01-03-2016, 12:40 PM
I'd like to see a 16-team playoff involving the ten conference champs and six at-large teams selected by the current selection committee.
To accommodate the extra games, the season could be shortened to ten games with a weekend for conference championship games for a total of eleven regular season games over twelve weeks including a bye week. During the twelveth week, conferences could schedule their teams that aren't playing for the championship in a series of games pitting like seeds in one division against the other division.
This year in C-USA for example, the twelveth week would've been as follows:
West #1 Southern Miss vs East #1 WKU for league championship
West #2 La Tech vs East #2 MTSU for third place
West #3 UTSA vs East #3 Marshall for fifth place
West #4 UTEP vs East #4 FAU for seventh place
West #5 Rice vs East #5 FIU for ninth place
West #6 North Texas vs East #6 Old Dominion for eleventh place
With the conference actively seeking an unbalanced team from the bottom of another conference or an independent to possibly play Charlotte for an eleventh game.
As the first round of the playoffs takes place the following week (week 13) those other conference teams not in the playoffs could even schedule another game between teams from other conferences (maybe scheduled in the offseason as a conference showdown such as the AAC vs C-USA, MAC vs Sun Belt, MWC vs PAC-12, SEC vs Big Ten, ACC vs Big 12). I think this would be a rather fun end to the season.
Week 14 (what would've normally been championship week) would be the second round of the playoffs with the remaining eight teams.
Then bowl season would play out as now with the four remaining teams playing in two of the big six bowls in a semifinal.
To accommodate the extra games, the season could be shortened to ten games with a weekend for conference championship games for a total of eleven regular season games over twelve weeks including a bye week. During the twelveth week, conferences could schedule their teams that aren't playing for the championship in a series of games pitting like seeds in one division against the other division.
This year in C-USA for example, the twelveth week would've been as follows:
West #1 Southern Miss vs East #1 WKU for league championship
West #2 La Tech vs East #2 MTSU for third place
West #3 UTSA vs East #3 Marshall for fifth place
West #4 UTEP vs East #4 FAU for seventh place
West #5 Rice vs East #5 FIU for ninth place
West #6 North Texas vs East #6 Old Dominion for eleventh place
With the conference actively seeking an unbalanced team from the bottom of another conference or an independent to possibly play Charlotte for an eleventh game.
As the first round of the playoffs takes place the following week (week 13) those other conference teams not in the playoffs could even schedule another game between teams from other conferences (maybe scheduled in the offseason as a conference showdown such as the AAC vs C-USA, MAC vs Sun Belt, MWC vs PAC-12, SEC vs Big Ten, ACC vs Big 12). I think this would be a rather fun end to the season.
Week 14 (what would've normally been championship week) would be the second round of the playoffs with the remaining eight teams.
Then bowl season would play out as now with the four remaining teams playing in two of the big six bowls in a semifinal.