Now don’t get me wrong – with that much on the line, this one will likely be an awesome game and I will be jumping for joy when the Trojans annihilate the Buckeyes. But wouldn’t it be that much better if a game like that was part of a single elimination playoff structure? Isn’t it our duty as fans to send a message to those who continue to corrupt the integrity of how the sport’s annual champion (or in some cases co-champions) is selected? Is a boycott what we need?

Since that last suggestion isn’t realistic, I was hoping I can use this forum as a starting point for a “we want a playoff” petition that can be circulated across college football’s fan land. I need your help though. I’m not web savvy enough to build a flashy website, nor do I have the resources to get the word out, so if anyone can offer their time to support this cause, please email me and help me get this going.

In the meantime, here is my proposal for how this playoff should be structured:

1. Each team playing in BCS conferences plays nine in-conference regular season games and three out of conference games. The difference is, those three out of conference games MUST be against opponents from the BCS conferences. This will prevent any team’s record from being inflated and will produce a more reliable tie-breaking procedure for the playoff bracket.

2. Each conference will have a championship game. This means that the conferences that currently don’t have championships games, will have to re-align to two divisions. Notre Dame will also join the Big East (none of this independent garbage).

 Pac 10                                  Big 10                                     Big East 

North Division                      East Division                       North Division

Washington                             Penn State                               Connecticut

Washington State                    Ohio State                               Cincinnati

Oregon                                    Michigan                                 Louisville

Oregon State                           Michigan State                        Syracuse

California                                 Illinois

                                               Northwestern

 South Division                       West Division                         South Division

Stanford                                  Indiana                                     West Virginia

USC                                        Purdue                                     South Florida

UCLA                                     Wisconsin                                 Rutgers

Arizona                                    Iowa                                        Pittsburgh

Arizona State                           Minnesota                                 Notre Dame

3. The six conference champions receive automatic bids to the playoff. Two at-large teams are then selected as the seven and eight seeds. Mid major champions receive automatic selections, if they go undefeated in their regular seasons and finish in the top 10 in the final BCS rankings. If there are remaining slots, the at-large bid goes to the second place finisher with: a) the best record, b) if there are ties, head-to-head meetings, c) if they never played each other, the best out of conference record, d) if they have the same out of conference record, the best in-conference record, e) if they have the same in-conference record, the best point differential, f) if they have the same point differential, they flip a coin.

4. The current playoff would require seven games. The Cotton Bowl, the Chick Fil-A Bowl and the Capital One Bowl would join the Orange, Sugar, Rose and Fiesta Bowls as playoff games, with each bowl receiving its opportunity to host the championship game, once every seven years. The playoffs would run on Saturdays in December and January.

5. The seeding for the conference champions will be based on the same format as deciding the two at-large teams. Like the NFL and NHL, the teams will re-seed after each round, giving the top seed the decided advantage going forward.

And that’s how it should be done! Let’s get the word out. Let’s do it now.

DC

Email: ninersbuzz@yahoo.com