Sunday, March 1

The Concept

The basic idea is to increase the BCS's mandate to become the governing body for the college bowl system and run a championship system. It would have three primary tasks.

1) Oversee the college football championship system.
2) Assign prestige levels of the bowls.
3) Assign prestige levels of the conferences.

All language in the contracts referring to specific conferences or bowls would be replaced with language referring to prestige levels and clear procedures to establish these values would be included.

Once this infrastructure is built the championship system can be improved.


Core Philosophy
Championship teams either:
1) Win all their games.
2) Build enough national consensus to overcome a loss.

A winning team deserves a regional bowl berth.
A conference champion deserves a premier bowl berth.

Only those teams with one of the criteria above deserve national championship consideration.


Bowl Prestige
The core philosophy clearly delineates three levels of post season games. To restore college football bowl tradition these will carry significant weight. All bowls will be free to establish contractual tie ins as they see fit. These tie ins and the performance of the conferences will determine the prestige levels of the bowls.


BCS games
This level includes the championship system games and BCS bowls. This involves the top 10 or 11 teams in the nation, 2 or 3 more than twice the number of BCS bowls. BCS bowls would be filled before any spots in any other bowls are taken. Only these games would be played after New Years and would pay 10+ million dollars for each team plus 4.5 million for teams advancing in the championship system.

The championship system would have a variable structure, typically between 2-5 teams. This would usually require an additional wild card game and occasionally require a play-in game.

For 4+ teams a BCS bowl would be used as semi finals and be a part of the championship system based on who has the tie in with the #1 team.

The requirements to be a BCS bowl are to have the #1 tie in for one of the BCS automatic qualifying conferences. Once a bowl becomes a BCS bowl its host city is appended to the end of the queue to host the National Championship game. A BCS bowl would retain their BCS status until they next host the National Championship game, regardless of conference strengths.


Premier bowl games
Premier bowl games would be played the last week of the year and would pay out between 2-5 million. They would be filled before any spots in regional bowls are filled.

All conference champions not in the BCS games would be in a BCS bowl.

The requirements for a premier bowl are any of:
1) #1 tie in with an at large conference
2) #2 bid for an automatic qualifying conference in good standing
3) #3 bid for a premier conference


Regional bowl games
Regional bowl games would be played between December 19th and December 24th. The focus would be to draw teams within reasonable travel distance who do not see each other often. They would pay 1-3 million each.

All bowls that don't have a tie in warranting premier bowl consideration would be a regional bowl.

Conference Prestige
Four levels of prestige are implied in the determination of bowl prestige levels. Some need of conference measure is needed. Numbers here are based on the BCS standings values. These are between 1.0 and 0.0, with 0.5 representing the boarder of BCS consideration. Teams above 0.75 almost always earn BCS bids. By taking the three criteria listed by the BCS, putting them on this scale and averaging them a good estimate can be made.

A four year average would be used and conference alignments for a given year would be based on the prior year's membership.

Conferences with a tie in to a BCS bowl are automatic qualifying conferences and are broken down into three categories. The remaining conferences are at large conference.


Premier conference
Conferences with an average over 0.75 would be premier conferences. In addition to an expectation that they would participate in the Championship system and field BCS at large spots they would have 2 premier bowls. Premier status is evaluated every year.

Automatic Qualifier
Technically, this would be automatic qualifier in good standing but when automatic qualifier is used alone it would refer to this category.

Conferences with an average between 0.5 and 0.75 would earn this category and BCS status for its premier bowl. An additional premier bowl would be theirs for their #2 team.


At Large
Conferences below 0.5 without a BCS bowl tie in fit this category.


Provisional
Technically this would be provisional automatic qualifier. Conferences below 0.5 with a BCS bowl tie-in fit this category. This is possible because bowls can have tie-ins to more than one conference and hold their BCS status until they host the National Championship Game.

Conferences with this status may have their BCS payout reduced and not have a premier bowl. If a BCS bowl's conferences are provisional they would be a provisional BCS bowl until their conferences improve or they lose their BCS status after hosting the National Championship Game. The term provisional is intentionally chosen to carry a negative connotation.


Championship System
With this infrastructure stabilizing the base of the bowl system it is possible to significantly improve the championship system.

The core philosophy outlines the criteria used for the championship system and the BCS bowls act as buffers stabilizing the pool of teams for the remaining bowls. This allows a variable structure to be created able to handle the unique situations of each year.

For reasons explained elsewhere "enough consensus" would be defined to be the equivalent of 1.5 ranking spots across the board in the BCS formula. A gap between #1 and #2 would never be used. If an undefeated team ranked below #4 would not play in a semi final or below #12 would not play in a play-in game the field would be expanded.

Historically this would be 2-5 teams, usually 3. This guarantees 2+ teams and up to 7 can be handled with 10 or 11 teams in the BCS games.

All scenarios: A national championship game is played a week after the BCS bowls
3-5 teams: A wild card game is added as a semi final
4+ teams: The BCS bowl with a tie in to the conference of the #1 team is a semi final
5+ teams: Play in games on December 19th hosted by the favored teams determine the final semi final spots.
6+ teams: The BCS bowl with a tie in to the #2 team is a semi final and no wild card game is played.
8 teams: A December 19th regional bowl would be made a neutral site #4 vs #5 game to account for the 12 teams participating in the BCS.

9+ teams: A gap has formed in every weekly BCS standings above this spot even if three at large teams qualify by being undefeated. It is a highly unlikely that more than 6 will ever qualify.

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