Earlier I posted my plan for an NCAA Divison I-A football tournament (If you haven’t read that you’ll want to do so before reading this). Here’s what this year’s tournament would look like in my plan.

The tournament teams are as follows (for this scenario I’ll just use the final BCS rankings, and because my plan only seeds the top 8 teams I’ll leave off the ranking for the other teams). This can stay as just the BCS Top 16 because all the conference champions and the undefeated team (Hawaii) are already in the BCS top 16.

1. Ohio State (Big Ten)
2. LSU (SEC)
3. Virginia Tech (ACC)
4. Oklahoma (Big 12)
5. Georgia (SEC)
6. Missouri (Big 12)
7. USC (Pac 10)
8. Kansas (Big 12)
West Virginia (Big East)
Hawaii (WAC)
Arizona State (Pac 10)
Florida (SEC)
Illinois (Big Ten)
Boston College (ACC)
Clemson (ACC)
Tennessee (SEC)

Who’s left on the outside looking in? #17 BYU, #18 Wisconsin, #19 Texas, #20 Virginia. None of them have any legitimate claim that they should be in the top 10. Just like in basketball and the other levels of NCAA football there will be bubble teams who complain, but in this scenario the teams complaining have no claim that they’re THE best team in the country - this year there are a few teams who could make that claim who won’t be playing for the title.

First Round (played Friday night 12/7 and Saturday 12/8):
1. Ohio State vs. West Virginia (205 miles) [WVU def OSU]
2. LSU vs. Boston College (1578 miles) [LSU def BC]
3. Virginia Tech vs. Florida (623 miles) [FL def VT]
4. Oklahoma vs. Arizona State (1036 miles) [OK def ASU]
5. Georgia vs. Clemson (78 miles) [Georgia def Clemson]
6. Missouri vs. Tennessee (608 miles) [TN def Mizzou]
7. USC vs. Hawaii (2500 miles) [USC def Hawaii]
8. Kansas vs. Illinois (457 miles) [Illinois def Kansas]

It’s impossible for all the games to be a driveable distance, but five of the eight are within a reasonable day’s drive. Some great geographic matchups too - Ohio State vs. West Virginia would be very good, and Georgia vs. Clemson would be epic. Think what the ratings would be for some of those games. The networks would pay tens of millions for the broadcast rights. Split the first round between two networks (say ABC and CBS, and each network airs one game Friday night and three games Saturday, with staggered times so viewers could see the end of every game all weekend. It would be like the first weekend of March Madness, but for football. ABC could air a game at 6pm Friday and games at 11am, 2:30pm, and 6pm Saturday; CBS could air a game at 8pm Friday and games at 1pm, 4:30pm, and 8pm Saturday.

Based on my predicted winners above (four of the seeded teams lost), here’s what’s next.

Second Round (played Friday night 12/14 and Saturday 12/15)
West Virginia vs. Illinois [WV def ILL]
#2 LSU vs. #7 USC [LSU def USC]
Florida vs. Tennessee [FL def TN]
#4 Oklahoma vs. #5 Georgia [GA def OK]

I didn’t plan it this way, but this gives two matchups of seeded teams and two matchups of unseeded teams. What kind of atmosphere would it be in the Swamp or at Rocky Top for that Florida-Tennessee game? And the LSU-USC matchup? Oklahoma-Georgia would be a great game too.

Now the teams have a little more than two weeks off since New Year’s Day is on Tuesday this year. Some years the teams may have a little less than two weeks off, but it’ll still be a good enough break for the four remaining teams to get rested and prepared, yet not get rusty (like Ohio State’s absurd 50 day layoff between its last game and its appearance in the title game this year).

National Semifinal Games (Tuesday, January 1)
West Virginia vs. Georgia (Rose Bowl) [Georgia def WV]
LSU vs. Florida (Orange Bowl) [Florida def LSU]

Now the teams have six days off before the big one.

National Championship Game (Monday, January 7)
Georgia vs. Florida (Sugar Bowl)

Wouldn’t it be great?