A Rightful Champion and “December Delirium”:
What a Real Playoff System Would Do for College Football
The Problem: An Overly Exclusive Club
TCU upsets Wisconsin
College football is heading toward a four-team playoff to determine the national champion in 2014, ending the controversial Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in which two teams competed for the national title based on a controversial ranking system.
That’s a strong start for a fairer method of determining the national champion. But it’s hardly the kind of open “December Delirium” that should be college football’s version of the NCAA basketball tournament -- one where as recently as 2011, Butler reached the final championship game despite being only an eighth seed in its region (where it lost to the University of Connecticut, a third seed in its region). In 1985, the first year the tournament expanded to more than 60 teams, Villanova won after being the eighth seed in its region and unranked in the final Associated Press poll.
The recent success of “non-powerhouse” college football teams has amplified the shortfalls in the BCS selection process, leading to growing criticism from fans, coaches, players, athletic directors, and sports journalists. For example, the 2006 Boise State Broncos stunned the Oklahoma Sooners and college football fandom alike in their photo-finish win over the Sooners in what many have called the most thrilling college football game ever. Four years later, after coming off an undefeated 12-0 regular season, the 2010 TCU Horned Frogs defeated Big 10 Conference champion Wisconsin in a game where few gave the Horned Frogs a chance. Yet both teams were precluded from competing in the national championship because of a flawed rating system that favored certain teams over others.
Such teams and their fans are not satisfied with winning the Fiesta Bowl in dramatic fashion or upsetting the Big 10 champions in the Rose Bowl. They want to be competing for the National Championship, and would if a fairer system were introduced that did not elevate the powerhouse teams and exclude all others.
That’s a strong start for a fairer method of determining the national champion. But it’s hardly the kind of open “December Delirium” that should be college football’s version of the NCAA basketball tournament -- one where as recently as 2011, Butler reached the final championship game despite being only an eighth seed in its region (where it lost to the University of Connecticut, a third seed in its region). In 1985, the first year the tournament expanded to more than 60 teams, Villanova won after being the eighth seed in its region and unranked in the final Associated Press poll.
The recent success of “non-powerhouse” college football teams has amplified the shortfalls in the BCS selection process, leading to growing criticism from fans, coaches, players, athletic directors, and sports journalists. For example, the 2006 Boise State Broncos stunned the Oklahoma Sooners and college football fandom alike in their photo-finish win over the Sooners in what many have called the most thrilling college football game ever. Four years later, after coming off an undefeated 12-0 regular season, the 2010 TCU Horned Frogs defeated Big 10 Conference champion Wisconsin in a game where few gave the Horned Frogs a chance. Yet both teams were precluded from competing in the national championship because of a flawed rating system that favored certain teams over others.
Such teams and their fans are not satisfied with winning the Fiesta Bowl in dramatic fashion or upsetting the Big 10 champions in the Rose Bowl. They want to be competing for the National Championship, and would if a fairer system were introduced that did not elevate the powerhouse teams and exclude all others.
A discontent Boise State fan/Sports illustrated
Big conference bias: A prominent argument against the status quo has been that it favors the Automatic Qualifying, or “power,” conferences in Division I FBS football: the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Pacific-12, and the Southeastern Conference. The BCS system has essentially created a cycle that prevents teams outside the major conferences from ever becoming good enough to compete on equal terms.
Not only does the current system fail to reward teams that right now may be ready to be the true national champion, but it reinforces the status quo. The best football players out of high school tend to flock to teams like Florida State, Texas, West Virginia, Michigan, Stanford, and Alabama, as opposed to teams like Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Marshall, Western Michigan, Fresno State, and Troy. The latter teams are unlikely to grow and become as great as teams in major conferences unless they are given equal opportunity to compete against those teams on a national level. If players coming out of high school see that they have a chance at a championship whether they join a team in the Big 10 or one in the Sun Belt, there is incentive for players to consider nontraditional options. Slowly, these “non-power” conferences will grow and develop until there is a balance of power within Division I-A college football.
