2012 NCAA Death to the BCS Playoffs Preview

Before we go into college football, I want to take a moment to remember Kassandra Perkins, who was killed by her boyfriend and Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher on Saturday before he took his own life. I have said on more than one occasion that sports should not take precedence over life and death, and this news was a very sobering reminder of that yesterday. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of this couple, especially to their 3 month old baby, who now has to live without either of his parents.

On the collegiate playing field, we saw some great games this weekend which were a good way to end the regular season. And now this momentum off big wins leads to... a long layoff before glorified exhibition games. I won't go into a full manifesto on the evils of the BCS as it's almost done and I've already done that here (though the playoff format has since been revamped), but for the good of college football I'm going to continue a tradition I started last year and set up a playoff to be simulated here on COAS.

If you've been following along all season I've been ranking the non-conference schedules of teams all over the FBS and eventually putting together tentative playoff brackets before this final, official one. The bracket obviously has some big changes due to certain teams winning their conference championship games, and seedings may differ from prior incarnations, only because I need to look at the overall body of work here at the end of the season. It's a hard job to try to do solo, but I think it's more fair than the current BCS (or even the new playoff, though it's a start, and Cubs 3rd baseman Ian Stewart agrees with me). The final rankings from the regular season can be found here.


1. Notre Dame (12-0, At Large, NCSS: 26, LW: 1): If you're the lone undefeated team in the FBS and have survived some close calls, you deserve the #1 overall seed, even if you are an independent. I know a lot of anti-Notre Dame people are coming out of the woodwork, but I like the fact that a team that for a long time wasn't relevant is back in the picture again.
2. Alabama (12-1, SEC Champion, NCSS: 3, LW: 2): They had an amazing back and forth battle with Georgia on Saturday. That glorified exhibition game with Notre Dame would be a fun one were I to actually watch any of it (might not out of principle). Either way, as much as I harp on the BCS, Bama is probably the 2nd best team in the nation, and that earns them 3 home playoff games.
3. Stanford (11-2, Pac-12 Champion, NCSS: 5, LW: 4): That second UCLA game was a lot closer than I expected it would be. It was hard to drop Kansas State down a spot despite their win over Texas, but I think as an overall body of work, Stanford's 2 losses were not quite as bad a KSU's, and Stanford had a quality win over Oregon.
4. Kansas State (11-1, Big XII Champion, NCSS: 2, LW: 3): While my metric is not an end-all, be-all solution, I think it did provide a pretty accurate picture of how well teams scheduled their out of conference slates. For the reasons above I had to drop KSU a bit, but this is still a talented football team.
5. Georgia (11-2, At Large, NCSS: 3, LW: 5): Sorry, Georgia fans, but conference titles matter to me. Clearly they were one of the best teams in the SEC and the nation, so they had to get one of the at-large bids... and it's scary to think how close they came to beating Bama and stealing the #2 seed. Part of me was tempted to move them up to the #4 seed though based on a "better" 28 point loss (to SC as opposed to Baylor by KSU), but I'm not sure arguing degrees of losses is the best way to decide rankings here.
6. Florida (11-1, At Large, NCSS: 4, LW: 6): Any Florida fans furious with me can note 2 things. First, you were 2nd in your own division because, second, you lost to the team that won your division... Georgia! Head to head results matter, regardless of that extra loss Georgia had. Obviously Florida had a better non-conference slate, but the best way to determine which of 2 teams are better is to let them play.
7. Oregon (11-1, At Large, NCSS: 1, LW: 7): It's tempting to put Oregon up higher than these 2 SEC teams, but believe it or not, those very SEC teams had better non-conference slates than Oregon did. That one tough loss by Oregon definitely hurt, but with only the one loss they should still make the playoffs.
8. Northern Illinois (12-1, MAC Champion, NCSS: 5, LW: 11): For reference, Kent State (who I subjectively deemed the placeholder for the MAC title until the game was played) was seeded 9th. You have here a 12-1 team that ran the table in an underrated conference and lost by 1 point in the opener (albeit to a mediocre Iowa team). I'm not necessarily a fan of NIU, but for a local big time team to be really good and possibly in the Orange Bowl mix is awesome to hear.
