Now here is how we came to this conclusion:
You take the champions of all the major conferences and any champion from a smaller conference (MWC in this case) that happens to be in the top 8, and you rank them according to their BCS final ranking:
#1 Oklahoma
#2 Florida
#3 USC
#4 Utah
#5 Penn State
#6 Cincinnati
#7 Virginia Tech
Why the Top 8? Because the top 8 teams that make it into this bracket will play home games, so we could have included Boise, but we won't because they were #9 and Texas who is going to get that last home game is #3 in the final BCS rankings. Also in some scenarios if you went with a top ten you would have 9 or ten teams that deserved home games, so we'll stick to 8.
Then we take the next 9 teams in the BCS rankings and add them into our playoff:
#8 Texas
#9 Alabama
#10 Texas Tech
#11 Boise State
#12 Ohio State
#13 TCU
#14 Oklahoma State
#15 Georgia Tech
#16 Georgia
So Texas jumps in and takes the last home game and Alabama is the first one to miss it, sorry your home game went to Utah since they were a highly ranked MWC champion. And plus I doubt Tide fans want to argue that point after the Sugar Bowl.
Once we have our 16 teams then we decide how to seed them, for the most part we are going to stick to the rankings we already have, but putting Utah in the Eastern bracket wouldn't be very nice since I'm sure they would rather trade 2 seeding spots to stay closer to home, plus it helps Cincinnati in the same way. Then we feel sorry for Alabama missing that last home game so we drop them one seed and let them play closer to home. We also bump Texas Tech down one so that we stay away from a first round rematch with Texas, this bumps Boise up two spots to #9 and they can feel good about themselves since they were actually #9 in the polls.
First round games are at home, second round games are at current bowl sites or at two new conveniently invented bowls just for such a playoff. Two are at NFL sites at Heinz Field and the Cardinals new stadium, these games of course will be played on Saturday so that there is time to clean up just in case there is an NFL home game on Sunday (Atlanta does it for the Chick Fil A bowl which ends at like midnight so quit your whining). The other two will be played at the Cotton Bowl and a rotating site from the BCS' current 4 bowl structure. Those sites already rotate and the site that gets stuck with the 2nd round game will host the championship the next year (or reverse) so for 2008 it would have been the Sugar Bowl. 3rd Round games will be played in 2 of the BCS sites, in 2008 it would be the Fiesta and Rose Bowls. And the Championship game would be played at the last BCS site, in 2008 being the Orange Bowl in Miami.
Now who is unhappy with this structure?
#1 the other bowls, but we could use two of them instead of the two new sites I came up with, but lets look at whats left for them. Not exactly scraps.
Capital One gets Michigan State vs. Ole Miss since UGA is in the tourney and Ole Miss is without a home since the Cotton Bowl is part of the tournament.
All the bowls tied in with the ACC and Big 12 get 1 free upgrade since Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State snuck into the tournament, they get teams one higher in the pecking order.
The Insight bowl, running out of Big 12 teams takes Notre Dame, $$$
The Hawaii bowl doesn't get Notre Dame so they take Navy since the Eagle Bank Bowl won't have any teams (last ACC team Wake Forest vs. Navy) but no one watches that game anyway.
So really the bowls can't be that upset except for the little bowls that just recently popped up anyway and some years won't have teams to play there anyway, most other bowls actually get a better team than they had in the non-playoff scenario.
#2 The presidents. Despite giving lip service to President Obama, the college presidents are as against a playoff as you can get. They will be very unhappy if this happens, why? Many reasons that they will forget about when all that money comes rolling in. A 16 team playoff system would make the NCAA so much money it’s sick. Just like March Madness, some network will drop some major cash on the exclusive tournament rights. In fact, I’ll guess that a network would drop way more money than the networks dish out to cover the current BCS bowls. Each of the 8 tournament games can keep their bowl games (and destinations?) in the event the NCAA wanted to keep corporate sponsors. For example, the 1 vs. 16 match-up could be the Gaylord Hotels Bowl and/or the 2 vs. 15 match-up could be the Outback Bowl. As the playoff boils down, the NCAA would still maintain their major bowls like the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and keep their lame sponsors.
#3 The players. The players may not like more games, but they will sure like actually playing for a real championship. Plus one of the biggest issues with transitioning to the NFL is that players wear down after 12 or so games in the pros. This would give players an opportunity to experience that kind of playing time before they make that step to the next level.
#4 Those evil bastards at the Rose Bowl. They hate college football, happiness, and puppies.
