 10 to make the rules. The four teams plus is a joke.

By the way bigddan11 the SEC is the best conference in the world,
6 straight national tiles says it all…..

Heres my idea… Playoff for us. Money for the BCS.

There are 8 BCS Games and 8 really good other bowl games….

8 games with BCS ranked teams 13-28 in Chick-Fil-A, Outback, Capital One, Gator, Alamo, Holiday, Cotton, and Sun.

First 4 games: Played on Jan. 1 and 2. Rose on ABC, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange on ESPN. Teams ranked 5-12 in BCS rankings.

First weekend of new year: 2 semifinal games wih teamsranked 1-4 at the higher seeds on ABC

Second weekend of new year: Friday night on ESPN, consolation game, semifinal losers at championship site or next years championship site

Saturday on ABC. National championship.
Saturday schedule: 1:00 PM: NFL Wild Card. 4:30 PM NFL Wild Card. 8:30 PM. National Championship

Championship rotation: Glendale, New Orleans, Miami, Pasadena… same as now.

ESPN and ABC both have 4 BCS games under the BCS on ESPN contract.

(1 of 2)Here my take …. They need a 12 team playoff …. All 11 confrence champions PLUS the best in Indepents move on the postseason! The top 4 get opening round byes by the polls plus how each seed matches! So the 1st round play goes like this it has seeds 5-12 6-11 7-10 8-9 seeds play in the first round!

(2 of 2) 1 seed plays 8-9 winner 4 seed plays 5-12 THEN THOSE WINNER PLAY IN THE SEMI FOR TRIP TO THE TITLE THEN 2 seed plays 7-10 winner 3 seed play 6-11 winner then those other those play in 2nd semi for the title …. Rotate where each site goes at the current BCS spots AND ADD Dallas to it so 5 sites to rotate for every 5 years!! Thoughts??

I say have the Independents get a spot BECAUSE if you have the 12th team be an AT-LARGE it would be too crazy and BIG UGLY MESS!!! I think idea works the best!!!

My idea-

11 conference champs get automatic bid. The other 5 seeds are filled in through the BCS rankings(so they can feel like they’re still involved). 4 regions with 2 games played in the same neutral site. Each conference has a championship game to determine the winner, whether it be played between 2 divisonal champs or the top 2 teams in the conference. This retains the value of the regular season. Final Four played in one neutral site.

I think first and foremost you need to be conference champs to play in this turny of four. Yes I know bama beat LSU last year but after seeing both games I can’t help but think bama had the bigger pockets that year and paid LSU off. I mean the sec bought that championship last year and OSU got snubbed.

I personally would leave the BCS the way it is except they need to make a clause that says “you must win your conference to play for the NC, unless you have a better record than the next highest ranked conference champion.” For example, I’d allow a 1 loss team that didn’t win it’s conference play for the NC only if the other conference champions had 2 losses.