Reminder: We Still Have the Perfect Solution to College Football’s Playoff

Boiled Sports has been espousing a Top 6 College Football Playoff – the Boiled Sports Championship Series (BSCS) – for a decade now. The original post was in December of 2007 and proposed this:

The top six teams in whatever ranking system you want to use (BCS back then, CFP today?) are put into the playoffs. To keep the regular season games “mattering” just as much as they do now, you give the #1 and #2 teams byes right to the semi-finals. That’s actually better than the current setup, in which you don’t care one way or the other whether you’re #1 or #4.

Then you have #3 play #6 and #4 play #5 for the other two semi-final spots. You could easily play these games in mid-December and thus eliminate the month layoff between conference title games and the CFB Playoff.

Then you have your semi-finals and finals, similar to what is done now. What would this do that’s better?

Well, for one thing, you would be able to eliminate any more arguing over who should be in for a season like 2017. Is Wisconsin in with just four teams? Is Alabama? We’ll see. But with six, that is answered. Does anyone care if #7 or #8 gets a fair shake? I know I don’t. You’ve unquestionably not done enough if you’ve fallen down there.

The other thing this opens up is a completely different, non-rankings (mostly) scenario that I think a lot of fans and conferences would enjoy. You could then say under our system that the first five slots are power five conference champions – period. No arguing over whether an upstart Stanford team belongs in the playoff – if they win this weekend in the Pac 12 title game, they’re in. Now suddenly your conference championships mean a shit-ton. Imagine the Auburn-Alabama game from this past weekend meaning even more, because it would mean the loser is eliminated. People like to argue about college football’s regular season meaning so much but it does only up to a point – if Alabama still gets into the playoff, then what’s the points of the SEC having a conference title game?

This would also allow you one wild card slot. Do you give it to the highest ranked team that didn’t win a conference title? (In this case, probably Alabama…but last year someone like Ohio State?) Or do you give it to the highest-ranked non-Power Five team, giving the Boise States of the world hope. It also leaves a slot open for Notre Dame if they really think they belong and continue to refuse to join a conference. Hey, boys, be a top program and you’ll make it.

The conference champs approach would eliminate a ton of the human element of rankings that people argue over today. It would truly be getting decided on the field. Now, there will still be complains from those who bitch that their favorite program plays in a tougher division than, say, Purdue does. Well, so what? You currently have humans ranking teams will two losses way above undefeated Power Five teams. So it’s never going to be fair – just like life.

The point is, once again, that we have always known what is best for college football. They’re inching towards this solution and when it finally comes to fruition, you’ll be able to say you remember when the smrtest guys around came up with it.