If There Was A Playoff ...
2005
What If There Was A Playoff ...
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It's that time of year ... the second guessing season.
What might happen if Oklahoma State got its shot?
How would TCU have done if it got its shot at Auburn at the end of the 2010 season? How about if Boise State got a chance at Alabama in 2009 or if several other BCS fiascos were decided on the field?.
Forget basketball's gimmicky
post-season, where a seventh best team in
a conference gets a shot to play for the
national title, rendering the regular
season relatively meaningless. CFN has
created the best of all possible worlds
for a playoff to make sure the regular
season still holds the weight it does
now, if not more, while providing the
solution everyone wants (outside of Bill
Hancock, the
college presidents, the yellow-jacket
bowl kids, and 99% of the
coaches). Here’s the plan …
Take
the six BCS conference champions and
give them automatic bids. Take the
highest ranked non-BCS league champion (Notre Dame
included), and give it an automatic bid.
The eighth and final slot would be a
Wild Card, which would go to the top ranked team
in the BCS that isn’t already in.
We’d have to keep this in the land of the real with
the geographic and economic concerns in mind by
rewarding the top four teams with a first round home
game - fan bases aren't going to travel to three
neutral field sites if their team goes to the
national championship.
The seeds wouldn’t
necessarily go according to BCS ranking,
again, with the idea to put teams close
to the right region to make sure the
opposing fans can get there as easily as
possible.
The Final Four games
would be held in Pasadena and New
Orleans, and the national title would
rotate sites like it does now. Meanwhile
the rest of the bowl system would be
kept in place. If you watched the
Liberty Bowl before, you’d still watch
it if there's an eight team playoff.
So
what would’ve likely happened had the
CFN system been in place since the BCS
was in place in 2005? Here’s the best
guess with the seedings and the results.
Final BCS Ranking In Parentheses
ACC – Florida State (22)
Big East – West Virginia (11)
Big Ten – Penn State (3)
Big 12 – Texas (2)
Pac 10 – USC (1)
SEC – Georgia (7)
Non-BCS – Notre Dame (6)
Wild Card – Ohio State (4)
Bubble Busted: Oregon
(5), Miami (8)
There would’ve been a little bit of
controversy with the Wild Card. Oregon’s lone loss came to USC,
everyone’s No. 1 team, while Ohio State had list at home to Vince Young
and Texas and on the road against a Penn State team that would finish
11-1 with an Orange Bowl win over Florida State. Miami didn’t have all
that much of a beef going 9-2 before finishing with a 40-3 loss to LSU
in the Peach Bowl.
First Round Matchups
No. 3 Penn State vs. No. 6 Notre
Dame
No. 4 Ohio State vs. No. 5 Georgia
No. 2
Texas vs. No. 7 West Virginia
No. 1 USC vs. No. 8 Florida
State
Matchup Analysis: USC would’ve waltzed past a Florida State team that had four losses at
the time, but stunned Virginia Tech in the ACC title game. Penn State
had a sound, veteran team that would’ve come up with just enough big
plays against the awful Notre Dame defense to move on. The real
excitement would’ve come in the other two games as Vince Young would’ve
battled Pat White in a showdown of spread wizards in one battle, while
Ohio State and Georgia would’ve waged a war in the other first rounder.
Don’t just assume a Texas win over West Virginia, the Mountaineers were
really that good, but Young wouldn’t have let the Horns lose. The
Buckeyes were better than the Bulldogs, but it’s OSU vs. the SEC; it’s
just too tough to pick against history in a relatively even matchup.
Projected Final Four
Rose Bowl – No. 1 USC vs. No. 5 Georgia
Sugar Bowl – No. 2 Texas vs.
No. 3 Penn State
Matchup Analysis: The Penn State defense would’ve kept Young from running
amok, but Michael Robinson and the offense would’ve sputtered a bit too
often against a Texas defense that had the speed and athleticism to keep
the score low. USC in the Rose Bowl … the Trojans wouldn’t have lost to
a very good Georgia team that took its eyes off the ball in the Sugar
Bowl loss to West Virginia. Reggie Bush would’ve had a huge game to
overcome a sluggish day from Matt Leinart.
Projected National Championship:
No. 1 USC vs. No. 2 Texas
Projected National Champion:
No. 2 Texas
Matchup Analysis: Vince Young,
Vince Young, Vince Young. It took one of the greatest performances in
college football history for the Longhorns to get by the Trojans 41-38
in the 2006 Rose Bowl.
What If There Was A Playoff ...
- 2010
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2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
2004
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2002 |
2001 |
2000 |
1999 |
1998