I agree. Go with a playoff. It's the only solution that makes sense. The economics of TV will drive the NCAA to it one day. The money to be made from such a playoff is astronomical, and the bowls can't compete, not even in coalition...

You can keep bowls around if you want to determine which conference is really the best. Pick enough of the better teams not in the playoffs, and setup various matches to give an estimate as to the strength of each conference.

That way, you could have a TRUE playoff, and a conference playoff all at the same time...

BCS - WV
Gator - Pitt
Meinekee - L'ville
St. Pete - USF
Papa John - Rutgers
International - Conn
San Diego - Cinn

Cotton - ND

bitcruncher Wrote:I agree. Go with a playoff. It's the only solution that makes sense. The economics of TV will drive the NCAA to it one day. The money to be made from such a playoff is astronomical, and the bowls can't compete, not even in coalition...

You can keep bowls around if you want to determine which conference is really the best. Pick enough of the better teams not in the playoffs, and setup various matches to give an estimate as to the strength of each conference.

That way, you could have a TRUE playoff, and a conference playoff all at the same time...

I think to have a good indicater of which conference is best is to have a Big East vs Pac 10 or ACC ect challenge. Have it 2nd or 3rd week of the season. It could be driven by ESPN quite easily. And on top of that a playoff would be a strong indicator of which conference is best by the number of teams that make it to the semi's ect. And I'm so tired of people talking about how a playoff would interfer with the finals that take place in December. If i'm not mistaken March Madness heppens around spring finals and no one seems to care.

The biggest problems there is that all these conferences have a different number of members, not all teams within the conferences will play, who will be matched with whom, and who sits it out? All of these factors can come into play to slant the challenge to one side or the other, when there is no slant at all.

The best measure is to have all the champions play in a playoff. If you keep bowls around to determine overall strength of conferences, you'd continue some kind of ranking system and pick the best teams among the various conferences, and match 'em up in bowls based on overall imagined strength from the ranking system.

Having such matchups in the early season really doesn't determine anything. For instance, do you think UConn is wishing they'd played WVU a few weeks ago? The way teams play in the early season rarely mirrors their play late in the year.

It's still subjective that way, which seems to be what everyone wants. Nobody wants a true determination, since they couldn't brag about anything at all if they lost out...