npocs papes Annual citi bank Mythical ADT National Championship NCAA&T Tournament Presented by Verizon and Built by the Home Depot

First off allow me to open my first annual mythical championship bracket by saying that I am 100% against a playoff system in college football and it will NEVER ever EVER EVER occur. Not only because I am against it but it just one of those things that WILL not EVER EVER happen. With that being said, it is still fun to think of, because thinking does not require us to take into the logistical factors that are completly unfeasible.

But if the NCAA was going to do a playoff system (not that they will) it will look a little something like mine. And therefore each year I will present my system as well as the matchups, which I will simulate on NCAA 2005 on PS2 until we are down to one sole national champion.

Come to think of it, don't be shocked to see a similar system such as this being used in next season's EA Sports college football game. Create your own playoff, you heard it hear first.

Without further ado, allow me to present to my loyal readers first my selection process.

Since we are completly ignoring feasibility to a certain extent I will go ahead and make this a 32-team tournament field. The selection process will rely mostly on conference strenght. Every conference will have atleast one qualifier to give the Sun Belt something to look forward to besides a December 20 New Orleans bowl.

The amount of invites each conference will receive will depend on the conferences record in out of conference play along with strength of schedule. This will give those early season Ohio State/Texas games some meaning still and encourage more scheduling along those lines.

With 32 teams we have some invitations to give out here. With still one week of college football remaining, the amount of slots each conference is given has already been determined, since out of conference games are done with.
Upsets in the Big XII title and ACC title could alter the at large berths but everything else is certain.

The unique conferece rating system will truly allow for some excellent comparisons. All 11 Division-1A conferences are guaranteed atleast one berth but if for some reason a Division-1 AA conference should surpass one of the D-1A conferences then they also will be allowed one team in.
Hows that for cinderalla.

Until npoc can develop a successful formula of his own we will just go ahead and borrow from Jeff Sagarin's rankings from the USA Today. The computer genius himself, who knows more about coffee than football, but yet can still rank teams better than most sports writers and former coaches, sids etc..

Conference Rankings
1) Big Ten 82 pts
2) ACC 78 pts
3) Pac-10 77 pts
4) Big XII 76 pts
5) SEC 75 pts
6) Big East 73 pts
7) Mountain West 70 pts
8) Conference USA 66 pts
9) Mid-American 64 pts
10)WAC 61 pts
11) Gateway (AA) 56 pts
12) Sun Belt 55 pts

With the rankings as they stand now, Gateway Division1-AA will sneak into the playoff picture. The SunBelt will still be able to send a team. When looking for at-large berths, independent teams will get a first look rather than grouping them into a division format.

The point system will have a scale corresponding to the amount of guaranteed berths. The team rankings within their own conference will be based on their final conference win total, after the conference championship games (therefore rewarding teams that participate in conference championship games as a loss cannot hurt them.)

80+ points = 4 berths
75-79 points = 3 berths
70-74 points = 2 berths
69 and below = 1 berth

The reamining will be chosen by a selection committee who will base it off of the BCS standings, as well as the Sagarin rankings. Much like the NCAA basketball committee utlizing the RPI, the formulas are not meant to be a definite but a good guiding index.
The tiebreaker for conference bids after conference record is the BCS ranking of the school.

Using the grading scale we can send out bids to the conferences as follows:
Big 10 4 Bids
Penn State
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Michigan

ACC 3 Bids
Virginia Tech
Miami (Fla.)
Boston College (pending conference championship game)

Pac-10 3 Bids
USC
Oregon
UCLA

Big XII 3 Bids
Texas
Texas Tech
Oklahoma

SEC 3 Bids
LSU
Auburn
Georgia

Big East 2 Bids
West Virginia
Louisville

Mountain West 2 Bids
TCU
BYU

Conference USA
UCF (pending conference championship game)

Mid-American
Northern Illinois (pending conference championship game)

Western Athletic Conference
Boise State (pending final conference game)

Gateway Conference (Divison 1-AA)
Northern Iowa

So our current field looks like this
USC
Texas
Penn State
LSU
Virginia Tech
Ohio State
Oregon
Miami (Fla.)
Auburn
West Virginia
UCLA
Georgia
TCU
Texas Tech
Wisconsin
Michigan
Boston College
Louisville
Oklahoma
Boise State
UCF
BYU
Northern Illinois
Northern Iowa

With 24 teams in through automatic bids, that leaves the door open for eight at-large berths for our selection committee to decide on.
After countless hours of deliberation the selection committe has decided on these eight teams to round out the field of 32:

Notre Dame
Alabama
Florida
Northwestern
Georgia Tech
Fresno State
Iowa
South Carolina

So finally our field of 32 is now set and we can begin setting matchups. Our selection committe will rank the teams 1-32 and we will set the matchups from there in early December, before finals week. The games will take place at the campuses of the top 16 seeds.

Official Rankings
1)USC
2) Texas
3) LSU
4) Penn State
5) Virginia Tech
6) Oregon
7) Auburn
8) Ohio State
9) Notre Dame
10) UCLA
11) Georgia
12) Miami (Fla.)
13) West Virginia
14) Alabama
15) Texas Tech
16) Wisconsin
17) Michigan
18) Florida
19) TCU
20) Louisville
21) Northwestern
22) Oklahoma
23) Boston College
24) Fresno State
25) Georgia Tech
26) Iowa
27) South Carolina
28) Boise State
29) Northern Illinois
30) UCF
31) BYU
32) Northern Iowa

The games, locations and times will be announced tomorrow. Check back than for the matchups.


-n