Florida president ready to push football playoff plan

Finally, a college football president will come to the table with a plan for a college football playoff.

There are things that Machen must remember as he puts his plan together:

1. You must include part of the current bowl system. Schools will not leave their financial partners out in the cold.

2. You must include all six of the BCS conference champions.

3. You must include an opportuniy for non-BCS conference teams to get in. I think it has to be a significant chance also, not a cursory move. It can't be anything like the fifth BCS game, which is there to get the smaller conferences out of the courtroom.

4. It can only go one more week into January.

Will all this in mind, I propose my latest playoff plan.


1. Conference champions from Big East, ACC, SEC, Big XII, Pac-10, and Big 10 get automatic bids.

2. Next four highest ranked teams get bids. Rankings methods are TBD, but I prefer an unbiased (if that is possible) committee. If that seems unattainable, how about one representative (not a coach) from each school in Division I?

3. Top six seeds get first round byes. During the week before Christmas, Seed #10 plays at seed #7 and Seed #9 plays at seed #8. Profit goes to conferences on a 60-40 split to home team conference.

4. Two plans here:

A. During traditional New Years day games, next round (four games) is played at traditional four major bowl sites with as much consideration given as possible to home team geography. Next three games are rotated with a location getting the national championship every four years. These games are played on consecutive weeks.

B. Add three more major bowl sites: The new Dallas Cowboys arena, either of the domed stadiums in Minneapolis or Indianapolis, and the football stadium in Charlotte, NC. Put these stadums in the rotation, consider home team geography for the quarterfinals (round of eight) and each stadium gets a national championship game every seven years. The games would also start during the traditional New Years games and be played on consecutive weeks.

The plan gets ten teams in with four at-large, which is plenty to consider non-BCS teams and get those other good teams that do not win their conference.

Bernie... are you listening?

2007 Season - The Calm Before the Storm

We are now three months from the first game. Three months from finding out if Tim Tebow is for real. Three months from finding out if USC can now step it up with John David Booty in his second year as a starter. Three months to find out if anyone can challenge Oklahoma and Texas in the Big XII. Three months to find out if West Virginia can ride two superstars to a national championship.

We start our work now as we analyze each conference between now and September. We then will combine them all together for an overall picture.

Check back every couple of weeks to see whats up...

The Real Top Sixteen: A Playoff Preview...

Now that the season is truly over, let's go back and look at who the best teams are. There are some close calls of course, but the truth has come out and think we have some clear cut winners.

What follows are the matchups for the iTwentyFive playoff. I wrote about this on
e-sports.com about six years ago. I think it would be an awesome system for a playoff.

The way it would work is that sixteen teams would be picked (method to be decided, for this year I used my top sixteen). The first round would be played at the home site of the top seeded teams. That would leave seven game sites remaining. Four would be the big four (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange), and the other three would be some upper tier bowls (Gator, Cotton, Holiday, Peach, Capitol One, etc...) in a rotation. The big four would get the national semi-finals and the championship game. The site that had held the previous Championship game would be a quarter final site (That would be the Rose this year). The big four would rotate position from year to year.

The games would start after finals and take four weeks.

As to the other bowls - they could still play and be just as relevant as they are now (And I hope they aren't too delusional about how important they are now).

I will give results for these games over every weekend between now and the beginning of the year and we will see who our true national champion is...

The Games for Round One:

#16 Rutgers at #1 Ohio State - Can the Scarlet Knight defense slow down Troy Smith and Ted Ginn. Can Ray Rice run on the Buckeye defense. This is a matchup worthy of a playoff

#9 Arkansas at #8 Wisconsin - Has Wisconsin ever seen speed like this? Can the Razorbacks perform in possible freezing temperatures? Can Wisconsin move the ball on a very active Arkansas defense?

#12 Notre Dame at #5 Louisiana State - Notre Dame gets one more shot to prove itself against a top notch opponent after going 0-2 this year. LSU gets to play pitch and catch against a weak ND defense.

#13 Wake Forest at #4 Louisville - Can anyone play methodically and beat Louisville? Didn't rutgers do that? Can the Louisville defense keep Wake Forest from scoring? If they can stop them just a couple times, will that be enough for the Brian Brohm machine?

#15 Boise State at #2 Florida - Is there an offense that can score on the Florida defense? Can the Florida offense stop giving opponents free rides into games? Can Boise State continue its magical season ?

