By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
I’m obviously a big tennis fan and follow the sport closely, but being a University of Georgia graduate, I also am a huge fan of college football and follow that, in season, just as closely.
There is much debate in college football about their structure – and politics – of their College Football Playoff. To me, it reminds me a bit about how tennis tournaments, particularly, selection “wild card” entries into events. While I have logic solutions to fix issues in tennis (such as the Davis Cup as I wrote about here: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/16098?fbclid=IwAR1Gcnli55fTk18HKpdjA_kVTN4NKBywZD-GCZZMeUvpLJxBP6ZP5hHwiMk and here http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/15622?fbclid=IwAR38KdMLRd6Bj2AOf0L8fYii3BaY3aqGHRO-1dLsKNtZPS6Y-jpeaTcopao
The College Football Playoff is, in all respects, a tennis tournament draw and it should be treated as such to make it a more fair and equitable – and exciting – conclusion to college football, while in tennis, you have direct acceptances via rankings, wild cards (invitations) and qualifiers (playing to get into the event), the College Football Playoff scenario below would be a mixture of the three.
The College Football Playoff should move from four to eight teams, which is what most people are in favor of. This is how it can work. The expanded eight-team playoff would start over the New Year’s Holiday – with a throwback to college football tradition – and would continue with tightly-scheduled semifinals and culminate in a College Football Playoff National Championship game played on the traditional college football Saturday on the weekend before a later-season Super Bowl, when the NFL extends its season to a 17 or 18 week season to culminate over President’s Day Weekend.
The eight teams in the playoff will consist of the following – the champs of the Power Five conferences – SEC, ACC, BIG10, BIG12 and PAC12 – and then three at-large “wild card” teams that are the highest-ranked teams that are not the winners of those conferences. These teams could be teams from any of these conferences or potentially Notre Dame or a standout “Group of Five” conference champion like Boise State or Central Florida if their ranking is deserving. If a two or even three-loss team wins one of the Power Five conference championship games, they go to the playoff regardless. This gives every team in those conferences a legit and open chance to make the playoff and could create an “longshot” or Cinderella scenario, however likely or unlikely that is. The winners of the conferences would be, like in tennis, the “qualifers” (players who advance through the qualifying rounds to gain entry into the tournament) and the three invited teams are, more or less, “wild card” invitations by a committee (such as the U.S. Tennis Association for the USTA or the All England Club for Wimbledon), but those wild card invitations are based on the “rankings” of the teams, either via the committee or the Associated Press or the Coaches Poll, or reverting back to the old Bowl Championship Series “computer” rankings.
The Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl have long traditions of specific conference champions playing in their bowls, with the exception of when playoff teams are involved. The former Southwest Conference champ traditionally went to the Cotton Bowl back in the day and the old Big 8 champ went to the Orange Bowl in the past. The ACC has had a loose relationship as well through the years with the Orange Bowl. So let’s return to some tradition and recreate some of those affiliations as part of the quarterfinal round of the new College Football Playoff.
The Rose Bowl will again and continue to feature the Big 10 champ vs. the Pac 10 champ. The Sugar Bowl will feature the SEC champ. The Big 12 champ (which continues as a combination of old Southwest Conference teams with old Big 8 teams) will go to the Cotton Bowl and the ACC champ will go to the Orange Bowl. The only match-up that would be automatic and pre-determined would be the Rose Bowl with the PAC-12 vs. the BIG10. The other three bowls would have the respective conference champions be drawn against teams the other three selected teams. Which team they are drawn against depends on their respective rankings.
Since the four bowl games are the quarterfinal rounds, whichever team is ranked No. 1 and No. 2 are the top seeds and would be placed on opposite halves of the draw. The match-up in the other two bowls with the lowest average ranking would be placed in the half of the draw against the No. 2 seed and the other team would be placed in the half of the draw of the No. 1 seed, to theoretically balance the tournament draw.
The only snafu would be if the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the rankings would be the PAC12 and BIG10 teams, but since you have to beat every team to win the title, that is just the way the draw goes and the No. 3 seed would be placed in the opposite half of the draw. This tournament is set up to determine the winner and who finishes No. 2 and who loses in the semifinals and quarterfinals is irrelevant in that specific case.
Here is how the match-ups would have played out in the last few years…..
