December Delirium?

Here we go ... my plans for the college football national championship. Call me crazy, but I think this would actually work - without much hacking involved. Not that anyone is listening, but that's beside the point ...

The roots of this are simple. They will look familiar to many as the structure, in many ways, is modeled after the March extravaganza that we call college basketball. Hey, it already works - why reinvent the wheel?

College basketball has a March Madness that ends in an April national championship. How about a December Dream ... or December Delirium ... that ends with a January national championship? Marketing mavens, start writing the theme music.

Let's look at the process in a step-by-step fashion ... then utilize it in a "fantasy 2008-2009 national championship". Hold on to your seats ...

1. Human polls will be eliminated. Computer rankings will still be used. Though they still require human input (to write the code), there is little to no conflict of interest or populartity contest involved. From about mid-season onwards, there would be a computer ranking issued simply for the sake of knowing the strength of the current teams, and the strength of the conferences. I am sure everyone out there reading this right now will be very sad to lose the human polls [insert sarcasm here].

2. There are 11 major conferences in what we know as the FBS. These are the SEC, WAC, Big East, Big 10, PAC 10, ACC, Big 12, Conference USA, Mountain West, MAC, and Sun Belt. There are four independents - Army, Navy, Notre Dame, and Western Kentucky - which will (eventually) be aligned with the eleven conferences (I know, I am asking a lot of Notre Dame and NBC [insert sarcasm again]). Most schools are playing at least 2 or 3 games that are "schedule padding". All teams will now go to an 11 game schedule as it used to be. This will shorten the season by 2 or 3 weeks.

3. All conferences will now have a conference championship. Plain and simple. Stop whining, PAC 10 and Big 10. Get on with the 21st century. Conference championships will be done by the end of November.

4. All conference champions get an automatic berth in the 16 team championship. This gives us 11 automatic bids. Now we have the basic framework for the "bowl/playoff" games.

5. The next 5 teams chosen will be the next 5 teams with the highest computer rankings. So if you were number 2 in your conference (i.e. Texas) but still have a high computer ranking (based on wins and strength of schedule), you will not only get in but will have a high seeding. This will benefit both stronger conferences and teams that play stronger non-conference schedules.

6. Teams 1 through 16 will be seeded based on their computer ranking ONLY. Again, no human influence on the rankings.

7. Playoffs would begin the week after the last conference championship. The first two rounds would end prior to Christmas break for the students.

8. Rounds 1 and 2 would utilize 12 existing bowl games. Some adjustment may be made with regards to dates and locations such that the higher-seeded teams would get a "regional" berth if possible. Regional preferences would be decided once the seedings have been finalized. The TV folks will be pleased with this. Again, this would operate similar to the college basketball seedings. I would propose having "East region" and "West region" bowl games. For example, the Sun (El Paso), Holiday (San Diego), Insight (Tempe) and Alamo (San Antonio) bowls would be first round West region bowl games, with the East region comprised of the Independence (Shreveport), Music City (Nashville), Chick Fil-A (Atlanta) and Outback (Tampa) bowls. Second round action would see the Fiesta (Glendale) and Cotton (Dallas) bowls in the West and Gator (Jacksonville) and Liberty (Memphis) bowls in the East. Of course, that depends on the fiscal health of any and all bowl games - I've just selected some current options based on history, etc. 

9. By the time December is over, there will be 4 teams remaining. This then leads to three games in January - two national semifinals in the first week, and the national schampionship in the second. These three games would also be existing bowl games (Sugar, Rose, and Orange), and would rotate annually for the honor of hosting the national championship game.

10. Voila ... a national champion is crowned, and I don't have a degree in rocket science to pull it off. Much hoopla. Mucho dineros. Happy people everywhere. 

So let's see how December Delirium would have impacted the 2008-2009 season. More to follow ...