So, does anyone else think the new President Elect will throw his weight around and influence a playoff for college football? He says he is going to get ann 8 team playoff going.

I don't really like the man, but I sure would back him on that.

He seems sincere about it. He talked at length about it on 60 Minutes last night...

This should be his first act as president.

His popularity would be fairly high after such a move. The only people who'd be mad, other than the folks who run the BCS, would be from the Big Tin and Pac Tin. But these are the very same people who've made out like bandits under the current bowl system.

Do we really care about them?

As much as I would like to see a 16 team playoff.. I think politicians need to stay out of college football.. They do enough damage running the rest of the country

goodknightfl Wrote:As much as I would like to see a 16 team playoff.. I think politicians need to stay out of college football.. They do enough damage running the rest of the country

I agree. But I even think with the pool of the president, we still won't see a playoff.

He needs to fix the country and let the NCAA and college presidents fix college football. He sounds like a micro manager trying to fix everything on the planet in just four years saying that. I give him credit for being candid and speaking his mind. Perhaps that gets this thing moving along. Spike Lee asked him to fix the Knicks.....Obama says that is above his pay grade and even the almighty might not be able to do that.

All President Obama has to do is introduce the BCS power brokers to his new Attorney General and the head person at the IRS, and I bet we would have a playoff in the very near future.

Reduce Non-Conference Games back to Three games to help with the postseason schedule. I would also madate that playing an FCS school will reduce your BCS points. Then you take the 6 BCS Conference Champions and two at-large. Then simply take the next two highest in the BCS standings that are not BCS conference champions. Instead of seeding, the Rose Bowl can have Big Ten vs Pac Ten and then take the Orange Bowl, Fiesta and Sugar and allow them to draft the remaining 6 teams for the best matchups. At that point Rose Bowl winner vs Fiesta Bowl (West Coast Region) and Orange Bowl winner vs Sugar Bowl winner(East Coast Region) to determine Final 4.

If you take BCS standings from today you would get

Rose Bowl
Penn State (assuming they beat MSU)
vs
USC

Orange Bowl
Miami (FL) (who knows with the ACC)
vs
Cincinnati

Sugar Bowl
Florida
vs
Texas

Fiesta Bowl
Texas Tech
vs
Alabama/Utah (depending how BSC points finish, Oklahoma drops out if they lose to Texas Tech)

They will not go for that. Do you know what the top schools make from those nonconference games? Is more than going to anonBCS bowl. Is the reason they added the 12th game schedule

I suppose as a fan of a Non-BCS school, I would like to see also if a Non-BCS school finishes in the Top 8, the one school is guranteed one of the at-large spots.

As a fan of a non-BCS school, you should be in favor of a playoff similar to the one already in place among 1-AA schools. Every conference champion goes...

On a similar vein, here's what the Charleston Gazette had to say on this subject today...

The Charleston Gazette Wrote:Presidential push for playoff plan?
November 18, 2008

MORGANTOWN - Cleaning out a crowded notebook and a cluttered mind while wondering if Barack Obama's stance on a college football playoff might have changed a handful of votes (not that it would have mattered one way or another):

Now, not to paint with too wide a brush here, but it's been my experience that college football coaches tend toward conservatism and Republicanism. Still, methinks even those in that majority may have perked up when Obama said this to 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Sunday night:
"I don't know any serious fan of college football that disagrees with me on this,'' Obama said after laying out a rather simplistic plan for a playoff. "So I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do.''

Well, it's certainly the right thing for someone to do. A president? Hey, if he's got the time, more power to him. And even if he doesn't have the time, how long does it take to order a handful of college presidents and athletic directors into a room and tell them they get no food or water until they come out with a workable plan?

It's not like there's no precedent for doing just that. Right, Joe Manchin?

Now, the bottom line is that the plan Obama rattled off Sunday night is a simplistic solution to a complicated problem. He suggested an eight-team playoff that would add three weeks to the season, but there was no mention of how the bowls play into that, how the teams are determined or anything else of substance.

The guy obviously hasn't thought it through, nor should he be expected to. But presidents - especially those elected with a mandate - have a way of putting pressure on others in powerful positions, such as college presidents. Who knows? Maybe something will come of it.

Of course, the last time a president put in his two cents worth in deciding college football's national champion it was disastrous. In 1969, Richard Nixon had been in office less than a year when he unilaterally declared that the winner of the Texas-Arkansas game would be the titlist. The guy even went so far as to present Texas with a plaque commemorating its championship. One small problem: Joe Paterno, whose Penn State team was also unbeaten in 1969, took exception and still burns at the mention of it.

By the way, Paterno is one of those conservative Republican coaches, a guy who actually spoke and seconded the nomination of George H.W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention. But he also contributed $250 to Obama's campaign last summer, his first contribution ever for a presidential candidate.

Not sure what that means, but I just thought you should know.

