NCAA Pipe Dream Playoffs: First Round

I'm ignoring some of the bigger stories in sports for right now, just because there's so much uncertainty, and I want to wait on an NBA/NFL playoff preview for now... though those will come. For now, since a feature I've been waiting on finally opened up, I can get to this.

A week ago I posted my bracket for the 2011 NCAA FBS Championship. Obviously this is just a pipe dream, but I wanted to know how things would go instead of the crappy bowl system we have in place. So, one week at a time, I'm going to run a simulation of how the games would hypothetically end up going. (The higher seed hosts, by the way, with weather taken from December 10th.)

Obviously, there's no way of saying this is exactly what's going to happen, but I'm going to run 3 simulations of each game (to get a better feel) and average out the scores of the 3 contests, just to get a better sample size of each game. All simulations provided by WhatIfSports.com.

(1)LSU vs. (16)Georgia                                   (2)Alabama vs. (15)Clemson
Game 1: LSU 44, UGA 14                                  Game 1: ALA 45, CLE 6
Game 2: LSU 24, UGA 14                                  Game 2: ALA 48, CLE 9
Game 3: LSU 34, UGA 17                                  Game 3: ALA 62, CLE 3
Final: LSU 34, UGA 15                                     Final: ALA 52, CLE 6
  
(8)Kansas State vs. (9)So. Carolina               (7)Boise State vs. (10)Wisconsin
Game 1: KSU 26, SC 7                                      Game 1: WIS 28, BSU 27
Game 2: KSU 29, SC 7                                      Game 2: BSU 23, WIS 21
Game 3: SC 26, KSU 3                                      Game 3: BSU 27, WIS 24
Final: KSU 19, SC 13                                        Final: BSU 26, WIS 24

(4)Stanford vs (13)Michigan                           (3)Oklahoma State vs. (14)Oklahoma
Game 1: STAN 33, MICH 21                             Game 1: OSU 44, OU 16
Game 2: STAN 34, MICH 20                             Game 2: OSU 48, OU 27
Game 3: STAN 34, MICH 24                             Game 3: OSU 43, OU 12
Final: STAN 34, MICH 22                                 Final: OSU 45, OU 18

(5)Oregon vs (12)Baylor                                 (6)Arkansas vs. (11)Virginia Tech
Game 1: ORE 42, BAY 39                                 Game 1: ARK 34, VT 16
Game 2: ORE 41, BAY 16                                 Game 2: VT 41, ARK 38
Game 3: ORE 51, BAY 37                                 Game 3: ARK 31, VT 17
Final: ORE 44, BAY 31                                      Final: ARK 34, VT 25


Chalk ends up playing out in this first round. I'm not too surprised, but notice here that there are some great games (especially Boise State-Wisconsin). I'm hoping we get some closer games as the tournament moves on.

Remember, the losers go to a single-elimination tournament for the 9th place game (we'll say it's the Rose Bowl this year, but will change next year due to the rotation). The winners all are guaranteed 3 more games. Does the system work? Perhaps. Odds are TV revenue would have been good just because it's a tournament of the best teams thus far.

After I posted the original bracket, I talked to a friend of mine from WONC who said he liked the idea but would prefer the playoffs have only 8 teams. I'm certainly open to that, though it then means one of the BCS Bowl games doesn't get decided by the playoffs. Like I said in the original idea, the system isn't perfect. And if in a few weeks we end up with an LSU-Alabama rematch still for the national title, fine by me. We will just have arrived at it in a more fair fashion. Next week I'll have the 2nd round of the playoffs.