Right: The 36th President of the United States, Richard Milhous Nixon, enjoyed bowling while he was running the country and trying to cover up the Watergate scandal. Not sure if he would like today’s college football bowl system. (Nixon Library Photo)

“Playoffs?! Don’t talk about playoffs! Are you kidding me? Playoffs?!”

While the famous quote above was once uttered by former Indianapolis Colts’ head coach Jim Mora Sr., it’s also the sentiment echoed by the vast majority of university presidents across the nation whose institutions compete as one of the 120 members of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A.

Wednesday on Capitol Hill, H.R. 390, a bill sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, approved legislation that states it is “to prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system.”

Seriously? My tax dollars are being wasted by this? Isn’t there something more important that lawmakers from both parties need to be worried about? Maybe like health care reform? Sure, I am all for a playoff system, but this is ridiculous.

Last Sunday, 32 of the college football bowl games plus the BCS national title game announced their pairings. We are still waiting to see who will get an invitation to the EagleBank Bowl, which comes down to the Army-Navy game, this Saturday. If the Black Knights win, they’re in. If not, UCLA gets the nod. Oh, the suspense.

So if you are scoring at home, and I know that you are, that makes 34 postseason college football games. That’s a lot. It also means that more than half of the 120 members in FBS get to continue their football season.

To me, most bowl games have become meaningless. Granted, I will more than likely watch every single one, but that’s only because there’s only so many reruns of The Office that I can watch. Of course, I am sure you couldn’t name all 33 bowl games. I know I can’t.

Some of the bowl games are in more exotic locales, like Miami, San Diego and Honolulu. Some are in places on the opposite end of the spectrum like Detroit, Boise and Shreveport.

There will be bowl games played at grand venues like the Rose Bowl or the brand new, state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tex. Then there are others that will be held in baseball parks like Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg and AT&T Park in San Francisco.

There are many bowl games that I am looking forward to, not including the Rose Bowl that pits Ohio State vs. Oregon. I am actually looking forward to the Sugar Bowl to see how many points Florida can post on a weak Cincinnati defense. I mean, Pittsburgh put up 44 in a losing effort, can the Gators make it to 70?

One major bowl that I can care less about is the Fiesta, a match-up between two mid-majors, Texas Christian and Boise State. Let them both play against the big boys!

A Playoff System

Yes, I think a playoff system is needed. But how many teams? What would the format be? There are many more questions that need answers to than just those few.

First things first. Teams like Alabama, Florida, Texas, Nebraska, Georgia Tech, Clemson, East Carolina, Houston, Central Michigan and Ohio all got to play 13 games because their conferences have a championship game, and somehow Boise State did too, though the WAC does not have a season-ending title contest. So if those teams get to play 13, why shouldn’t others who do not have a conference championship get to do the same? Or should we just drop those championship games altogether?

The college football season began this year on September 3 with nine games on the schedule and will end on December 12th’s Army-Navy showdown. That’s 16 weeks for 12-13 games. If there’s going to be a playoff, then there will have to be some uniformity in the scheduling. A clear start and end date.

Now, who do you invite? I have seen many people that have come up with ideas for a playoff. Most have included 16 teams. I think that’s wishful thinking. But here are my two scenarios:

Eight-team playoff:

I think this would be more plausible to start out with, though eventually I would like to see a 16 teams which I will mention later.

With eight teams, you could also keep the bowl lineup as is with just a few tweaks. You could take the six BCS conference champions plus two at-large teams. It works out great this season because those six are in the top eight of the final BCS standings, plus Texas Christian and Boise State.

The first round could look something like this:

#1 Alabama vs. #8 Ohio State
#2 Texas vs. #7 Oregon
#3 Cincinnati vs. #6 Boise State
#4 TCU vs. #5 Florida

All four games would be held at one of the four current BCS bowl venues on either Dec. 31 or Jan 1. The semifinals would be a week later and the championship game a week after that. This way, you would only be extending the season seven or eight more days.

16-team playoff:

Now this is where is gets a little tricky. As I mentioned earlier, if you are going to add an extra week of playoff games, you are going to have to have a clear-cut start and end date when it comes to scheduling. With that, the season would have to start the first Saturday in September and all games end the first Saturday in December. For those whose conferences do not have a title game, they can add a 13th game so in those 15 weeks you could have two bye weeks.

In the FCS (Division I-AA) playoff system, the games start on Nov. 28 and go for four consecutive weeks leading up to the championship game on Dec. 18.

In my playoff system for the FBS (Division I-A), the quarter and semifinal rounds would be played on consecutive weeks, Dec. 12 & 19, before taking a break for Christmas. The semifinals would be played on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 with the finals a week later. Also, the first two rounds would be played at the home of the higher seed instead of a neutral site.

Dan Wetzel, a Yahoo! Sports’ national columnist, proposed an a playoff idea, which I am not sure I like. He has every league champion getting an automatic bid, which means Alabama would take on Troy, Texas playing East Carolina, and Cincinnati taking on Central Michigan. Thanks, but no thanks. Those are games I really don’t want to see.

Automatic bids should go out to the champions of the six current BCS conference. The only exception may be adding the Mountain West and Western Athletic, but that’s it. Then you would have eight automatics and eight at-large bids which would look something like this:

#16 West Virginia at #1 Alabama
#15 Miami-FL at #2 Texas
#14 BYU at #3 Cincinnati
#13 Penn State at #4 TCU
#12 LSU at #5 Florida
#11 Virginia Tech at #6 Boise State
#10 Iowa at #7 Oregon
#9 Georgia Tech at #8 Ohio State

Now with both scenarios, you could reseed after each round or do it in bracket form like basketball. I like the the latter, because if West Virgina were to knock off Alabama, the Buckeyes then would take on the Mountaineers at home. Also, the losers in the first two rounds before Christmas could then enter the bowl pool with the rest who failed to qualify for the playoffs.

Of course, if if’s and but’s were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas. And as they also say, money talks and bull$hit walks. Maybe someday we will have a playoff system.

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