Here are three quick-hit observations from Stanford’s 40-12 rout of Virginia Tech in the 2011 Orange Bowl.

1. Will this be Jim Harbaugh and Andrew Luck’s final hurrah at Stanford?
If it was, they certainly went out with a bang. Luck completed 18-of-23 passes for 287 yards with four touchdowns and one interception in the win, while Harbaugh left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he can coach in big games, small games or sandlot games. If Luck, a redshirt sophomore, were to declare for the NFL draft he would be the No. 1 pick in April. The Panthers aren’t going to pass on taking a quarterback, but Luck said last week that he’s leaning towards staying for his junior year. Harbaugh, on the other hand, is probably moving on. He’s gone as far as he can go at Stanford and if he wants to coach his alma mater, I doubt Michigan would think twice about telling Rich Rodriguez to shove off in order to make room for him. If Harbaugh wants to go to the NFL, the 49ers have already expressed interest and I’m sure the Panthers will/have as well. Harbaugh says he won’t rush any decision, but I’m sure one is forthcoming.

2. What a bad night for the entire Virginia Tech program.
The Hokies kicked a field goal right before halftime to cut Stanford’s lead down to 13-12 and then they forgot to come out for the second half. Their offense couldn’t sustain drives, their defense couldn’t limit the big plays and after the Cardinal went up by two touchdowns late in the third quarter, VA Tech completely checked out mentally (even though there was still a quarter to go). Tyrod Taylor made a couple of great plays with his arm and legs, but struggled keeping drives alive because he was always in third-and-long thanks to his running game (or lack thereof). Give credit to Stanford’s defense – they came to play.

3. You’re right BCS, this is way better than a playoff.
Three BCS bowl games are in the books and two of them were blowouts. The TCU-Wisconsin game had an exciting finish, but the Oklahoma-UConn game was a dud (as expected) and the second half of the Orange Bowl was like watching Stanford scrimmage against its scout team. The BCS obviously can’t control what happens after the opening kickoff, but they hype these five games as if they’re the best five games fans will see all year and so far they’ve been lousy. The title game and the Sugar Bowl can still save the action but the BCS can’t look anyone in the eye and say this is better than a playoff. Maybe VA Tech and UConn would have been blown out in a playoff game too, but at least Stanford and Oklahoma would be moving on to the next round. At least we’d still have more football to enjoy instead of: Stanford 40, Virginia Tech 12 – hey, thanks for coming out!

After two failed bids to buy a baseball team, Mavs owner Mark Cuban has now set his sights on fixing the college football postseason.

“The more I think about it, the more sense it makes as opposed to buying a baseball team,” said Cuban, who tried to buy the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers within the last few years. “You can do something the whole country wants done.”

Cuban said he envisions either a 12- or 16-team playoff field with the higher seeds getting homefield advantage. The homefield advantage, Cuban said, would ensure the college football regular-season games would not lose any importance.

The bowl games could still exist under Cuban’s plan, but he said he would make it more profitable for programs to make the playoffs than a bowl.

“Put $500 million in the bank and go to all the schools and pay them money as an option,” Cuban said. “Say, ‘Look, I’m going to give you X amount every five years. In exchange, you say if you’re picked for the playoff system, you’ll go.’ “

I think 12 or 16 teams is too aggressive too early. In my proposed eight-team playoff, all of the teams that would miss the playoffs (Michigan State, LSU, Arkansas) had an opportunity to seal a bid earlier in the year, but failed to do so. This ensures the regular season keeps its importance, which is something that BCS apologists bring up every time they attempt to defend their flawed system.

Other than that, I’m glad to see Cuban focusing his efforts on this, because a college football playoff seems to be going nowhere fast. Maybe throwing money at the problem will convince schools to go to the playoff instead of the BCS, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing.

Last week, I outlined what my proposed eight-team playoff bracket would look like prior to Championship Weekend. Boise State got the 8th and final bid because they beat the Hokies straight up early in the season and were ranked ahead of VT in the BCS standings. Let’s see if anything has changed in seven days…

Here are my assumptions:

1. The six BCS-conference champs get an automatic bid unless they are ranked outside the top 15. There would need to be some sort of ranking system used. For now, we will use the BCS. I’d rather do a straight #1-#8 seeding based on the rankings, but in order for a playoff to get implemented the big conferences would need some preferential treatment. That’s just the way it is and we all know it.

