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the polls are too confusing, cant we just get rid of them?

I like the idea of using the BCS Poll to determine a sort of playoff order with say 16 teams having a playoff. The field is deep enough that while there will be some whining, the 17th team likely wasn't cheated out of anything. Going with that, every team will have to earn its way to the national title game. However, I dislike the human polls having so much weight tied to them (2/3 of the equation), especially when we had California ranked so high (and they lost to an unranked Texas Tech for crying out loud!) and a team like Virginia Tech ranked lower than it should have been.

I really like the idea of using bowl games as the playoff system and it is the only way that it is going to work because of the financial factor. ESPN had an example of it (maybe up to two years ago now) on one of their countdown shows so that makes me think that that thought is out there somewhere but nobody wants to act on it. You can take the 5 major bowls now and rotate them around so that 1 has the championship and the other 4 have the semi games. It couldnt go any further than 16 teams because they would have to play an awful lot of games (or cut back down to 11 no matter what for everyone) Too bad they care about money too much to solve the problem easily.

why not take the winners of each major conference...group all the other minor conferences into one and play all the winners in a playoff atmosphere...sure there'll be teams left out that are better than those that are in...but look at major sports...there are some teams with better records than others...but just because they're in a different conference or different division they don't get in...and that's it, they accept it. It could work in college too...

Erm, I think if we're gonna have the BCS and the playoffs, we should have the best of the best. Top 16 BCS spots and no favorites. All 6 power conferences should be able to make it (with Louisville in the Big East at least) and most will have 2 or 3 teams in. Just the way it is. And if none of the 6 major slips a team in, too bad. Play better football.

a playoff bracket that would let everybody in would be the best because of no complaining, plus it would take care of strength of schedule, go by conference records alone, then go into iinterconference and then semis then championship, it would work out fine, just money is the only factor, but they could have sponsors on the playoff games like they do with the bowls (TOSTITOS Fiesta Bowl) the strenght of schedule problem would be eliminated, because you play seeded.

I just read an interesting article in (i think) Athlon or something to that affect. Anyway, they set up their own playoff system, using bowls much the way ESPN had. Each #1 team gets an opening round home game and rest are bowl games used within the brackets. It used 16 teams. They then talked to many in college football about what they thought about the idea. They were split on what they thought but the main knocks against it were $$$ which we already talked about but also academics. Having this playoff this way would keep the players out of the classroom for an extended period of time and during finals. Of course, by finals week only 4-8 teams would be affected but it is another aspect of that side (not that im at all not for a playoff system) Their systems seemed very fair as the major bowls rotated title and regional games, but also the lower bowls got a rotation up to host a regional game themselves. They also added that teams that didnt qualify get extra practice days alloted so that they arent put behind just b/c they didnt make it in. It was definatlely a well thought out plan that could be implemented.

they could postpone the playoffs untill most finals are completeed, inwhich doing, giving practice time

I think the BCS should count the two polls combined for one point, the strength of schedule (going simply by the record of all of their opponents combined, no conference favorites) as half a point, and since their opponent's competition must factor into their record, the overall win-loss percentage of their opponent's opponents as another half point. Then you could add in perhaps, overall record, record at home and away, and all that stuff. And leave the whole conference thing out, as the toughness would already be factored in by the winning percent of opponents and opponent's opponents. And well, as far as margin of victory (or defeat) being included, um, that's hard to say. But they could do it a lot better than having human polls being 2/3 (or even half) of the equation.

could work