A NEW BOWL PLAYOFF CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
(i.e., BOWL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES v2)

Link to this document: http://playoffs.vroospeak.com

Every year there are complaints about the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), that it is inadequate and unreliable -- that it doesn't identify the best team in the country, that it doesn't use head-to-head play, and that it has too many apparently random factors. It's also been said that it's not practical to add a playoff to the end of the season because the season is already too long. This proposal shows that it is possible to solve these problems.

The Bowl Playoff Championship Series is a true championship playoff. It includes an eight team playoff yet does not lengthen the season. Like the current BCS, it integrates with rather than replaces the current bowl system. 

And it adds another exciting element -- season-ending inter-conference play. Every year fans and sports commentators argue about the relative strength of the conferences. This proposal will help settle those arguments by adding direct head-to-head competition between conferences that normally don't get to play each other.

SUMMARY:

How is it possible that we can add playoffs without adding more games? The key thing that makes this work is deleting one game from each team's original schedule. This means that the conference championship game doesn't add another game to the schedule which allows us to add quarterfinal games. And for teams that don't qualify for the championship game, this replaces the deleted game with a new inter-conference game that puts the reputation of their conference on the line.


Here are the full details of how this could work:

(1) MODIFIED SEASON

BCS conferences are strongly encouraged to adopt a divisional/championship game system. The winners of those championship games are automatic qualifiers and those games are -- in effect -- the first round of the playoffs. BCS conferences are not required to have a championship game but they have a strong incentive to do so as they don't get an automatic qualifier if they don't. (Note: NCAA rules requires conferences to have 12 teams and two divisions to have an extra championship game as a 13th game. In this proposal the championship game is the 12th game, not the 11th game and therefore every conference can adopt a championship game regardless of the number of teams.)

    (1.1) Conferences that have a championship game drop one game from their regular season schedule to have 10 or 11 scheduled games (instead of 11 or 12 now).

    (1.2) Every team from those conferences will play one extra game as follows: 

          (1.2.1) The two division champion teams play for the conference championship.

          (1.2.2) The remaining teams in each division play a correspondingly ranked team in a division of another conference. The divisions are paired in a two-year rotation, for example, Big 12 North plays ACC Atlantic, Acc Coastal plays SEC East, etc. In this example, Big 12 North #2 plays ACC Atlantic #2, Big 12 North #3 plays ACC Atlantic #3, etc. Each division would be the home team one of the two years. In this example, the Big 12 North would host the ACC Atlantic in the first year, and the ACC Atlantic teams would host the Big 12 North the next year. Then a new division pairing would be chosen for the next two years. These games are considered regular season games for purposes of qualifying for bowls and playoffs. BCS conferences are paired with BCS conferences and non-BCS conferences are paired with non-BCS conferences. (If there is an "odd team out" because one of the conferences has a different number of teams, an independent team can be added into the mix scheduling this as that team's 12th game.)


(2) BOWL PLAYOFF SERIES

Eight teams are selected for a playoff as follows:

    (2.1) The teams that win a BCS conference inter-division championship game are automatic qualifiers.

    (2.2) The conference championship games and intra-league games described in section 1.2 are counted towards team's win-loss records. 

    (2.3) Tie-break points are awarded to:

          (2.2.1) Each team that is the winner of its conference. (If multiple teams are tied for conference champion, each is credited with the appropriate fraction of a point.)

          (2.2.2) Each team from a "very competitive" conference. (A very competitive conference is a conference that won more than two-thirds of its non-conference games this season.)

          (2.2.3) Each team from a BCS conference.

          (2.2.4) Each team with a top 25 RPI or strength of schedule.

          (2.2.5) Teams from conferences that do not already have a team in the playoffs are given an extra three tie-break points. (The purpose of this is to give a preference to picking a team from a new conference over picking a second team from a conference with the same record.)
 
    (2.4) At-large (wild card) slots are given to the teams with the best win-loss records among the remaining bowl-eligible teams teams, with ties broken by (1) head-to-head play if possible; (2) tie-break points; (3) points allowed or RPI or strength of schedule.

    (2.5) There is a limit of two teams per conference for BCS conferences or very competitive non-BCS conferences. There is a limit of one team per conference for all other conferences. There is a limit of one team that is not affiliated with a conference.