9. Oklahoma (10-2, At Large, NCSS: 2, LW: NR): It was hard to figure out how to rank the lower half of teams, and took me a while to decide the final at-large team. My final debate came down to OU, LSU, South Carolina and Texas A&M. The latter 2 were the easiest outs since they both lost to LSU and it was a tough call between OU and LSU. I ultimately went with the Sooners despite LSU's higher NCSS (they had a 3), though they did play one more non-conference game and Oklahoma at least went on the road and won. LSU's schedule overall didn't really wow me overall either. Angry LSU fans can vent in the comments below.
10. Florida State (11-2, ACC Champion, NCSS: 3, LW: 12): It was really hard to seed everyone down at this point. FSU's pair of FCS teams is a big reason why they fell this far, plus that NC State loss. Even with that, this was probably the best spot to seed them given where everyone else finished. This is where people would start arguing that 16 teams is too many, but you can't crown a national champion without giving everyone a possible seat at the table.
11. Boise State (10-2, MWC Champion, NCSS: 7, LW: NR): The Mountain West was one of 2 conferences that had a tie at the top, and Boise State was part of the ever-fun Rock-Paper-Scissors effect at the top. I gave Boise the edge due to a better overall record. There's no statement win on their resume and their 2 losses were to Michigan State and SDSU, neither of which is in the playoffs, but they took care of business everywhere else.
12. Louisville (10-2, Big East Champion, NCSS: 7, LW: NR): If you think the Mountain West gave me a headache, check the Big East standings. With the best overall record I gave Louisville the berth (same logic as with Boise State). Their 2 losses were probably worse than Boise's, to Syracuse (one of the tied teams) and UConn. This was a conference that overall, scheduled the best of the "major" conferences though there's no elite team out of here.
13. Wisconsin (8-5, Big Ten Champion, NCSS: 4, LW: NR): Well then. Where do you seed a 5-loss conference champion? 4 of those losses came in conference, and a lot of them to teams with an equal or better record. That scheduled trip to Oregon State helped (even though they lost) helped their NCSS. And I would take the losses Wisconsin suffered over the losses the remaining 3 teams took.
14. Utah State (10-2, WAC Champion, NCSS: 9, LW: 13): The biggest reason I couldn't seed Wisconsin at 16: they beat this Utah State team. The Aggies' 2 losses were by a combined 5 points, and that Wisconsin loss looks maybe a tad better now, but I couldn't very well move them up compared to the teams above. Nonetheless, running the WAC table is good and even with 6 out of conference games they had a decent schedule.
15. Arkansas State (9-3, Sun Belt Champion, NCSS: 6, LW: 14): A friend of mine from an old Nintendo forum is a student at Middle Tennessee, and I saw a few excited tweets from him leading up to what eventually turned into a mere formality for a conference title and a playoff berth here. That Nebraska loss takes on a little more meaning now fair or not, but 9-3 is still not a bad mark.
16. Tulsa (10-3, Conference-USA Champion, NCSS: 6, LW: 16): The Golden Hurricane's 3 losses are to teams with a combined 16-20 record. Granted, one was to SMU (in conference, finished 6-6 overall and 2nd in their division) and the other 2 were to teams from major conferences, but that stat does not bode well.

We can coincide the schedule of the playoffs with the start of bowl season on December 15th to give the players a week to recuperate and study as needed (and hopefully finish with finals... those come first). The higher seeds get to host the playoff games through the first 3 rounds, so the road to Miami for the title goes through South Bend and Tuscaloosa. Thanks to bracketmaker.com, you can view a full version of the bracket here.

I will simulate all the matchups once they become available (tentatively for the 15th if last year was any indication) via WhatIfSports.com, try to use weather as best as possible and keep the rosters as accurate as I can with injuries and the like. Time slots will be used as best as possible so time changes don't get too messed up for west coast teams and we're not playing too early or too late. All times listed will be in CST since that's where I'm based.

Since I updated my website for bracket hosting this year, one cool feature that I get to add is the ability to predict how these games are going to go. You can click on the "Predict It!" link on the bracket page or click here to go to the prediction page. You would have to sign up for an account, but it is free and they don't spam your email.

This is a look at a possible way that college football could conduct its postseason without as much greed and more interest in good football and having fun college atmospheres on display in December. It may not be a perfect scenario, but it's a vast improvement over what we have now.