Criminole or not? Playoff and SEC expansion

The long awaited decision to charge Jameis Winston with sexual assault will be announced at 1:00 my time today... **************************************************************************************** Now, college football’s last weekend before the Bowl games is here. A whole lot still to settle with conference Championship games for the ACC, SEC, big10 (w 12 teams), and the PAC12. Other conferences have Champ games too, CUSA, MAC, and even MW. Army Navy has their annual spectacle and in the big12, Bedlam is a biggie and the Texas – Baylor game is a biggie. FSU looks “in” the BCS Championship game in the final year of the BCS, barring the all time upset by Duke.

Next season we start the 4 team playoff. If we had it this season, we can play around with what it should be on Sunday, but I’ll take a swing: FSU LOCK SEC Champ LOCK Ohio State (if they win Sat) LOCK ????Alabama? 11-1 Oklahoma State? 11-1 Baylor??? A smoking red hot Arizona State? What will the criteria be for the selection committee? BEST TEAM or conf champs? The problem is that the March Madness selection INCLUDES strength of schedule, while football really doesn’t. FSU has played a weak schedule. ACC sucks and even UF was abysmal this year. Big 10 is pretty sucky too and the ohio state buckies did not play a decent non conference game. FSU looks like the real deal, but a selection committee might take battle tested teams from SEC, PAC and Big 12…

********************************************************************************** It is a good first step in my opinion, but has to get to 8 teams sooner than later. There are 5 “major” conferences – SEC, ACC, PAC 12, big10 and big12. There are 5 2nd tier football conferences – AAC, Mountain West, MAC, CUSA and Sunbelt. An 8 team playoff could allow each of the 5 major conferences to send their champion, plus 3 at large teams to be selected from all 10 conferences. Would it be heavily weighted to the 5 major conferences? Sure, but it would allow for that 12-0 Fresno, or NI, or Boise to slip in most years. Then other 2 slots would go to the 2nd most deserving teams in the “big 5”. This year it would look like this: 1. FSU 2. Ohio State or Mich State 3. Auburn or Mizzu 4. Oklahoma State (assuming they win Sat) 5. ASU/Stanford winner 6. At large Northern Ill (begrudgingly) 7. At large Alabama At large Ohio State if they lose Saturday, OR 2nd PAC team like Oregon, OR 12-1 Baylor if they beat Texas. The selection committee will seed them and we will have 4 amazing round 1 matchups, semi finals the next week, and then the championship game. Of course there would be much arguing about who deserves the at large, with this 8 team bracket all the big conferences get their big dog in the fight, and some years also their 2nd best team. A couple of other mandates/ rules I would like to see invoked: Each of the big 5 must have conference championship games. The big 12 (w 10 teams) does not currently, so they need to snag BYU and one more team to get to 12 and play a Champ game. ************************************************ ACC: make Notre Dame join completely or get their butts out. Don’t give me this partial in crap! Eliminate the Irish advantage pronto. ************************************************* SEC: the expectation is to move to 9 conference games. That will be tough with more “beating up on each other” resulting. Whether it is 8 to 9 conference games, the real need is to only have the conference games “IN DIVISION” count on the conference record. Spurrier is actually the one I heard suggest this approach and it is the only way to determine a true East and West champion. Over the last 4 or 5 seasons, Georgia made it to Atlanta over South Carolina and Florida, by virtue of skipping play dates with Alabama and LSU, the big dogs in the West. The Gamecocks or Gators would beat Georgia head to head, but their 2 losses to the west would cost them a berth in Atlanta. Just to illustrate this point, consider some of the cross over foes for SEC teams next season: • Mizzu, the defending East champs gets A&M and Arkansas from the West • Florida, coming off their first losing season since 79, gets ALABAMA AND LSU…ouch • South Carolina gets A&M and Auburn • Georgia plays Auburn and Arkansas • Tennessee has to deal with ALABAMA and Ole Miss • Vandy gets the 2 Mississippi teams…favorable draw • Kentucky gets Miss St and LSU And out West: • Arkansas plays Georgia and Mizzu • Alabama plays Florida and Tennessee • Auburn plays Georgia and Tennessee • A&M plays South Carolina and Mizzu • Ole Miss plays Vandy and Tennessee • Miss St gets Vandy and Kentucky – that could really help their SEC record in the current format ************************************************************************ The last item for my insightful ranting today is SEC alignment and expansion. They will go to 16. In a year or two, I see NC State and Va Tech bring the SEC all those TV eyeballs in North Carolina, Va and all the way up to DC. Then when that happens, the SEC EAST winner will not be further west than the WEST winner is. They can put Mizzu and Vandy in the West like this: EAST: Florida, Georgia, South Caro, Tennessee, NC State, Va Tech, Kentucky and AUBURN! WEST: Alabama, Mizz, Arkansas, A&M, Ole Miss, Miss State, LSU and VANDY!