Replacing the BCS… what I would like to see.

Here is my plan for the BCS system:

• Break up all of the current conferences. ALL of them. Rebuild the conferences based on strict regional grouping.
• Each new conference contains 12 teams comprised of an A league (6 teams) and a B league (the other 6 teams). Each year, the bottom two teams from A league drop down to B league and the top two B league teams move up. I think English Premier League soccer is similar to this, though I have not closely researched their system.
• All A league teams play each other. Same for the B league, so that is five regional games.
• Each team in the A league plays three teams from the B league and vice-versa.
• Every team needs to play two out-of-region teams in their league each year. So based on the 2010-2011 season, Oregon (A league) next year would have to play a team from the central United States, say, Oklahoma (A) and a eastern team, maybe Alabama (A). These games would be determined by the previous seasons standings.
• Every team plays two “grudge” games each year against any team from anywhere in any league. These games allow out-of-region rivalries to be maintained. (Missouri vs. Illinois. Nebraska vs. Oklahoma, Notre Dame vs. USC, etc.) The games can also be used as “warm-up” games if no “rivalry” game needs to be maintained.
• At the end of the year, the top 8 or 12 or 16 ranked teams play a tournament to determine the champion, and the rest can play in traditional bowl games for bragging rights. The B league also has a championship, but few if any bowl games for the mid-packers. The teams in the tournament are determined by computers — or by elaborate dancing with incense and tacos — because I’m not going to spend a whole bunch of time addressing “strength of schedule” subtleties in this post. A team with a 10 win and 2 lose season not making the Stupendous Sixteen will have less to complain about, compared to an undefeated team stuck in 3rd place. I’m looking about you, TCU.
• Tournament sites also host non-tournament bowl games on the same weekends. This gives the city an opportunity to create a festival atmosphere over a few days. For instance, in the New Orleans Superdome, you get the Wendall’s Widgets Bowl on Thursday, the Fried Cheese Bowl on Friday and the 1st round of the southeast region on Saturday. All weekend long, partying in the streets. The following weekend in Texas Stadium in Dallas, you get the Bacon Sausage Bowl on Thursday, the Albatross Cellular Bowl on Friday and round two of the championship. This continues on until the championship weekend which ends with the the two best teams not to make the tournament in the Thursday night Electronic Onion Bowl, the B league championship on Friday and the A league championship on Saturday. The site for the finals changes every year.
• I know this system does not take into account money, which I know is the primary force behind college football, just let me live in my naive dream world.

So here is a couple of possible schedules for next year, based on how my two favorite teams did this year.

Nebraska (A league)

1. East Central Dakota Tech (warm-up)
2. Florida (out of region)
3. Arizona State (out of region)
4. Kansas (B)
5. Iowa State (B)
6. South Dakota (B)
7. Iowa (A)
8. Kansas State (A)
9. Missouri (A)
10. Minnesota (A)
11. Wisconsin (A)
12. Oklahoma (grudge)

Kansas (B league)

1. Upper Carolina State (warm-up)
2. New Mexico State (out of region)
3. New Hampshire (out of region)
4. Nebraska (A)
5. Missouri (A)
6. Kansas State (A)
7. Iowa State (B)
8. Northwestern (B)
9. South Dakota (B)
10. Northern Iowa (B)
11. North Dakota (B)
12. Colorado (grudge)