
The breaking news tonight is that NCAA Football appears headed to the playoff system. The NCAA just needs the presidents the meet and approve the playoff. The President's are set to meet on June 26. This is great news to any college football fan who has been begging for a playoff system to replace the BCS format.
Right now the format that is proposed and the format that will likely be in place beginnig in 2014 is a 4 team playoff. In reality there is only going to be 1 additional game added. They will still use the traditional BCS format with two of the BCS games being semi final games with the #1 ranked team playing the #4 ranked team and the #2 ranked team going up against the #3 ranked team. The winners of those games will play for the national championship which will be held at the city with the highest bid. This format makes perfect sense and I wish this would be implemented right away.
It is still a little unclear on how the 4 teams will be selected but from the looks of it there will be a comitte that selects the 4 teams based on conference champions, strength of schedule, wins, losses and other factors.
Is this plan perfect? of course not but no plan is. You will have the teams that finish 5 and 6 complain that they belonged more than teams 3 and 4 but you get that argument with the way the BCS is right now and that only includes 2 teams playing for a national championship. The playoff format will a lot more excitment to two BCS games and gives more teams the opportunity to play for a national championship.
Let's just imagine what would have happened this past season if this process was implemented. For arguments sake let's just take the top 4 teams in the BCS. #1 LSU vs #4 Stanford and #2 Alabama vs #3 Oklahoma State. Great games all around especially if the high octane offense of Oklahoma State got to take on that Alabama defense. How about Andrew Luck going up against those defensive backs at LSU? The championship game very well may have ended up the same but at least a team like Oklahoma State and Stanford would have the opportunity to win their way into the title game.
Bravo to the NCAA and the universities and conference commissioners for getting together and finding something that everyone wanted. I look forward to the 2014 season for what should be a crazy and wild ride on the way to the national championship.
-jtsredsox24
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