Waiting for the Showdown

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

-I wouldn’t put any meaning in the close scores of the Michigan or Ohio State games this weekend. Both teams had the games firmly in control and substituted freely that allowed the Illini and Cardinals to make the games appear closer than they actually were.
-Mario Manningham played about 10 snaps for Michigan. They only threw one ball his way and it was badly overthrown. He appeared to be a decoy most of the day. I’m guessing he was about 85 to 90%. He’ll be ready for the trip to Columbus, if not before. So will starting Tes Mike Massy and Tyler Ecker. It will be the first time since the Wisconsin game that they’ve had the starting offense healthy.
-I didn’t see anything from L’ville or West Virginia that would leave me to believe that either of them are as good as the top teams from the SEC, Big Ten, or even Pac 10. They both have good offenses, although I think West Virginia’s is scarier because it is so unusal, but the defenses are shaky.
-That being said, if L’ville or Rutgers finish the season unbeaten, they should be in the title game, no questions asked. There’s no point in having the Big East in the BCS if you are going to snub an undefeated champion.
-That brings me to my the main reason why I support a college football playoff. I-A college football is the only sport where half the teams are mathematically eliminated from winning a championship before the season starts. We all know that Sam Houston State won’t win the NCAA basketball title this year, but they least have a chance, however small. As Utah proved a few years ago, most teams in I-A football have no chance to win a national title, no matter how well they do.
-My system would be a 16 team playoff, with the 11 conference champs and 5 at-large teams (no more than two from any conference), with first round games on campus in early December, the elite eight at neutral sites (former bowl sites) in mid to late December, the Final Four on New Year’s Day, and the Championship game a week later. The rest of the bowls could still be kept, they would be football’s equivalent to the NIT. This system would give every team a chance to win every year. Otherwise, there’s no reason to keep everyone in one division.
-They may or may not be the best conference, but year in year out, I think the SEC produces some of the most exciting games, in a low scoring, hard hitting, screwy ref kinda way. I thin LSU got lucky with the non-fumble call on what turned out to be their game winning drive. Of course that just made up for the bad calls they got at Auburn.