College Football's Final Four (a playoff format that might please the masses)

Brett McMurphy of CBS has done a great job in keeping up with the meetings up to this point (being held by BCS officials and all Conference Commissioners + Notre Dame’s AD) regarding the future playoff format of College Football.  He’s wrote a few stories in the past week running down ‘brass tack’ details being argued and the concessions that may have to be made.  Here is the rundown of what we know so far thanks to Mr. McMurphy:

Two types of formats are being discussed the most at this point:  The 4 team seeded playoff, and the plus one model.

·       The four team seeded playoff is said to be the favorite at this point among the committee.  The way it is said to work is that the Top 3 ranked current AQ conference champions (it’s unclear whether that includes the Big East or not) would have automatic bids.  The 4^th team would either be the next highest AQ conference champion or it would be an at-large team if that teams is ranked higher than the 4^th highest conference champion.  This would cover the Notre Dame base along with situations like this year where Alabama didn’t win it’s conference.  One caveat to this rule though; an at-large team can’t host a playoff game (this means Alabama would have had to travel to Stillwater, OK this past year).  This provides incentive and reward to conference champions.  On-campus sites are favored in this format to alleviate the pressure on fans to travel to multiple neutral site games.  The National Championship game would then either be rotated between the 4 major bowls or be bid out to the highest paying city much like the Super Bowl.

·       The plus-one model would basically be the way things are now (with all the conference bowl tie-ins) only at the end of Bowl Season, the Top 2 teams would play.  For example this year it would have been Oklahoma St vs Alabama.

There are still many details for the committee to discuss which they will do later next month in Ft. Lauderdale and in June in Chicago.  The conference commissioner’s goal is to have a format to propose to University presidents after the meeting in June.  Using the format that McMurphy underlines as most popular at this point; here is what the College Football Playoffs would have looked like during the BCS era.

1998-99 Season

#5 UCLA (Pac 10 Champ) at #1 Tennessee (SEC Champ)

#3 Kansas St (at-large higher than conference champs) at #2 Florida St (ACC Champ)

Left Out:  #9 Wisconsin (Big 10 Champ), #4 Ohio St (at-large), #6 Texas A&M (Big 12 Champ)

1999-2000 Season

#4 Alabama (SEC Champ) at #1 Florida St (ACC Champ)

#3 Nebraska (Big 12 Champ) at #2 Virginia Tech (Big East Champ)

Left Out:  #7 Wisconsin (Big Ten Champ), #22 Stanford (Pac 10 Champ)

2000-2001 Season

#4 Washington (Pac 12 Champ) at #1 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ)

#3 Miami (Big East Champ) at #2 Florida St (ACC Champ)

Left Out:  #7 Florida (SEC Champ), #17 Purdue (Big Ten Champ)

2001-2002 Season

#4 Oregon (Pac 12 Champ) at #1 Miami (Big East Champ)

#2 Nebraska (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #3 Colorado (Big 12 Champ)

Left out:  #8 Illinois (Big Ten Champ), #13 LSU (SEC Champ), #5 Florida (at-large), #10 Maryland (ACC Champ)

2002-2003 Season

#4 USC (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #1 Miami

#3 Georgia (SEC Champ) at #2 Ohio St (Big Ten Champ)

Left out:  #7 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ), #6 Washington St (Pac 12 Champ), #5 Iowa (at-large), #14 Florida St (ACC Champ)

2003-2004 Season

#4 Michigan (Big Ten Champ) at #2 LSU (SEC Champ)

#1 Oklahoma (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #3 USC (Pac 10 Champ)

Left out:  #9 Miami (Big East Champ), #7 Florida St (ACC Champ), #10 Kansas St (Big 12 Champ), #5 Ohio St (at-large)

2004-2005 Season

#4 Texas (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #1 USC (Pac 10 Champ)

#3 Auburn (SEC Champ) at #2 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ)

Left out:  #13 Michigan (Big Ten Champ), #21 Pittsburgh (Big East Champ), #8 Virginia Tech (ACC Champ), #6 Utah (at-large)

2005-2006 Season

#4 Ohio St (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #1 USC (Pac 10 Champ)

#3 Penn St (Big Ten Champ) at #2 Texas (Big 12 Champ)

Left out:  #6 Notre Dame (at-large), #7 Georgia (SEC Champ), #22 Florida St (ACC Champ), #11 West Virginia (Big East Champ)

2006-2007 Season

#5 USC (Pac 10 Champ) at #1 Ohio St (Big Ten Champ)

#3 Michigan (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #2 Florida (SEC Champ)

Left out:  #4 LSU (at-large), #6 Louisville (Big East Champ), #14 Wake Forest (ACC Champ), #10 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ), #8 Boise St (at-large)

2007-2008 Season

#4 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ) at #1 Ohio St (Big Ten Champ)

#3 Virginia Tech (ACC Champ) at #2 LSU (SEC Champ)

Left out:  #7 USC (Pac 10 Champ), #9 West Virginia (Big East Champ), #5 Georgia (at-large)

2008-2009 Season

#5 USC (Pac 10 Champ) at #1 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ)

#3 Texas (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #2 Florida (SEC Champ)

Left out:  #4 Alabama (at-large), #6 Utah (at-large), #8 Penn St (Big Ten Champ), #19 Virginia Tech (ACC Champ), #12 Cincinnati (Big East Champ)

2009-2010 Season

#4 TCU (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champ) at #1 Alabama (SEC Champ)

#3 Cincinnati (Big East Champ) at #2 Texas (Big 12 Champ)

Left out:  #6 Boise St (at-large), #5 Florida (at-large), #9 Georgia Tech (ACC Champ), #8 Ohio St (Big Ten Champ), #7 Oregon (Pac 10 Champ)

2010-2011 Season

#5 Wisconsin (Big Ten Champ) at #1 Auburn (SEC Champ)

#3 TCU (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champion) at #2 Oregon (Pac 10 Champ)

Left out:  #4 Stanford (at-large), #6 Ohio St (at-large), #13 Virginia Tech (ACC Champ), #7 Oklahoma (Big 12 Champ), NR Connecticut (Big East Champ)

2011-2012 Season

#5 Oregon (Pac 12 Champ) at #1 LSU (SEC Champ)

#2 Alabama (at-large ranked higher than 4^th conference champion) at #3 Oklahoma St (Big 12 Champ)

Left out:  #4 Stanford (at-large), #10 Wisconsin (Big Ten Champ), #23 West Virginia (Big East Champ), #15 Clemson (ACC Champ), #7 Boise St (at-large), #6 Arkansas (at-large)

There aren’t too many arguments on my part with this format.  Stanford probably has the biggest gripe the past 2 years along with Alabama in 2008 and maybe LSU in 2006.  The lowest ranked team to participate in the playoffs would be #5 (not anything to quip at); and for the most part all the conferences are well represented.  Hard to argue with this at this point, but we’ll see what shakes out in Ft. Lauderdale and Chicago in the coming months.