#10 Auburn at #7 Oklahoma - Alright Stoops you're in the playoff, now how do you stop Kenny Irons? Auburn, can you stop the newly healed Adrian Petersen, who now has a last game at home?

#14 Tennessee at #3 Michigan - The Volunteers go the Big House to see if the Wolverines are all that. Can Eric Ainge and his core of wide receivers carve up the Michigan secondary like Troy Smith did?How many yards will Mike Hart get on a suspect Tennessee rush defense?

#11 West Virginia at #6 Southern Cal - A chance to rebound after the loss at UCLA, but not a chance to rest. Can Steve Slayton slice his way through an adequate Trojan D? How many points will USC score on WVU? Anyone have an abacus?

The Cy-Fair Devil Rays Need Your Help!!!

The CyFair Devil Rays are looking for your help. Next season we would like to get our own name and our own uniforms. The problem is the coaches won't let our parents buy them... we must earn the money ourselves. We found this great way to raise money where we don't have to do door to door selling and we get 40% of all of the sales. All we ask you to do is renew a subscription or two of magazines you already get, maybe even get a few more because the prices are so great. Regardless of whether you contibute or not, feel free to send us suggestions for our name next year.

(UPDATE) - We finished in third place during the spring and in second in the summer. We are looking to head to the top of the league this fall. We have started off 2-0 by winning 15-3 and 13-5.

You can contribute at: http://www.magfundraising.com/CyFairDevilRays

See how we are doing this fall at our website: www.cyfairdevilrays.com

Thank you.

The Cy-Fair Devil Rays 11 and under / Single A baseball team

Why USC will beat Texas tomorrow

The question is running around all the blogs and sportswriters... who will win the big game, who will prevail as college football's national champion on Wednesday? It's really an easy question. Southern Cal should dominate like they always do when it's all on the line. We all have heard of teams willing themselves to a win, but this incarnation of the Trojans have done it time and time again. I don't know if it is maturity or toughness. I have no idea what it is - but they have it and they use it to win games that they shouldn't. They have been behind by more than 10 points in five games the past two years and they they have one every single one of them. Why is that?

The coach.

I have always been a big believer that coaches in college football make all the difference. The way they train their players to react to situations, both emotionally and physically, make the difference between winners and losers. Coach Carroll has found the elusive way to the college football player's soul the way not many before him have been able to. He motivates, pushes, prods, encourages, talks, ignores, and works with these kids in a way that gets them ready for any situation. They face it once and succeed and then the rest becomes very easy. They know what they need to do and how they need to do it thanks to the coach.

Mack Brown is a very successful coach. He recruits great talent and they play hard. They have not played with adversity to the degree that USC has. Except for the Ohio State game, the closest game this year has been eleven points. When hit with adversity the past few years (Oklahoma), they have crumbled with one exception, last years Rose Bowl against Michigan. But Michigan was no USC and Ohio State at the beginning of the year was no USC. Only USC is USC and they can bring it it like no other.

Texas will crumble... early. I expect a 17 point game by halftime and another 25-30 point blowout as USC cements themselves as one of the best, if not the best, college football teams of all time.

My prediction... USC 45 Texas 16

Weis puts football in its place with a great play call

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis showed his team Saturday that there is more to life than football by making a play call that very few other coaches in college football would make.

People like Coach Weis make defending the game to the naysayers so much easier. It's easy see where he may not only be building a winning team, he is building winning people.

USC tops first iTwentyFive poll of the college football season

The Southern Cal Trojans start off the year as the number one team in the land in the initial iTwentyFive poll for the 2005 season.

They are followed in the poll by Texas and Virginia Tech. The top five is closed out by SEC rivals Tennessee and Lousiana State.

Louisville starts out at No. 6 with Florida State very close behind. Georgia and Notre Dame are virtually tied with the Florida Gators close behind closing out the top ten.

The Big Ten has three teams in the second ten starting at Nos. eleven and twelve with Purdue and Ohio State respectively. The ACC has the next three teams: Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), and Boston College. Boston College is tied with California at No. 15.

Clemson slots at No. 17 with Michigan right on their tail. Big Twelve members Iowa State and Texas Tech round out the top twenty.

Virginia captures the No. 21 spot with Fresno State and Arizona State following. UCLA and Alabama close the poll.