The year was 1998.  The powers that be in college football decided that they were tired of having split national champions at the end of the season.  "Why don't we institute a system that crowns one unanimous national champion?" they asked.  It was then that the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was born.  It was planned to be the "end all, be all" solution to name a national champion at the end of the college football season.  Fast forward to January 2004, and USC and LSU are both claiming their rights as national champions.  This must stop.  A playoff is needed.  And here is how it can be accomplished.

First:  Get rid of the computer rankings in the BCS formula.  Think about it; if I were to say to you, "Miami was ranked #3 in one of the computer polls and #4 in two of the other computer polls," what would your response be?  Would it be something along the line of, "Well, the Hurricanes had a decent team this year, and they are still one of the top teams in the country, so I guess it could make sense,"?  OK.  Fair enough.  But what if I told you that I was referring to the Miami (OH) Red Hawks of the Mid-American Conference (MAC)?  Then what would you say?  Believe it or not, the above is true.  Jeff Sagarin's final computer rankings (at the end of the regualr season) had Miami (OH) at #3 while eventual national co-champion USC checked in at #4.  Anderson and Hester at least had Oklahoma, LSU, and USC above the Hawks at #4, but Miami was superior to Texas, Ohio State and Michigan in that order.  Keep in mind that Michigan soundly beat Ohio State in the last game of the season, yet the Buckeyes are apparently still better than the Wolverines according to A & H.  Lastly, Peter Wolfe had the #4 Hawks above such teams as Michigan, Florida State, and Ohio State.  Well at least Wolfe got the OSU and UM situation figured out.  The computer rankings are unnecessary; they need to be removed.  After they are taken out, the BCS formula will look like this:

BCS = Poll average + Strength of Schedule + Losses - Quality Wins

To see what the final BCS standings would have looked like this year, click here.

Second:  All teams will play an 8 game conference only schedule (the seemingly short season will make sense here in a bit, stay with me)

Third:  At the end of the 8th game, the final BCS standings will be calculated.  These rankings will not change from here on out. 

Fourth:  The top 2 teams from each of the BCS conferences (potentially deccided by a series of tiebreakers) will play in a conference championship game.  Simply stated, the ACC, Big 10, Big East, and Pac 10 will need to add a championship game while the Big 12 and SEC will keep their games in place. 

Fifth:  The 6 winners of these games will receive an automatic bid to the playoffs.  The top 4 conference champions who have the highest BCS ranking will receive byes to the second round of the playoffs.  Obviously, the conference champ with the highest ranking would get the first seed, the next highest would get the second seed, etc.

Sixth:  The next 8 highest ranked teams in the BCS would get the 5-12 seeds in the tournament. 

To see this year's bracket, click BCSbracket2003.doc

Finally:  That's it my friends.  This year, the first round games could be played on December 13, the 2nd round on December 20, the semifinals on January 1, and the true national championship game on January 8.  All in all, the champion would play a maximum of 13 games and a minimum of 12.  This is definitely a feasible schedule (note: Ohio State went 14-0 in their 2002 regular season and the 2003 Fiesta Bowl).   

So there you have it.  A solid fix for the ailing world of college football.  Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  Drop me a line at thee34@hotmail.com and put "BCS" in the title.  I'll be sure to respond to you.  Thanks for visiting.  Stop back soon.