The Playoff Problem: Front Page

The Playoff Problem starts out by asking questions that are supposed to force us to gnash our teeth in frustration before weeping in hopeless despair and begging the BCS to take from us this terribly difficult dilemma. Unfortunately, these questions have many, plausible possibilities. The following is a system whose origin has been claimed by several people, and it’s my favorite.

Who would participate?
The eleven conference champions, with five remaining teams at the top of the BCS rankings (see, you still get to keep your silly rankings).

How many automatic qualifiers?
Sixteen, but thanks for the redundancy.

What would be the criteria to qualify?
As mentioned, conference championships and BCS standings.

What would be the criteria for seedings?
BCS rankings.

Where would the games be played?
At the stadiums of the higher seeded teams. This is my favorite part. As Wetzel pointed out yesterday, what truly marks college ball from pro is the pageantry and excitement generated on campus. A playoff system is able to capitalize on that. However, the championship game should be rotated among the traditional BCS bowls.

When would the games be played?
Every other week in December and January.

If you could resolve all that would everyone be satisfied? NO!!
Like I was telling my students today, watch out for sticky words like “all” and “everyone.” Of course not everyone would be satisfied, especially you, BCS-mongers. But as Voltaire said (and listen up because this is the only time I’ll quote Voltaire): Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Is this system perfect? Of course not. Is it better than the current one? Yes. If society waits to change until we can be sure EVERYONE is happy, the best of human progress would never have occurred.

The final two paragraphs are strawmen. No one ever said we have to do eight teams and only the top eight. Clearly, there are alternatives. And the “bracket creep” (in which you start with x number of teams, that turns into y, and z, and before you know it, you have fifty-bajillion teams in the playoffs) is subject to the slippery slope logical fallacy.

Nice try, BCS. Maybe you’ll convince tomorrow with your “Facts and Figures.”