The Playoff Solution

Want more details?

View the Ten-Team Bracket and see how teams would have been matched up in 2007-2010.
Explore the Playoff Schedule and follow the calendar from December through January
Tour the Bowl Matchups and learn the history of each BCS Bowl
Find Answers to Your Questions and read why the Playoff Solution is the best postseason system for college football.


How to Create Playoffs from the BCS A clear majority of college football fans want to see a playoff system, but most proposals for playoffs are unrealistic. The college football bowl system is not going away overnight. The BCS is tied up in contracts with conferences and bowl games. Change must be incremental, and we can't just design the ideal system from scratch; we have to work within the system that we have. The most important thing to realize is that the BCS is a playoff - it just includes only two teams. The BCS Championship Game is an improvement over the previous bowl system, which did not try to match the two top teams every year. The BCS has also done something else very important: It has organized all of the Division I teams under one postseason system. The BCS doesn't need to be destroyed; it is one step in an evolution from an ad hoc bowl system to a structured playoff to determine a national champion. From the Bowl Coalition to the Bowl Alliance to the BCS, we have been taking steps towards a playoff system. So what is the next step? Right now, there is a ten-team BCS system with four major bowls and a championship game. We can create a playoff by adding just four additional games, with two "play-in" games before the BCS Bowls, and two semifinal games after the BCS Bowls. These games could be played at the BCS Bowl sites, expanding the "double-hosting" model that is currently used for the National Championship Game. We can keep the BCS Rankings, we can keep the traditional New Year's Bowls, and we can even keep the conference tie-ins. This is the Playoff Solution: Ten teams qualify for the playoffs using the existing BCS formula to identify six conference winners and four “At-Large” teams The four At-Large teams meet in two “play-in” games around Christmas at the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl The champions of the 6 BCS conferences have a bye during Christmas and play in the New Year’s Bowls: Sugar Bowl: SEC Champion vs. Play-In winner Orange Bowl: ACC Champion vs. Big East Champion Fiesta Bowl: Big 12 Champion vs. Play-In Winner Rose Bowl: Big Ten Champion vs. Pac-10 Champion The winners of the New Year's Bowls advance to semifinals the next week at the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl Sugar Bowl Champion vs. Orange Bowl Champion in the Eastern Semifinal Fiesta Bowl Champion vs. Rose Bowl Champion in the Western Semifinal National Championship Game at a BCS venue under the current rotating schedule
The Playoff Solution	Christmas Week	New Year's	Early January	Mid-January
New Orleans, LA	Sugar Bowl Play-In: At-Large vs. At-Large	Sugar Bowl: SEC Champion vs. Play-In Winner		National Championship Game: Eastern Finalist vs. Western Finalist
Miami, FL		Orange Bowl: ACC Champion vs. Big East Champion	Eastern Semifinal: Orange Champion vs. Sugar Champion
Glendale, AZ	Fiesta Bowl Play-In: At-Large vs. At-Large	Fiesta Bowl: Big 12 Champion vs. Play-In Winner
Pasadena, CA		Rose Bowl: Pac-10 Champion vs. Big Ten Champion	Western Semifinal: Rose Champion vs. Fiesta Champion
[ << \| Christmas Week \| New Year's \| Early January \| Mid-January \| >> ] Want more details? View the Ten-Team Bracket and see how teams would have been matched up in 2007-2010. Explore the Playoff Schedule and follow the calendar from December through January Tour the Bowl Matchups and learn the history of each BCS Bowl Find Answers to Your Questions and read why the Playoff Solution is the best postseason system for college football.