Monday, November 12, 2012

Your 2014 College Football Playoff Takes Shape

Soon Gone?
No, the term BCS isn't going away. And you'll have to add the term "Group of Five" to your vocabulary as well.

The powers that rule over College Football (not the NCAA) appear to have come to an agreement over the set-up for the new "College Football Playoff System".

What it means, isn't totally clear, but it will apparently encompass 6 Bowl Games as a part of the "New" playoff system.That system is supposed to open up more than the "Top 2" subjective winners playing for the title.

Got it so far?

Three of the bowls will be "Contract Bowls" three will be "Host Bowls". Or in English, the Orange, Sugar and Rose Bowl will part of the "Contract" games, the Cotton, Fiesta and Chick-Fil-A appear to be the frontrunners for the "Host Bowls".

Still with us?

Five of the 6 "Automatic" berths will go to the "BCS" teams (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC and PAC 12), the extra berth will go to the highest rated "Non-BCS" team. And yes, the payout from the gazillion dollar deal ESPN will apparently pay for this will go primarily to the Big 5. The "Group of Five" will get a smaller cut that they will have to split amongst themselves. That group comes from a combination of: The Big East (former BCS league), Conference USA, The Midwest Athletic Conference, The Mountain West and The Sun Belt.

Confused? We are.

Here's the summary (We think). You are going to get basically the same system we have now. It's just some games will have more priority than others. And....in theory, this should eliminate some of the "Best Travel" teams getting picked over actual better teams.

And really, this just gets complicated because of the stupid TV deals each "Big Bowl" has cut. It really marginalizes the smaller games and quite honestly makes them irrelevant.

We can only hope this will lead to the elimination of some of those games and the idiotic rules that schools have to pay for unsold tickets. Like many, we too wonder about a system that requires schools to play in small games in obscure locations and then be on the hook if the fan base can't afford to travel to said location en masse.


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