College football’s postseason needs to change

The Atlantic Coast Conference’s desire to expand is a perfect example of what drives college… The Atlantic Coast Conference’s desire to expand is a perfect example of what drives college football today: money.

Every program wants more of it. Having money means being able to have the best facilities and coaches, which, in turn, leads to recruiting the best players.

Having better players helps the team win, and winning brings in even more money.

So with the ACC set to become a super-conference within the next two years, the NCAA should look into another way for college football to make more money: create a playoff format.

No more computers, no more Bowl Championship Series, no more confusion.

In theory, it wouldn’t be that hard to accomplish. Actually convincing all of the schools involved is another story.

Whether those schools want to move or not, creating a playoff format can work.

First, there should be a set number of teams that get an automatic invitation to the playoffs for winning their conference championship, just like in college basketball.

Right now, there are six conferences that get automatic BCS bids. So let’s take those six teams, plus two at-large bids, and make it an eight-team playoff.

But with three teams leaving the Big East, that sixth conference no longer exists. To fix that, the NCAA would then have to create six, 12-team conferences and allow each one to have a conference championship game to determine the conference champion.

Then, the two at-large bids could be chosen from the conference runners-up, based on poll rankings.

So the next question is, who switches conferences?

The Big 12 and the Southeastern Conferences would stay the same because they both already have 12 teams, divided into two divisions, and conference championships.

Here are some ideas for what the other four conferences could look like.

ACC: After the conference officially adds Miami, Boston College and Syracuse, the tough part becomes how to align the 12 teams into two divisions.

The four North Carolina schools (Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest and NC State) have already stated that they would like to stay together, so an East-West or North-South alignment wouldn’t work. Maryland has also shown a desire to remain with Duke and UNC if the ACC expands.

Throw Virginia in there as well and you’ve got one division, which then leaves Miami, Florida State, BC, Syracuse, Georgia Tech and Clemson to form the other.

Under this alignment, Miami and Maryland would have played in the conference title game in 2002. My guess is that Miami would have won.

Big East: The name will have to change, but for now, let’s call it the Big East.

Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Rutgers and Connecticut are still members, which means that, in order to get to 12 teams, the conference is going to have to raid somebody else’s conference.

Let’s start by taking Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis and South Florida from Conference USA, and Central Florida from the Mid-American Conference.

But that doesn’t give the conference enough credibility. However, if Penn State were convinced to leave the Big Ten and Notre Dame were told it’d be left out of the playoffs because it’s not in a conference, then it would work.

Neither of these is very likely to happen, but let’s pretend that they could.

Of course, by expanding to 12 teams in football, the five basketball-only schools (Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, Providence and St. John’s) would have to be excluded.

The divisions then could be broken up into East and West with Virginia Tech, South Florida, PSU, Rutgers, UConn and Central Florida in the East and Pitt, WVU, Notre Dame, Memphis, Louisville and Cincinnati in the West.

Under this format, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech would have played in the conference championship last year, and let’s assume Notre Dame would have won.

Big Ten: This conference also needs a new name, but anyone that can count already knew that.

Having, in the course of this scenario, lost one member and another potential one to the conference formerly known as the Big East, the Big Ten will have to do a little raiding of its own.

Northern Illinois, from the MAC, would join the West division, along with Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while Marshall, also from the MAC, would team up with Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue to form the East.

Iowa and Ohio State would have met in the conference championship, with the Buckeyes most likely walking away with a win.

Pacific 10: Not much to do here, other than add two teams from the west coast. Based on the way their football and basketball teams performed last year, Hawaii and Fresno State could make the jump.

Since the 12 teams are crammed up against the coastline, it would be easier to make the divide between the North and the South.

So Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Stanford and Fresno State would be in the North, and the South would contain Arizona, Arizona State, Hawaii, Southern Cal, UCLA and California.

The conference championship would have been between Washington State and USC, and, judging by the season the Trojans had in 2002, USC probably would have won.

So now that we have six conferences, what should be done with all the bowl games?

Last year, there were 28 bowl games, 27 of which were pointless in determining who the national champion would be.

For the eight-team playoff, there would need to be seven games. So let’s use the four BCS bowls (Rose, Orange, Sugar and Fiesta) along with the Gator, Cotton and Liberty bowls. As with the BCS championship game, the bowls could rotate so the national title game would be played in a different location every year.

As for the other 21 bowls, and any others that will be created in the future, they could be run the same way they always have been.

That way, more than 40 teams would still get the opportunity to make the money that comes from playing in a bowl game, not to mention have a shot at winning a postseason game.

So, not only would each conference make money with the extra teams and conference title game, but all of the bowls would still be in place, which means the schools would be making money as well. And the two teams that advance to the title game would make more money because they would play in three bowl games.

However, there are a few flaws in this system. The Division I-A teams, who are not in one of the six conferences, will never have a shot at winning a national title. But even under the current system, they have no chance of winning, so not much changes.

There is also the problem that this would cause for college basketball, but that’s a whole other story, and this column is already too long as it is.

Joe Marchilena is the sports editor for The Pitt News and he will discuss college basketball next week if you really want him to.