* * *

This whole Big East football championship race seems pretty cut and dried, right?

Cincinnati (4-1 in the league) can win it by beating Pitt and Syracuse at home. Period.

Pitt (3-1) can win it by beating Cincinnati and Connecticut on the road and West Virginia at home. Period.

West Virginia (3-1) can win it by beating Louisville and Pitt on the road and South Florida at home, but only if Cincinnati loses at least once.

Again, pretty clear cut, right?

Here's the thing, though. Would anyone be surprised if none of those teams does what it needs to do?

I wouldn't.

Let's say Pitt beats Cincinnati and West Virginia, but loses on the road at UConn. Let's say West Virginia wins out except for a loss at Pitt. Let's say UConn (3-2) wins at reeling USF before beating Pitt at home. And finally, let's assume Rutgers (4-2) wins its only remaining league game at home against Louisville, and that after losing to Pitt, Cincinnati sends Greg Robinson into unemployment by handing Syracuse yet another loss.

Guess what. Cincinnati, Connecticut, Pitt, Rutgers and West Virginia all finish 5-2 in the Big East and the league's automatic BCS bowl berth goes to . . . well, who knows? The league's tie-breaking procedure only goes to a four-way tie.

Well if it happens, the four-team tie-breaker would be applied to five teams, which means forming a mini-conference of the tied teams. And that means the BCS bowl would go to the highest finisher in the BCS standings because in that mini-conference all five teams would be 2-2 against the other four.

And who would that be? Well, the only teams on any kind of a win streak after such late-season bloodshed would be Connecticut (three straight) and Rutgers (six in a row). And so that means the two teams no one is giving a chance now would probably be the ones getting the most votes in the polls that make up two-thirds of the BCS formula.

Let the carnage begin.

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickman1@aol.com.

I believe once the new Cowboys field is done the Cotton will be the fifth BCS and the MWC with Boise State could make a realistic shot of being a BCS league.

Take those five and allow four of them to represent a region in the playoffs where the fifth bowl who holds the title game also hosts a first round game. The first round sites can be held at slightly smaller bowls. I think you have to go with 12 spots like pro football. Seven BCS autobids, five AP/Coaches wildcards.

goodknightfl Wrote:As much as I would like to see a 16 team playoff.. I think politicians need to stay out of college football.. They do enough damage running the rest of the country

Teddy Roosevelt SAVED college football, by threatening to outlaw it if the rules weren't changed to stop the unbridled violence which was making serious injury and even deaths commonplace.

If he keeps talking playoffs that could be the end of him.

Wouldn't the BCS cease to exist if a true college football playoff started? Wouldn't the playing field be leveled at that point? My hope is for a 12 game regular season, a Conference Championship game, and a 16 team playoff, all within the current bowl structure. That way the teams that don't make the playoffs still get to play a bowl game as a reward... just like they do now.

I don't like him or his views on the playoff system! He has enough to worry about!

I'm not real crazy about his playoff. It leaves too much room for the same kind of disorder, only on a larger scale...

I favor the FCS model, with 16 teams. All 15 conference champions, and ONE at-large bid to round it out - NO SPECIAL CONSIDERATION FOR NOTRE DAME...

bitcruncher Wrote:I'm not real crazy about his playoff. It leaves too much room for the same kind of disorder, only on a larger scale...

I favor the FCS model, with 16 teams. All 15 conference champions, and ONE at-large bid to round it out - NO SPECIAL CONSIDERATION FOR NOTRE DAME...

11 Auto-bids, 5 AP/Coaches poll at larges.

bitcruncher Wrote:I'm not real crazy about his playoff. It leaves too much room for the same kind of disorder, only on a larger scale...

I favor the FCS model, with 16 teams. All 15 conference champions, and ONE at-large bid to round it out - NO SPECIAL CONSIDERATION FOR NOTRE DAME...

That's not the FCS model.
What the playoff proponents often neglect to mention about how great it is in every other division is that the FCS has a number of conferences that refuse to participate in the playoff because of the tradition or their own bowl games. Furthermore, like the FBS, the FCS restricts mid-majors from having auto-bids.
The Ivy refuse to participate. The Northeast and Pioneer play for the non-scholarship championship. The best teams in the SWAC have their own tradition-rich bowl games. The Patriot, despite meeting the NCAA requirements of receiving an auto-bid in other sports does not receive one in football. The Great West, and independents, also do not hold auto-bids. These schools face tougher odds of receiving a playoff invitation than the Hawaiis and Ball States in the FBS.
In the FBS, 55% have a decent chance at the National Championship Game (even the BE and ACC, see West Virginia's whiff last season). Only 52% FCS schools have that a chance of even being invited to play in the quarterfinals of the FCS.
If the FCS can't ignore tradition or have/have-nots, what chance does the big-time schools in the FBS with the Rose Bowl, January 1st games, etc.?