Proposed "Plus One" BCS Playoff

With our bowl news decided, little else of UK Football note happening, and me announcing my potentially life changing decision to leave my large law firm to join the up and coming young firm http://www.millerwells.com there isn't much need or time for a new column this week. I want to dust off this idea I came up with last December, a plausible, make everyone happy "plus one" college football playoff system. The details relating to all the possible contingencies are clunky, but the plan boils down to allowing two BCS bowls to serve as national semi-finals, then playing a championship game the following week. It changes almost nothing about the current bowl system, and would get us much closer to a true national champion.

From December 2008:


The BCS keeps the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar and adds the Gator as a fifth bowl. These bowls are to be played on January 1 or 2. At the end of the regular season, the BCS rankings will spit out the four best teams. From there, the teams will be placed as follows:

1.The No. 1 team, assuming it is a BCS conference champion, shall play in the bowl designated by its championship. Fiesta= Big 12, Sugar=SEC, Orange=ACC, Rose=Pac-10 and/or Big 10. The Gator was added for this situation. This will become the Big East's champion's designated bowl. If the #1 team is not a BCS conference champion, it is placed as set forth below.

2. The No. 2 team, assuming that it is a BCS conference champion, shall play in the bowl designated by its championship. If not, it is placed as set forth below.

3. The No. 3 team, assuming it is a BCS conference champion, will be placed in the bowl designated by its championship unless both #1 and #2 are BCS conference champions. Assuming both #1 and 2 are BCS conference champions, the No. 3 team will play against the #2 team at the bowl that team is slotted for. If either #1 or 2 is not a BCS conference champion, it will play at #3's conference designated spot. If neither #1 or #2 is a BCS conference champion the Number #3 team shall play the #4. In the unlikely event none of the top 3 teams are BCS conference champions, the top 2 teams will select, in order, which bowl they wish to attend. The #3 team will then be matched against the #2 team.

4. The #4 team will play highest ranked BCS conference champion at that team's designated bowl unless none are BCS conference champions, in which case it will play the #1 team.

5. Notwithstanding 1-4 above, in the event that both the PAC-10 and Big-10 champions are ranked in the top 4, the teams will play in the Rose Bowl unless the National Championship game will be played in Los Angeles. Assuming the National Championship game is slated for Los Angeles, the lower ranked team will be treated as a not having been a conference champion and will be slated accordingly. If these two teams play in the Rose Bowl, the higher ranked of the two remaining teams shall play in the bowl designated by its conference championship against the final remaining team. If the higher ranked team is not a BCS conference champion, but the lower ranked team is, the teams shall play in the bowl designated by the lower ranked team's championship. In the event neither team is a conference champion, the bowl of the team with the higher ranking will host the game.

6. The other BCS games will be populated by champions from the other BCS conferences and wildcard teams in accordance with the current BCS system.

7. With the exception of the Gator Bowl, all other bowls remained unchanged.

8. The winners of the two games between the nation's top four teams play in a National Championship game approximately one week after the Jan 1 & 2 games. The game will rotate between BCS venues, as it does now.

One thorny issue. Does the Gator get added to the rotation?

This plan is the best anyone is going to come up with. It leaves the current situation virtually untouched while getting us a lot closer to a true national champion. The value of being a conference champion, which seems so important to the BCS, is left intact. The Rose Bowl gets thrown a bone. It doesn't cheapen the other BCS bowls any worse than they've been cheapened. Most of all, it puts some pressure on the various BCS conferences to put a good product on the field. As long as this ACC proves incapable of producing a championship contender, the Orange is not going to host a national semifinal. This is the way it should be. I cannot imagine a coherent argument against this system from either a realist's (which is to say fiscal), academic (no change other than for the two teams that would play twice) or competitive standpoint.