As a fan of college football, I want to see a fair and equitable championship solution as much as the next guy. But looking at this year's top 16 or so teams heading into the last week of the season, it becomes apparent that most of these teams have already played someone else in the top 16 at some point this season. I always hear that the championship matchup should be decided "on the field" instead of by polls and computers, but if we look at the regular season we can imagine what might happen in a playoff scenario.
Given the top 15 teams plus the champion of the Big East (who won't be ranked that high), we might develop a sixteen-team bracket that looks something like this.
This bracket assumes that the Big Ten champion as well as the runner up will be in the mix (Michigan State and either Penn State or Wisconsin). It also assumes that only the ACC champion (Clemson or Virginia Tech) will make the bracket. Among these teams, only 4 haven't played another team in the top 16: Houston, the ACC champion, Michigan State, and Wisconsin.
If we presume the results of previous meetings, the results are fairly clear. On one half of the bracket, LSU has beaten West Virginia, Oregon, and Alabama and goes to the championship game. On the other half of the bracket, things are less clear cut. Boise State beat Georgia early in the season, and Oklahoma State beat Kansas State. We could imagine that Oklahoma could handle the ACC champion as they handled Florida State, and since no one from the Big Ten plays outside their conference, we don't know what would happen if they played Houston. In any case, it would be reasonable enough to conclude that Oklahoma and Oklahoma State could meet in the semifinal, which we will see on the field next week. The winner of that game (Oklahoma State is favored) should meet LSU in the championship game.
Of course, it won't work this way. The two best teams in college football right now are LSU and Alabama, but they played an ugly, smash-mouth, defense-dominated slugfest that ended 9 to 6 in overtime, and no one wants to see that again. If we could reward the teams who won in the regular season, it would make sense to match LSU against Oklahoma State to see that SEC defense against Brandon Weeden and the high powered Cowboy offense.
In an ideal world, we'd have a tournament bracket and seedings like this. For now, we'll just have to imagine, and hope the polls and computers come close.
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