Four is not enough: Expanding the field to four teams just doesn’t go far enough. BCS reformers have long argued that to solve these issues, college football should have a playoff system, similar to most other professional and college sports. While the new four-team playoff format is a step in the right direction, having only four teams handpicked by a not-yet-determined selection committee based on not-yet-determined criteria remains an overly insular process.
We want to see the two most deserving teams play for the championship after a truly open, exciting tournament, while preserving the traditions surrounding college football today. That’s exactly what our proposal is designed to do:
Not only does the current system fail to reward teams that right now may be ready to be the true national champion, but it reinforces the status quo. The best football players out of high school tend to flock to teams like Florida State, Texas, West Virginia, Michigan, Stanford, and Alabama, as opposed to teams like Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Marshall, Western Michigan, Fresno State, and Troy. The latter teams are unlikely to grow and become as great as teams in major conferences unless they are given equal opportunity to compete against those teams on a national level. If players coming out of high school see that they have a chance at a championship whether they join a team in the Big 10 or one in the Sun Belt, there is incentive for players to consider nontraditional options. Slowly, these “non-power” conferences will grow and develop until there is a balance of power within Division I-A college football.
Four is not enough: Expanding the field to four teams just doesn’t go far enough. BCS reformers have long argued that to solve these issues, college football should have a playoff system, similar to most other professional and college sports. While the new four-team playoff format is a step in the right direction, having only four teams handpicked by a not-yet-determined selection committee based on not-yet-determined criteria remains an overly insular process.
We want to see the two most deserving teams play for the championship after a truly open, exciting tournament, while preserving the traditions surrounding college football today. That’s exactly what our proposal is designed to do:
The Solution: A Real Playoff
Satisfying bowl game enthusiasts and playoff supporters alike, a new system could easily incorporate a playoff format while preserving the BCS bowl game traditions. The Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl will still be played, but will be transformed into an equivalent of NCAA basketball’s “Elite Eight.”
The bracket will be composed of 16 teams, not four. Eleven conferences comprise the entirety of Division I FBS football, translating into 11 automatic bids, one for each of the conference champions. The other five seeds will be “at-large” bids to be filled by independent teams like Notre Dame, Navy, Army, BYU, and other teams that didn't win their conference but have records distinguished enough to merit their inclusion in the playoffs.
Number of games in season: A bracket of 16 teams need not substantially change the number of games to be played in an already-constricted playing season. Cutting each team's bye week would allow the regular season to remain at 12 games, with a thirteenth game for teams competing for a conference championship. Most teams already play eight or nine conference games a year, depending on whether they play in a championship, with the other three or four games played against out-of-conference teams. Dropping an out-of-conference game would easily shorten the regular season to 11 games while permitting a four-week playoff scheme in the post-season. Even with a four-round playoff, only 8 out of the 125 Division I FBS schools would play more than one additional game.
Most inter-conference play would be relegated to the playoffs, but smaller conferences would actually benefit from greater revenue in the long term through their inclusion in the playoff system. The regular season would wrap up at the end of November. The four playoff rounds would be played beginning in the second week in December, with the potential for a week off for December holidays and the final two rounds falling in the first two weeks of January.
Alternatives for teams missing the playoff: Teams that do not make the playoff could have the option of continuing the regular season for a game against other non-playoff-qualifiers. Provided they achieve decent records, such teams could still qualify for the non-BCS bowl games, and could keep the revenue from those smaller bowl games as well.