2018
SUGAR BOWL
#1 Alabama vs.
#7 UCF
ROSE BOWL
#5 Ohio State vs.
#9 Washington
COTTON BOWL
#3 Oklahoma
#4 Notre Dame
ORANGE BOWL
#2 Clemson vs.
#6 Georgia
#8 Michigan is highest ranked team not included in playoff
2017
ORANGE BOWL
#1 Clemson vs.
#7 Auburn
ROSE BOWL
#5 Ohio State vs.
#8 USC
SUGAR BOWL
#3 Georgia vs.
#6 Wisconsin
COTTON BOWL
#2 Oklahoma vs.
#4 Alabama
#9 Penn State is highest ranked team not in playoff
2016
SUGAR BOWL
#1 Alabama vs.
#8 Wisconsin
COTTON BOWL
#5 Penn State vs.
#7 Oklahoma
ORANGE BOWL
#3 Clemson vs.
#6 Michigan
ROSE BOWL
#2 Ohio State
#4 Washington
#9 Southern Cal is highest ranked team not in the playoff
Now, as for scheduling, these four bowl games would go in their traditional New Year’s Day slots, with some slight variation. The Rose Bowl would go in its traditional 5 pm eastern slot on New Year’s Day and the Sugar Bowl would follow at 8:30 pm. The Cotton Bowl COULD be played at 1 pm on New Year’s Day, but would conflict with some of the other traditional New Year’s Day Bowls, such as the Citrus and Outback Bowls, but those can also rearranged or potentially could start at 11 am like the Outback Bowl has traditionally started. These games could also be played on New Year’s Eve Day. The Orange Bowl would have to be played on New Year’s Eve, but have the kick-off be at 6 pm eastern so as not to drastically interfere with New Year’s Eve plans of TV viewers. Since the college football will be extended by one weekend, you can spread out some of numerous bowl games to be played after January 1, which is already the practice when necessary.
Now, after the winners of the “Traditional Four” bowls – the quarterfinals – are played, the semifinals would then be played a week to 12 days later (depending on when New Year’s Day falls on the calendar) on the weekend that now immediately precedes the Monday Championship Game that is currently in place. The television problem with this is that this is a weekend that is usually dominated by NFL Playoffs, specifically the weekend of the Divisional Playoffs. The NFL is currently considering extending its season to 17 or 18 weeks that would push the Super Bowl into the second week of February and to be played over the President’s Day Holiday weekend – where the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday would be a national holiday with President’s Day, creating a popular scenario for fans who have to work and go to school the next day.
The trouble is that the mid-January weekend of the College Football semifinals would have to share the TV stage with what would then be the “Divisional Playoffs” of the NFL Playoffs with four games that were usually played on Saturday afternoon and evening (at 4 pm and 8 pm) and then the next day on Sunday (at 1 pm and 4:30 pm). What I am proposing is that Saturday afternoon be reserved for the College Football Semifinal games to be played at Noon and 4 pm, respectively. At 8 pm that night, the first NFL Divisional Playoff Game is played and the next day on Sunday, the second playoff game is played at 1 pm, the third playoff game is played at 4:30 pm and the fourth playoff is played at 8 pm. By playing three of these games on one day, and the fourth late the previous night, provides more of an equal playing field of “time off” for each team in preparation for the AFC and NFC Championship Games the next weekend. This is not an ideal situation from a television perspective, but proves for a blockbuster weekend of college and pro football for sure.
The location of these two College Football Semifinal games would be staged in stadiums that do not have NFL teams to avoid conflicts. One central location could be St. Louis, the home of the abandoned St. Louis Rams that is also indoors in a domed stadium, and the other could be either Orlando, San Diego, or the Los Angeles Coliseum (although if the University of Southern California is involved, they would not be allowed to play in their home stadium).
Then, the College Football Playoff Championship Game would then be played on the weekend after the AFC and NFC Championship Game and the weekend before the Super Bowl, the first weekend without live and real college or NFL football in five months, which is a perfect fit. The College Football Playoff Championship Game would be played on a traditional College Football Saturday with a kick-off at 6 pm. This would be the day before the NFL’s Pro Bowl. The College Football Championship Game could be played in any stadium that is not scheduled to host the Super Bowl that year, so it could be Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Phoenix or Miami.
