The College Football Playoff replaced the much-maligned BCS system for organizing college football's postseason in 2014, and it seems that there is no going back. Most discussions about reforming this system focus on expanding the playoff from four to eight schools. The common proposal here is to guarantee bids for each Power 5 conference champion, the highest ranked Group of 5 school, and two at-large schools.
However, I recently started thinking about what the college football postseason might look like if the BCS system still existed in some form, with reforms. What I came up with consisted of three core changes from the BCS system:
1. The moving of the #1 vs #2 national championship game to after the bowl games.
2. The expansion of the BCS from 4 to 8 bowl games.
3. The replacement of the BCS poll with a committee ranking, similar to the current CFP approach.
On the first point, it's worth noting that the main goal of the BCS (like the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance before it) was to produce a #1 vs #2 national championship game. Originally this was done in one of the bowl games themselves (Rose, Orange, Sugar or Fiesta), and later was made into its own game separate from the bowls. But what if this match-up was a plus-one game that took place after the bowls? This would allow the bowl games to be used to determine who the #1 vs #2 match-up should be, as the rankings could be redone one final time after the bowls. This is similar to the CFP approach, but would mean that theoretically any two teams could be selected for the national championship, not just the four teams who play the semifinal bowls. This would give each Power 5 conference champ a shot at the title, along with Group of 5 teams, without necessarily having an eight-team playoff. Additionally, more bowl games would be relevant to the national title conversation in any given season, at least three if not four or more.
Expanding from 4 to 8 bowl games would increase the overall number of high-quality bowl match-ups, especially when at-large berths are in play. In addition to the four original BCS bowls, we could see the Peach and Fiesta bowls (which are part of the CFP's New Year's Six), the Citrus Bowl in Orlando (which was considered as a potential BCS bowl), and the Holiday Bowl in San Diego (which was a finalist for being a CFP bowl site). Under this proposal, we would guarantee bids for the five Power 5 conference champions, the next highest ranked team from each Power 5 conference, a Group of 5 school, and five at-large bids. The selection process would be as follows:
1. Power 5 conference champions are assigned to designated bowl games (Big Ten/Pac-12 to Rose, ACC to Orange, SEC/Big 12 to Sugar)
2. Next highest ranked team receives the at-large bid to the Orange Bowl.
3. Next highest ranked team from each Power 5 conference is assigned to their designated bowl game (Big Ten/SEC to Citrus, ACC to Peach, Big 12 to Cotton, Pac-12 to Holiday).
4. Highest ranked (remaining) Group of 5 school is assigned to Fiesta Bowl.
5. Bowl games with unfilled at-large bids (Peach, Cotton, Holiday, Fiesta) are assigned order of selection based on the ranking of their auto-bid team.
6. At-large bids are assigned, based on rankings, down the order of selection, avoiding match-ups of teams from same conference/regular season rematches as needed.
Rose: #2 Oregon vs #4 Ohio State
Citrus: #7 Miss. St. vs #8 Michigan State
2015
Rose: #6 Stanford vs #3 Michigan State
Sugar: #2 Alabama vs #4 Oklahoma
Orange: #1 Clemson vs #5 Iowa
Citrus: #12 Ole Miss vs #7 Ohio State
Peach: #9 Florida State vs #8 Notre Dame
Cotton: #11 TCU vs #10 UNC
Holiday: #15 Oregon vs #13 Northwestern
Fiesta: #18 Houston vs #14 Michigan
2016
Rose: #4 Washington vs #5 Penn State
Sugar: #1 Alabama vs #7 Oklahoma
Orange: #2 Clemson vs #3 Ohio State
Citrus: #14 Auburn vs #6 Michigan
Holiday: #9 USC vs #8 Wisconsin
Peach: #11 Florida State vs #10 Colorado
Cotton: #12 Okla. St. vs #13 Louisville
Fiesta: #15 W. Michigan vs #16 West Virginia
2017
Rose: #8 USC vs #5 Ohio State
Sugar: #3 Georgia vs #2 Oklahoma
Orange: #1 Clemson vs #4 Alabama
Citrus: #7 Auburn vs #6 Wisconsin
Peach: #10 Miami vs #9 Penn State
Holiday: #11 Wash. vs #14 Notre Dame
Fiesta: #12 UCF vs #13 Stanford
Cotton: #15 TCU vs #16 Michigan State
2018
Rose: #9 Washington vs #6 Ohio State
Sugar: #1 Alabama vs #4 Oklahoma
Orange: #2 Clemson vs #3 Notre Dame
Citrus: #5 Georgia vs #7 Michigan
Fiesta: #8 UCF vs #10 Florida
Holiday: #13 Wash. St. vs #11 LSU
Cotton: #15 Texas vs #12 Penn State
Peach: #20 Syracuse vs #14 Kentucky
2019
Rose: #6 Oregon vs #2 Ohio State
Sugar: #1 LSU vs #4 Oklahoma
Orange: #3 Clemson vs #5 Georgia
Citrus: #9 Florida vs #8 Wisconsin
Cotton: #7 Baylor vs #10 Penn State
Holiday: #11 Utah vs #12 Auburn
Fiesta: #17 Memphis vs #13 Alabama
Peach: #24 Virginia vs #14 Michigan
This system can also be applied retroactively to the BCS era itself. Because of the existence of the Big East, that conference would get the auto-bid to the Orange Bowl in place of the at-large berth, and their second team would go the Gator Bowl, which would serve as the ninth BCS bowl. Thus, the selection process would have been as follows:
1. Conference champions from AQ conferences are assigned to designated bowl games (Big Ten/Pac-10 to Rose, Big East/ACC to Orange, SEC/Big 12 to Sugar)
2. Highest ranked non-champion from each AQ conference is assigned to their designated bowl game (Big Ten/SEC to Citrus, ACC to Peach, Big 12 to Cotton, Big East to Gator, Pac-10 to Holiday).
3. Highest ranked non-AQ school is assigned to Fiesta Bowl.
4. Bowl games with at-large bids (Peach, Cotton, Gator, Holiday, Fiesta) are assigned order of selection based on the ranking of their auto-bid team.
5. At-large bids are assigned, based on rankings, down the order of selection, avoiding match-ups of teams from same conference/regular season rematches as needed.
Compared to the CFP era, using this system in the BCS era would have been more chaotic, due to the absence of the at-large bid in the Orange Bowl and the greater unevenness between conferences. Also, some of the stronger non-AQ schools (ie Utah and TCU) have since made their way into Power 5 conferences. Thus, we could have expected more bowl games (and more teams) to have been relevant to determining the national title game match-up.
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