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NCAA Division 1 Football
Championships
The purpose of this proposal is to establish a better way of coming up with a true National champion in NCAA Division 1 Football without interrupting or changing the current system or conferences any more than possible.
Method. On the 10th playing date, or the first Saturday in November, all teams that want to be in consideration for the NCAA Division 1 Football Championship will either schedule an open date or a non-conference game. Teams usually have a non-conference game or two and open date or two during their season, this will just have to be considered one or the other. Conferences and teams will have to recognize this because most are on a two year contract with teams and this may take a year to take place. A clause will be put in all contracts on this date that if one of the teams is selected to play in a “Pre-Bowl*” game, they will be let out of their contract and the buy out will be done by the nominal “across the board” amount paid by the BCS. The selection committee will formulate the 5 “Pre-Bowl” games to be determined in advance at pre-determined sites that are generally NFL venues or non-partisan sites for these games. These games will be spread across the nation at 5 locations. Examples would be the Dallas Cowboy stadium, Phoenix stadium, San Antonio, Atlanta Stadium, Green Bay Stadium, etc. The match ups would be looked at by the committee to eliminate: Undefeated records, teams with great records that do not have a strong remaining schedule and match up of the “Top 10 best teams**” at this time. Teams would have a two week notice to play from the 8th week to this date and teams would be matched as best they could be by close proximity to the sties where they play and their home games. Teams in the same conference would not play each other. This situation should automatically eliminate half of the undefeated teams and give the “pollsters” a much better picture of the relative difference between teams from different conferences.
• *Not sure of the name of this would be yet.
• ** This would be determined by the same method as now on rankings.
First Saturday in December. This date would remain the same for conference championships such as: SEC, BIG 12, MAC, ACC, BIG EAST and CONFERNCE USA, and all other teams in “Rivalry Week.” If two teams that are UNDEATED and do not have a schedule game during this week, they will play in a “Bowl” game during this week on the Saturday that others are also playing. This will eliminate any conference ties that are undefeated, independents that are undefeated, or teams in contention for a national championship that are in contention. You will not be able to play in a national championship unless you play a championship game during this week.
January 1st- The bowl selection committees should have a real good idea of the rankings of teams with all of the above considerations to make their choices for BCS games.
National Championship- Date determined after January 1st games from the complete procedure above. If anyone is Undefeated after the first Saturday of December game- They are in the national championship. The possibility that more than two teams would ever be undefeated is way more unlikely but still possible but
unlikely.
October 25, 2009- Here were the current BCS standings after the October 25th playing dates which would be two weeks before the first Saturday in November:
1. Florida 8-0
2. Alabama 8-0
3. Texas 8-0
4. Iowa 9-0
5. USC 6-2
6. TCU 8-0
7. Boise State 8-0
8. Cincinnati 8-0
9. LSU 7-1
10. Oregon 7-1
Even though it looks like USC is out of place here I think the polling would be different if you had this kind of a system because the “pollsters” would not be as afraid to match an undefeated team ranked above a power conference team because of this “Pre-Bowl” game situation. We all know what happened to USC and Iowa after this but most everyone else has stayed the same. I think these would be easy to match up considering you know that either Alabama or Florida will be eliminated from the undefeated ranks next week.
Summary. To use the current situation that we have as an example. The Boise State’s, Cincinnati, TCU type teams would get their shot in both the first Saturday in November and the first Saturday in December. If they are still worthy, then they deserve it. Last year Utah would have had a better chance at proving they were worthy of National championship status. Other years there has been two teams from the Big 10 that were both undefeated, they would play on the December date if necessary. Independents like Notre Dame would get their shot in both November and December without having to enter a conference ( even though I don’t agree that they don’t have to get in one) it would not change things for them.