The Rant's 1st Annual Football Playoff

The Reitmeyer Rant College Football Playoff

Every year around this time people are discussing the possibility of having a playoff for college football, so instead of just discussing the matter, I decided create a system and forecast the games. Here we go.

This would be a 16-team playoff, played in four geographical regions, similar to the NCAA Tournament. Teams would be seeded 1-16, with the top 4 seeds determining their geographical regions. Here are some guidelines that I created for the selection and seeding process.

*There would be 8 automatic bids given to the winners of each of these conferences: ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Big East, Mountain West, PAC-10, SEC and WAC. That would fill out half of you field. The other 8 spots would be at large spots.

*Any school that finishes the season in the Top 10 and wins their conference and their conference is not one of the eight automatic qualifying conferences gets an automatic at-large spot.

*The at-large spots, as well as seeding go based on your average result in the human polls (AP and coaches). If there is a tie, the team with the best win (win versus the highest ranked team) is selected. If neither team have a win versus a ranked opponent, or they share a same opponent then the team with the most overall wins is selected.

*No more than 3 schools per conference is allowed to make the tournament.

*If a school is a Top 4 seed, then they cannot play another conference foe until the semi-finals.

As for where these games would be played, that is a little tricky, but I think I came up with a pretty good solution.

*All 1st round games would be played at the home venue of the top seeds. These games would be played on the 3rd Saturday in December.

*All 2nd round games would be played at a predetermined location depending on your geographical region. The 4 regions would be EAST, WEST, SOUTH, MIDWEST. These games would be played on the 4th Saturday in December.

*I have come up with 38 different venues in these regions that you could host these games.

EAST REGION: Gillette Stadium in Boston, Fed-Ex Field in Washington, The New Meadowlands in NJ, Lincoln Financial in Philadelphia, M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, Cleveland Browns Stadium in Cleveland, Carrier Dome in Syracuse.

WEST REGION: Rose Bowl in Pasadena, LA Coliseum in Los Angeles, The Sun Bowl in El Paso, Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, University of Phoenix Stadium in Phoenix, Qwest Field in Seattle, Candlestick in San Francisco, Invesco Filed in Denver, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.
SOUTH REGION: Back of America Stadium in Charlotte, Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Municipal Stadium in Jacksonville, Landshark Stadium in Miami, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, LP Field in Nashville, Superdome in New Orleans, The Alamo Dome in San Antonio, Reliant Stadium in Houston

MIDWEST REGION: Soldier Field in Chicago, Ford Field in Detroit, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, Texas Stadium in Austin, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, HHH Dome in Minnesota, Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

In the selections I tried to use stadiums that are big enough to hold such an event and in cities that are also able to host that many visitors. As you can see, most of these are in NFL stadiums, but some bigger college venues were also selected. There would be no rule against playing in your home city or even home stadium. Tickets sales would be sold 50-50, so even with a home field advantage, the fan bases should even out.

*3rd round/semi-final games would go back to the home site of the top remaining seeds. These games would be played on the 5th Saturday of December or the 1st Saturday of January.

*4th round/championship game would be played in a previously determined warm weather site.

This is what the seeding would look like this season.

1. Alabama (SEC Champion)
2. Texas (Big XII Champion)
3. TCU (Mountain West Champion)
4. Cincinnati (Big East Champion)
5. Florida (at-large)
6. Boise State (WAC Champion)
7. Oregon (PAC-10 Champion)
8. Ohio State (Big Ten Champion)
9. Georgia Tech (ACC Champion)
10. Penn State (at-large)
11. Iowa (at-large)
12. Virginia Tech (at-large)
13. LSU (at-large)
14. Miami (at-large)
15. BYU (at-large)
16. Pitt (at-large)

This would be the schedule and match-ups for the playoff under this format this season.

SOUTH REGION, Regional Final played in Atlanta, GA
Games played on Saturday Dec 19th

16. Pitt @ 1. Alabama
9. Georgia Tech @ 8. Ohio State

MIDWEST REGION, Regional Final played in Dallas, TX
Games played on Saturday Dec 19th

15. BYU @ 2. Texas
10. Penn State @ 7. Oregon

WEST REGION, Regional Final played in Phoenix, AZ
Games played on Saturday Dec 19th

14. Miami @ 3. TCU
11. Iowa @ 6. Boise State

EAST REGION, Regional Final played Boston, MA
Games played on Saturday Dec 19th

13. LSU @ 4. Cincinnati
12. Virginia Tech @ 5. Florida

Regional final games would be played on Saturday December 26th at a neutral site.

National Semi-final games would be played on Saturday January 2nd at the home field on the top two remaining seeds. There would be re-seeding for the national semi-finals.

The National Championship would be played on the Monday after the first week of the NFL playoffs, in this case it would be Monday January 11th.

Three reasons that the universities claim not to want a playoff at the D1 level are:

1. LENGTH OF SEASON. Well this format does extend the season by 4 whole days. With the recent addition of the extra BCS National Championship game the season already runs through the entire first week on January, what is an extra 3-4 days?

2. TRAVEL. Well fans already travel for bowl games and the universities count on them to do so, but this format gives you 2 games on a home field and 1 game on a geographically regional site. So you could technically go to all 4 games without much more travel then you would for say a conference championship game and a bowl game.

3. TOO MANY GAMES. This is the biggest joke of them all. 90% of these games would be played while the kids are on winter break first of all, and secondly if it is okay to do it at every other level why wouldn’t it work at the top level? The student athletes in the other levels are all doing it and those kids are true student athletes. Those players will most likely need their degree for job opportunities after graduation. There are more D1 players that will make it to the NFL than all the other levels combined, yet these kids need to be in class more? Their education is more important than the kid who will need his degree for a job after college?

Stay tuned for the results of the 1st round of The Reitmeyer Rant Playoff.