Playoffs, continued

Before we get back to our discussion of Jim Mora's favorite topic, here are just a couple of observations:

• Remember me saying that bowls were and are about tourism and money and not sports? I told you so.
• The ESPN ticker statistics like "Oklahoma State has been to 3 consecutive bowl games, after not going to any from 1968 to 1998" or whatever are worthless. Now, there are opportunities for more than 50% of Division 1 teams go to bowls. Then, there were 5 bowls, and we liked it, dadgummit. Although, it does make it a lot funnier if you can't make a bowl and break a long bowl streak.
  
• Watched the Papajohns.com bowl today, and realized three things. First, this is one of those bowls that ESPN owns and televises; Second, it seemed like a good crowd, but it could also be that they moved everyone around for TV purposes; Third, PJ's does not deliver to my house, no mater how often I order online. Jerks.

Now, back to the topic at hand. In our last post, we wrote:

Look, anytime there's any sort of ranking there's going to be some controversy. Think of March Madness- even with 65 teams there are others who feel shunned unfairly. And there are often others who end up in a really easy bracket or a really difficult one. It's a part of the nature of the game- The Patriots only lost one game last year, but it was in the Super Bowl to an allegedly inferior opponent. In football and college basketball, it's not "best of..." series- it's one and done.And you have to draw a line somewhere- my line is that national champions should also be conference champions.

And so it is that in the NFL we have the 8-8 Chargers hosting the 12-4 Colts while the 11-5 Patriots sit at home. Yes, it seems unfair, but the No Fun League's rules also value conference championships, and it seems as if America has accepted those parameters pretty well. You're not going to have anyone from the Office of the President Elect talking about redoing the NFL playoffs, now are you?

Ahem. Where were we? When last we left our intrepid challengers, we had eight worthy adversaries: Florida, Oklahoma, U$C, Penn State, Virginia Tech, Cincinnati, Texas, and Boise State.

Remembering one of our other directives, the playoffs have got to involve the current bowls as best as possible (money and tourism, remember?), while working to remove automatic home field advantage for teams in the south and west AND thinking regionally so fans can go and tailgate appropriately. This meant creating two extra bowls (sanctioned by the NCAA), one for the first round and one for the final game.

The location of this final game would rotate between Dallas (new Cowboys stadium- it's not like they're going to have any playoff games there), Indianapolis (Indy is home of the NCAA, which is why the Final Four is there so frequently), and St. Louis (see earlier Cowboy comments). These locations are central to every college fanbase, and as neutral as possible without leaving the country.

Last year's bracket looked like this
Playoff first round: January 1-4, 2008

• West Region: Fiesta Bowl (Arizona)- U$C and Hawaii
  
• South Region: Sugar Bowl (Louisiana)- LSU and Georgia
  
• Central Region: Cotton Bowl (Dallas)- Oklahoma and WVa
  
• North Region: Bratwurst Bowl (Minneapolis)- tOSU and BC

Playoff second round: January 15, 16, 2008

• Rose Bowl (Pasadena)- U$C and WVa
  
• Orange Bowl (Miami)- LSU and tOSU

National Championship Game : January 25, 2008

• Indianapolis- U$C and LSU

Given what we know, here's how 2008-09 would play out:
First Round: January 2-3, 2009

• West Region: Fiesta Bowl (Arizona)- Boise State and U$C
  
• South Region: Sugar Bowl (Louisiana)- Virginia Tech and Florida
  
• Central Region: Cotton Bowl (Dallas)- Texas and Oklahoma (Same conference- required to play each other)
  
• North Region: Bailout Bowl (Detroit)- Cincinnati and Penn State
  

Second round: January 9-10, 2009

• Rose Bowl (Pasadena): West verses Central
  
• Orange Bowl (Miami): North verses South
  

National Championship Game : January 24, 2009 (week between NFL Conference Championships and Super Bowl)

• Indianapolis

Thoughts? All of these would be games that I would want to watch (better than the current BcS).

Tomorrow, I'll talk through the individual matchups and see where we would end.