  
(3) BOWL PLAYOFF SCHEDULE

    (3.1) The playoff bracket is seeded by wins plus tie break points in a standard 8-team bracket.

    (3.2) The quarterfinals are scheduled between the conference championship games and the semifinal bowl games.

    (3.3) The semifinals are played as part of the bowl game schedule. Two bowls are designated semifinal bowls. Additionally, there are four bowl slots reserved for the losers in the quarterfinals.

    (3.4) The championship game is played at least one week after the semifinal games and at least one day after the last bowl game.


(4) HOW BCS CONFERENCES ARE SELECTED

The BCS conference are periodically selected using the following process:

    (4.1) Conferences are ranked according to RPI over the past four seasons, weighted as follows (where Y is the current year):
              (RPI(Y-1)/3 + RPI(Y-2)/3 + RPI(Y-3)/6 + RPI(Y-4)/6.

    (4.2) The six conferences with the highest index value are BCS conferences, except that at the inception of this program the BCS conferences consist of the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac 10 and SEC.

    (4.3) BCS conferences that have 12 or more teams divided into two divisions, with a championship game between the two divisions are automatic qualifiers: the conference champion is automatically in the playoffs. Otherwise, the champion will receive two tie-break points (as described in section 2.2) but is not guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.


BOWL LOCATIONS AND ROTATION

TBD. 


COMPARISON WITH CURRENT SYSTEM

As noted above, the two teams that play in the national championship game will play one extra game than they would under the current system. All other teams will play no more games than they could possibly play under the current system. The addition of the semi-finals means that more teams will play 14 games than do right now. Here's how it works out:

 Comparing old and new schedules
Current #games Proposed #games
Regular schedule 12  Regular schedule 11 
Conference championship (1) Conference championship / 
    inter-conference game 		1 


Quarterfinal (1)
Bowl game / National championship  (1) Bowl game / Semifinal (1)


National championship (1)
 (parens) indicate contingent games


Number of games played

Current Proposed
Non-bowl-qualifying 12 12
Bowl-qualifying 13 13
Division champions 14 14
Playoff qualifying -- 14
Play in national championship 14 15


These tables assume that teams play 12 regular season games now. If teams play 11 regular season games now, then simply subtract 1 from all the totals.


Q & A

Q: Why have eight teams in the playoffs rather than more?
A: These playoffs can be added without increasing the length of the season. Adding more teams to the playoffs, would necessitate shortening the season which would adversely affect those teams that don't make the playoffs. Also, if all the BCS conferences adopt a divisional system with a championship game, then this is really a 14 team playoff system with six conference championship games as the first round.

Q: Why six BCS conferences?
A: This number makes sense now given the current composition of the conferences. It could be expanded to seven in the future if that was appropriate. It should not be expanded to eight as that would eliminate the chance for non-BCS conference teams to make the playoffs.

Q: Why not use a "+1" system where we add a national championship game after the bowl games?
A: The national champion would still not be determined by head-to-head play, and instead of the debate about which team got left out of the top two, the debate would be about which team got left out of the top four. In the proposed system, teams earn their spots in the playoffs the way they should -- by winning games.

Q: Why not use the BCS rankings the way others have proposed?
A: How the team performed on the field is the only objective data point of how good the team is. Using other ranking information introduces a subjective measure. However, it's also the case that an 11-1 record is harder to achieve in the Big 12 than the WAC and we adjust for that by awarding tie-break points and by giving automatic berths to the winners of BCS conference championship games.

Q: Won't the current BCS conferences refuse to join a system that might result in them losing their preferred status?
A: This is actually a feature of the current system as well, although the proposal here uses objective criteria rather than BCS rankings. See http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/eligibility. Both systems base selection on the last four seasons and limit the number of conferences to seven.

Q: Won't scheduling one less game result in the teams losing ticket revenue?
A: Teams will schedule one less game at the start of the season, but the missing game will be replaced at the end of the season. The two division champs (playing in the conference championship game) will play one less conference game but those teams will receive a share of the revenue from the championship game. Plus this system keeps all the bowl games along with their revenue sharing.