Selecting the playoff teams: Selecting the automatic bids is straightforward and inflexible—each conference champion moves forward into the playoff bracket. The fairest and most logical way of selecting the five at-large bids, however, would be to use choice voting (also called the Single Transferable Vote). Choice voting is a form of proportional representation. It revolves around an equation that identifies the fewest number of votes that only the winning number of teams can receive when every voter has one effective vote. For eight winners and 100 voters, that means 12 votes are needed to win, as nine teams could receive 11 votes, but only eight teams can receive 12 votes. (No matter how many winners and votes, the equation is always: [Votes/(number of winners+1) + 1]
Choice voting is used in various governmental elections, including by all voters for at least one level of government in Australia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Scotland, along with U.S. cities like Minneapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since the 1930s, it has also been used for nominations for the Oscars to ensure that the five nominees in each category are fully representative of the views of Academy of Motion Picture voters.
The electorate, which will be comprised of 100 of the nation’s top sports analysts, writers, and former coaches would rank the top 25 teams they believe deserve an at-large bid in order of preference. If a team receives at least 17 first choice rankings from the 100 selection committee members, they will automatically receive a bid. (As a reminder, that’s because once a team has 17 votes, only four additional teams could also earn that many votes.) Always with the goal of having as many voters as mathematically possible have one vote count for one of their top-ranked choices, choice voting is based on counting votes, electing winners, eliminating weak candidates and re-tallying votes according to the rankings until all of the slots are filled. For example, if a writer ranks UVA as his first choice for an at-large berth, but UVA comes last in overall percentage, UVA would be eliminated from contention and that writer’s vote would be allocated to his 2nd choice. For more on how choice voting works, check out a video and text here.
The playoff brackets: The playoff bracket would have four quasi-geographic regions: the Rose Bowl region, the Orange Bowl region, the Fiesta Bowl region, and the Sugar Bowl region. The Rose Bowl Region would represent the West/Midwest and would contain the Big 10 champion, PAC-12 champion, Western Athletic Conference (WAC) champion, and an at-large bid. The Fiesta Bowl region would represent the Central United States and would contain the Big 12 champion, the Mid-American Conference champion, the Mountain West champion, and an at-large bid. The Sugar Bowl region would represent the South and would contain the Conference USA champion, the SEC champion, the Sun-Belt champ, and an at-large bid. The Orange Bowl region would represent the East and contain the ACC champion, the Big East champ, and two at-large bids. The at-large bids would then be ranked from one to five and placed in different regions of the bracket based on the existing strength of each region. For example, the at-large ranked first would be placed in the weakest region and the at-large ranked fifth would be placed in the strongest conference.
After the regional champions are crowned, the Rose Bowl Champion will play the Orange Bowl Champion and the Fiesta Bowl champion will play the Sugar Bowl champion. This round will essentially be the “Final Four” and the teams would be competing for the right to play in the National Championship.
Conclusion: This type of system would preserve the integrity of BCS traditions and only add extra games to the season for the teams going to the final four of the playoffs. It would give teams from every conference the opportunity to become a champion. It would allow a team to recover from a slow start, come together over the course of the season and make a run for the championship. It would build great national excitement over the playoffs.
The NCAA is right to go to a four-team playoff. But it would be wrong if it stopped there. Let’s have “December Delirium” before the end of the decade.
The bracket will be composed of 16 teams, not four. Eleven conferences comprise the entirety of Division I FBS football, translating into 11 automatic bids, one for each of the conference champions. The other five seeds will be “at-large” bids to be filled by independent teams like Notre Dame, Navy, Army, BYU, and other teams that didn't win their conference but have records distinguished enough to merit their inclusion in the playoffs.
Number of games in season: A bracket of 16 teams need not substantially change the number of games to be played in an already-constricted playing season. Cutting each team's bye week would allow the regular season to remain at 12 games, with a thirteenth game for teams competing for a conference championship. Most teams already play eight or nine conference games a year, depending on whether they play in a championship, with the other three or four games played against out-of-conference teams. Dropping an out-of-conference game would easily shorten the regular season to 11 games while permitting a four-week playoff scheme in the post-season. Even with a four-round playoff, only 8 out of the 125 Division I FBS schools would play more than one additional game.