2. If a conference champ is ranked lower than #15 in the rankings, they give up their automatic bid and it becomes an at-large bid. (This rule is to ensure that the regular season keeps its meaning and only the elite teams make the playoffs.)

3. If a conference champ is ranked behind a non-BCS school, and have a head-to-head loss to that team, then they give up their playoff bid to that team. This is the “I Drink Your Milkshake!” rule.

4. Seeds and at-large bids are distributed based on the current BCS standings. Certainly, these rankings need to be tweaked to place more of an emphasis on head-to-head matchups, but they are fine for now. If an at-large team has a better BCS ranking than a conference champion, they will get a higher seed.

5. There will be three rounds of playoffs. The first round will be held at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team. The semifinals and the final will rotate amongst the four BCS cities (Miami, Pasadena, Tempe and New Orleans), so that those cities don’t lose the revenue from the bowl games.

So here is how an eight-team playoff would look at this point…

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve long been a proponent of a college football playoff. I gave a persuasive speech on why we needed one when I was a freshman in college. I got an A. No big deal.

But just to show what exactly we’re missing out on without one, I went ahead and set up a bracket of what this year’s playoff would look like. I went off the “Death to the BCS” formula, which includes the 11 major college football conference champions, and five at-large bids.

The seeds were set up using the BCS standings — I did make a change with Oklahoma and LSU to avoid an all-SEC first-round matchup — and I just went ahead and predicted the conference championship games that are still being played.

Here’s what we would have to look forward to over the next month:

1. Auburn (12-0 SEC)
16. FIU (6-5 Sun Belt)

8. Michigan State (11-1 At-large)
9. LSU (10-2 At-large)

4. Stanford (11-1 At-large)
13. UConn (7-4 Big East)

5. Wisconsin (11-1 Big Ten)
12. Va Tech (10-2 ACC)

3. TCU (12-0 Mountain West)
14. Central Florida (10-3 Conference USA)

6. Ohio State (11-1 At-large)
11. Boise State (11-1 WAC — don’t know the tie-breakers in the WAC)

7. Arkansas (10-2 At-large)
10. Oklahoma (10-2 Big 12)

2. Oregon (11-0 Pac-10)
15. Miami (OH) (9-4 MAC)

The top seeds would play at home through the semifinals, and the title game would be hosted by whichever stadium had the game that year (the book argues the Rose Bowl should host every year. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I do like the idea of rotating the site).

Is this system perfect? Probably not. Does it have the 16 best teams in college football? No. But does it have all the teams that could possibly make a claim to be the best in the nation? Yes.

It also keeps the regular-season relevant. Forget for a moment that if you’re a TCU fan, you’re all of the sudden interested in the MAC Championship game, and just look at the at-large bids.

Last week’s game between Arkansas and LSU had pretty big implications for both teams last week, because the winner was likely to get an at-large BCS bid and play in the Sugar Bowl (barring a South Carolina upset in the SEC title game). While that’s a big thing to play for, think of what would have been on the line for them if a playoff was their destination: Arkansas would have been playing for a spot in the field. LSU, meanwhile is playing to perhaps host two playoff games as opposed to having to travel to East Lansing in the first round.

As for the teams not in the playoff, they’d go to the other bowl games and play for nothing but pride, kind of like they do now. Sure, the non-title BCS games would be less attractive, but that’s a small price to pay.
Is there anything negative about this? How do people not see that it’s a much better option?

Earlier this week, I took a look back at all of the BCS championship games and whether or not they really pit the top two teams in the country against each other. But more importantly, whether or not it was a slam dunk that these were the top two teams, and you couldn’t make an argument that someone else possibly deserved a shot.

Now, granted, my memory is fuzzy on the really early ones, as I was still in high school for the first two years of the BCS, but I have a pretty good recollection of the rest of these games/years.

It’s a long post, but click through to see if the BCS has really gotten it right, or if we’ve been missing out all these years. Read the rest of this entry »