| Daily Blog •June 27, 2012 |
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With yesterday’s announcement of an official 4-team seeded playoff that will begin in 2014 and run for 12 years, I thought it would be a great day to take a step back in time and take a look at what I wrote way back in 2000 which I believe was the first significant proposal of a “Final 4” for college football. First, let me say that the champagne tasted good last night after the announcement and I am very pleased that the contract was signed for a long-term deal.
In the first two years of the BCS, I thought that the best team in the country for that year (Ohio St ’98 and Nebraska ’99) did not get a chance to play in the national title game. This prompted me to come up with a solution to include all deserving teams of a chance at taking home the title. My proposed system was to include four teams and seed them #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3. The semi-finals would include the current bowls with those games being played on January 1st and the national championship game would be played at a later date.
Naturally the main reason I chose just four teams and not eight or 16 was to preserve what I think without question is the best regular season in all of sport! You cannot give me a single plausible argument as to why teams with two or more losses should be given a chance to play for a national title. I think you will find in most years there are three teams that are fighting for those top two spots and as long as you include those teams, I don’t think it really matters as to who is the #4 or #5 team as long as the true deserving teams are in the field.
Below is the complete article that I wrote in 2000 and also make sure you are checking out my May 30 Blog which includes what I wrote in this year’s magazine 13 years later.
In the next couple of weeks, I will break down year-by-year of the BCS Era and show you which system (Current BCS, 4-team or 8-team model) would have worked best. Look for it in a future blog.