Most inter-conference play would be relegated to the playoffs, but smaller conferences would actually benefit from greater revenue in the long term through their inclusion in the playoff system. The regular season would wrap up at the end of November. The four playoff rounds would be played beginning in the second week in December, with the potential for a week off for December holidays and the final two rounds falling in the first two weeks of January.
Alternatives for teams missing the playoff: Teams that do not make the playoff could have the option of continuing the regular season for a game against other non-playoff-qualifiers. Provided they achieve decent records, such teams could still qualify for the non-BCS bowl games, and could keep the revenue from those smaller bowl games as well.
Selecting the playoff teams: Selecting the automatic bids is straightforward and inflexible—each conference champion moves forward into the playoff bracket. The fairest and most logical way of selecting the five at-large bids, however, would be to use choice voting (also called the Single Transferable Vote). Choice voting is a form of proportional representation. It revolves around an equation that identifies the fewest number of votes that only the winning number of teams can receive when every voter has one effective vote. For eight winners and 100 voters, that means 12 votes are needed to win, as nine teams could receive 11 votes, but only eight teams can receive 12 votes. (No matter how many winners and votes, the equation is always: [Votes/(number of winners+1) + 1]
Choice voting is used in various governmental elections, including by all voters for at least one level of government in Australia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Scotland, along with U.S. cities like Minneapolis and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since the 1930s, it has also been used for nominations for the Oscars to ensure that the five nominees in each category are fully representative of the views of Academy of Motion Picture voters.
The electorate, which will be comprised of 100 of the nation’s top sports analysts, writers, and former coaches would rank the top 25 teams they believe deserve an at-large bid in order of preference. If a team receives at least 17 first choice rankings from the 100 selection committee members, they will automatically receive a bid. (As a reminder, that’s because once a team has 17 votes, only four additional teams could also earn that many votes.) Always with the goal of having as many voters as mathematically possible have one vote count for one of their top-ranked choices, choice voting is based on counting votes, electing winners, eliminating weak candidates and re-tallying votes according to the rankings until all of the slots are filled. For example, if a writer ranks UVA as his first choice for an at-large berth, but UVA comes last in overall percentage, UVA would be eliminated from contention and that writer’s vote would be allocated to his 2nd choice. For more on how choice voting works, check out a video and text here.
The playoff brackets: The playoff bracket would have four quasi-geographic regions: the Rose Bowl region, the Orange Bowl region, the Fiesta Bowl region, and the Sugar Bowl region. The Rose Bowl Region would represent the West/Midwest and would contain the Big 10 champion, PAC-12 champion, Western Athletic Conference (WAC) champion, and an at-large bid. The Fiesta Bowl region would represent the Central United States and would contain the Big 12 champion, the Mid-American Conference champion, the Mountain West champion, and an at-large bid. The Sugar Bowl region would represent the South and would contain the Conference USA champion, the SEC champion, the Sun-Belt champ, and an at-large bid. The Orange Bowl region would represent the East and contain the ACC champion, the Big East champ, and two at-large bids. The at-large bids would then be ranked from one to five and placed in different regions of the bracket based on the existing strength of each region. For example, the at-large ranked first would be placed in the weakest region and the at-large ranked fifth would be placed in the strongest conference.
After the regional champions are crowned, the Rose Bowl Champion will play the Orange Bowl Champion and the Fiesta Bowl champion will play the Sugar Bowl champion. This round will essentially be the “Final Four” and the teams would be competing for the right to play in the National Championship.
Conclusion: This type of system would preserve the integrity of BCS traditions and only add extra games to the season for the teams going to the final four of the playoffs. It would give teams from every conference the opportunity to become a champion. It would allow a team to recover from a slow start, come together over the course of the season and make a run for the championship. It would build great national excitement over the playoffs.
The NCAA is right to go to a four-team playoff. But it would be wrong if it stopped there. Let’s have “December Delirium” before the end of the decade.