Q: Won't the extra games make the season longer?
A: No. The championship game would be played at the same time it is now. The adjusted schedule would have the season ending by the end of November or early December, leaving at least a month between the end of the season and the national championship game. There's plenty of time to get in the quarterfinals in early/mid December, and the semifinals in mid/late December with the championship in early January, just as it is now. Another way of thinking about this: the quarterfinals replace the conference championship games (since those games are moved to replace the last game of the season), the semifinals are early bowl games, and the championship game follows all the other bowl games. 

Q: Won't the bowls become irrelevant for teams that are eliminated from the playoffs?
A: Only if you think they're irrelevant now. The record suggests that both teams and fans enjoy the current bowl system and look forward to the chance to end the season with a bowl game.

Q: If we add playoffs, won't teams just be playing for seeding at the end of the season?
A: Teams play just a dozen games, so every game really counts. Very few teams will have a lock on making the playoffs going into their final game.

Q: Why not take the winners of every conference and five at-large teams to have a sixteen team playoff?
A: First, this adds one week of games which will make the season longer, since that would be hard to fit in the current schedule. Second, some of the conferences are much more competitive than others and while it's reasonable to take the conference champions from the top half of the conferences, it's also reasonable that the bottom half should have to compete for at-large spots.

Q: Isn't it unfair that an 11-1 record in the Sun Belt conference counts just as much as an 11-1 record in the Big 12?
A: Well, that's not exactly the case. Because the Big 12 conference has a championship game, the winner of that game automatically makes the playoffs. If two undefeated teams meet in the Big 12 conference championship game, then the loser ends up with an 11-1 record and has to get in line for an at-large spot.

Q: If this system were being used today, which teams would have qualified for the playoffs?
A: It's hard to tell because teams played slightly different schedules than they would have under this system. However, using the 2007 season as an example and making some reasonable assumptions, here's how it might have worked out with 7 of the top 9 teams and Virginia Tech making it in by virtue of winning the ACC championship:

Seeding Team Pre-Bowl
Record		 Pre-Bowl
Ranking		 Final
Record		 Final
Ranking
1 Florida (SEC*) 12-1 #2

2 Oklahoma (Big 12*)
 12-1 #1

3 Utah (MWC)
 12-0 #6

4 Penn State (Big Ten)
 11-1 #8

5 Boise State (WAC) 12-0 #9

6 Texas (Big 12)
 11-1 #3

7 USC (Pac 10) 12-1 #5

8 Virginia Tech (ACC*)
 9-4
 #19

*indicates automatic qualifier

The BCS committee selected seven of these eight teams to BCS bowls. Alabama #4 got a BCS bid but is not listed above. It got knocked out by virtue of having a rank 32 strength of schedule versus Texas which had rank 1. The BCS also gave slots to Ohio State #10, and Cincinnati #12 which were ranked below Boise State #9 which didn't get a BCS bowl bid. The BCS grants only one slot to non-BCS conference teams and Utah #6 took that. Clearly there could be arguing every year about this just as there is for the BCS. The difference is that this is settled on the field. The champions of the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 10, ACC, MWC and WAC plus Texas would have been playing off for the championship. Hard to argue with that unless you're from the Big East: it's champion, Cincinnati #12, got edged out because it had two losses and the Big East doesn't have a championship game. Virgina Tech #19 qualified because the ACC does have a championship game.

Q: What prevents an independent school (like Army, Navy, Notre Dame) having a powderpuff schedule and qualifying for the playoffs?
A: We could require an independent school to have some minimum RPI, e.g., must have an RPI in the top 25.

Q: What if we want to simply fix the BCS ranking system and keep the rest of the system as is?
A: Well, since the organizations in control of this don't seem to want playoffs, maybe that's the most reform we can get. There is a simple fix. The biggest complaints seem to occur when the computer rankings have dramatically different opinions than the people. Here's a better system: if the human polls agree on the top two teams, then those teams are the top two. Otherwise, if they have one team in common in the top two, then that team is in and we use a combination of human + computer rankings to pick the second place team. Otherwise, if they have entirely different teams for the top two, then we use human + computer rankings to pick both teams. While this isn't as good as having playoffs, people wouldn't be left scratching their heads wondering what the computer was thinking.


Other questions or comments? Write to playoffs<at>national-champs.com