A college football playoff scenario I could live with

As regular readers know, I am not a supporter of a college football playoff for a couple of reasons. One, it dilutes the value of the regular season in which, as it stands now, every game really does count. Second, I don’t want to see teams with 8-3 or worse records having a shot at a national championship, which could happen with a 16-team or even an 8-team playoff. And finally, a playoff doesn’t answer the question the playoff was created to answer: Which team is really No. 1? The only question it answers is which team won that playoff. For example, I don’t think anyone can logically say the St. Louis Cardinals were major league baseball’s best team last season. They couldn’t even win their own division. Last season’s Connecticut’s men basketball team couldn’t even finish in the top four of their own conference. There are even those out there who will argue that the Dallas Mavericks weren’t the best team in the NBA last season (although I am having those critters hunted down and liquidated even as I compose this).

Most university presidents and athletic directors I’ve talked to or heard about also oppose a playoff for economic reasons I understand but apparently most sports columnists can’t grasp (I know, I have gone round and round with many of them on this subject). Thus, these writers revert to the theory the university officials are against the playoff because it takes the football players away from school for between three and four extra weeks (which is not true and is so easy for these writers who can’t understand the reality of the situation to argue against, thus making them feel superior in their own eyes, but no one else’s).

But I believe I have come up with a system that everyone can buy into. Here’s how it works: You take the four BCS Bowls — the Fiesta, the Orange, the Rose and the Sugar — and, for the sake of this argument, arrange them in alphabetical order, omitting the Rose Bowl. So, for this season, Fiesta is Bowl No. 1, Orange is Bowl No. 2 and Sugar is Bowl No. 3. Those designations rotate annually, so in 2012, Orange is 1, Sugar is 2 and Fiesta is 3, and so on.

In Bowl 1, the No. 1 team in the BCS plays the No. 4 team. In Bowl No. 2, the No. 2 team plays the No. 3. Then you go to the Rose Bowl where the top rated BCS teams not assigned to the first two bowls from the Big 10 and Pac 12 conferences are selected. And in Bowl 3, the top two BCS rated teams left would meet.

If that plan was in effect this season it would mean LSU would play Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl, Alabama would play Oklahoma State in the Orange Bowl, Wisconsin would play Oregon in the Rose Bowl, and Arkansas would play Boise State in the Sugar Bowl, all of which would be far more entertaining games than the lineup we’re currently being asked to suffer through (except, of course, for this year's Rose Bowl which will actually feature Wisconsin against Oregon).

As a momentary aside, I would also favor the Cotton Bowl being elevated to BCS Bowl level. In this scenario the Cotton Bowl becomes Bowl 4 which takes the next two highest ranked BCS teams. This year that would be Kansas State vs. South Carolina and would mean the entire Top 10 of the BCS got into a BCS bowl game.

But I digress. Then, one week after the last of these games is played, the winner of Bowl 1 plays the winner of Bowl 2 in the BCS National Championship game, which rotates among the four bowl sites (five if the Cotton is elevated) the same as it does now.

It’s simple. It gives us better BCS bowl matchups. It provides a playoff scenario of sorts. It maintains the integrity of the bowl system. It brings Cowboy Stadium into the National Championship game picture. And I think the university officials who are dead set against a major playoff system could live with this. I know I could.