I have a plan to save you!

By Dr. Charles P. Ipswich IV
University Professor

Hello, squires. Today I've been reclining in my maroon leather chair, nestled deep inside the English department of my local university at which I am employed. It's been a bit of a slow day here, and as such, I've been scanning the periodicals that are available to me online here on the Internet. There's lots of interesting reading, much of which I can print out to bring with me as I make my thrice-daily trips to the bog. Bloke's got to have his fiber, you know.

It seems that the big problem on this day is the rubbish that has come from your collegiate American football playoff system entitled the Bowl Championship Series. Academic institutions all over this nation seem to think that they deserve a chance to play for the title of the best American football squad in this land!

My, my isn't it a big mess! From reading the rags, it looks like you allow some mix of computers and human voting to determine who plays in the game. And there is only one game that determines the winner and all of the other clubs are left out in the cold. Codswallop!

How can this system possibly be used to determine the best sporting gents in this country? Just thinking about the randomness of a such an event makes me lose my knickers in a fit of vitriolic vitriol. Why, it's almost enough to make me hurl my half-full tea cup across the room towards my framed portrait of Winston Churchill.

A new system simply must be put in place. If this is not done immediately, I will declare your sport to be a farce. Don't you know that sample sizes are the only way to determine who the best team is? You cannot choose teams seemingly at random and then give them a one-game playoff and call them a champion. No, no. That would be as foolish as visiting the Glyndebourne Opera House on a full stomach so as you could not enjoy a pre-concert picnic before seeing a full-voiced baritone nearly blast the historic doors off the building with his rendition of Les pêcheurs de perles by George Bizet.

What you must do with your Bowl Championship Series of American Football is make it so randomness is unable to affect the outcome. If you truly desire in your heart that the best team is the winner, this must be the structure of this year's playoffs, as I propose it:

- You must include the top 16 teams in the nation, as voted on by a selection of no fewer than 30,000 college head coaches across the country, so as to eliminate any margin of error.
- The top fourteen teams receive a first-round bye
- Teams 15 and 16 play a five-game playoff on consecutive nights
- The winner of this game takes on Team 14 in a three-game tilt.
- The winner of that game plays Team 13 in a three-game tilt. This gives us the top 12 teams in the nation, removing the proverbial fat from the bottom of the barrel.
- The top four teams receive another bye. You then pair the matchups off as 4 vs. 12, 5 vs. 11, 6 vs. 10 and so forth. Each of these matchups is played as a seven-game series, much like the World Series of Baseball.
- Two days of rest
- After this, you would be left with eight teams. You may then go with a traditional "Elite Eight" format that seeds the teams accordingly. These series will be standard best-of-nine formats. Games will be rotated by home venue and played on a every-other-night schedule.
- The winners of this will compose the first "Final Four" of college football, to be held at a neutral site, far away from the influence of possible home crowds and snare drums. Given the geographic calculations I have found here, the Final Four should be held at Azadi Stadium in Iran. It is a large venue that seats 90,000 people and will not allow a home-field advantage to affect the outcome of the game and also allow one to take advantage of the necessary corporate sponsorship that are sure to be interested in these games.
- The semifinal matches will have altered rules, due to the likely attrition of players during the long playoff system. Each game will feature two 30-minute halves and feature 7-on-7 flag football rules. The semifinal teams will play a best-of-nine series with three games played per day. The outcome of this will provide a championship match.
- The championship match will then be moved to another site large enough to accommodate the likely interest in the greatest sporting event in the world -- the Championship of the Pure Athletes Who are Unpaid and Play Purely for the Love of the Game. Appropriately, we must move the event to the largest outdoor venue in existence: Rungrado May Day Stadium, located in Pyongyang, North Korea. The stadium seats 150,000 people, which should be sufficient.
- Each team will be allowed one week to rest for the Final Championship Series. Then, they will travel to the stadium and battle in a best-of-15 series that will truly showcase the best collegiate football team in America. The games will return to original football rules, in full pad regalia.

As with every plan, there is a downside, and this is that the regular season would be substantially decreased by my proposed playoff system. In my estimation, the new Bowl Championship Series Extravaganza would last approximately 44 weeks. This would only allow for each college football team to play three games in the regular season, and it would also shorten the football offseason to a mere five weeks. However, I feel this is still a better system than the one currently have in place.

Someone get the NCAA on the phone. I've got a plan!