Woohoo! January Madness . . .

. . . oh, wait, it would be if NCAA Div I college football had a playoff system like every other sport, instead you have "BCS Selection Sunday" and lots and lots of questions.

You can't have a 64 team tourney like basketball, but 12 seems like a reasonable number.

Here's the way I'd do it, the top 4 teams get byes for the first week, 5 seed plays 12, 6 plays 11, 7 plays 10, and 8 plays 9, then reseed the games each week of the playoffs.

If a top 4 seed wins it all, they only play 3 playoff games, if a lower seed makes it to the championship game, then they play an extra four games. I think the scholar-athletes on those squads can handle that kind of schedule.

If you had this system this year you'd have #1 Ohio State, #2 LSU, #3 VATech, #4 Oklahoma would get byes in the first week, and the 4 match ups for the first week would be:

#5 Georgia v #12 Florida
#6 Missouri v #11 Arizona State
#7 USC v #10 Hawaii
#8 Kansas v #9 West Virginia

That's a pretty good weekend of college football right there, or if you don't want to conflict with the NFL, have the games on Mon/Tue, they'll pull in the ratings no problem. Georgia beat Florida in their previous game, but it should make for a fun rematch. Missouri and ASU match up well. USC v Hawaii would be awesome, a great offense facing off against a great defense, with two excellent coaches scheming against each other (probably be 62-42 USC, though). Kansas v West Virginia would be interesting.

Let the top 4 seeds host the winners of the first round, but then have the semi-finals and championship game be at neutral sites.

Might as well make predictions based on my hypotheticals, WV would edge Kansas, USC would thump Hawaii, ASU would surprise Missouri, Florida would upset Georgia.

That would set up:

#1 Ohio St v #12 Florida, with a rusty Ohio St team falling to a quicker and better prepared Gators squad
#2 LSU v #11 ASU with ASU giving LSU a fight, but falling in the end to a better team
#3 VATech v #9 WV in an Appalachian battle with VATech triumphing
#4 Oklahoma v #7 USC playing in a game worthy of a championship with multiple lead changes, big plays on offense and defense, and an OT victory by the Trojans

The following week of NCAA playoffs would have

#2 LSU v #12 Florida and the Florida magic running out, LSU would bury them.
#3 VATech v #7 USC with the Trojans controlling the game from start to finish on both sides of the ball.

The championship (which probably should have been the championship this year, anyway, screw Ohio St) would be between USC and LSU in the Superdome. Other than being a great game, I have no prediction for that potential contest.

Can anyone tell me that the scenario I show above would be worse than the system we have now?