NCAA Death to the BCS Playoffs: First Round

With the bowls underway, I figured the one week off following all the conference title games was enough time off to get the playoffs underway as well. Other divisions of football are almost done with their postseasons, but running a little ways into January isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I'm going to run this in a similar manner to last year in that each matchup will be simulated as a best-of-3 series to help ensure accuracy, but the "clinching" game will be the official result (so if a team wins the first 2 simulations, that 2nd sim will be the official one, but if the teams split the first 2 sims, the last one will be the official one). This will help avoid weird scores like I had in last year's playoff system and give some somewhat official stats to the playoffs as well. Box scores will be posted for the official games, but are only available for 60 days after this round's results are posted.

For each matchup, the higher seeded team gets to host the game, and weather will be taken into account from accurate data taken at the specified kickoff time. All games are simulated by WhatIfSports.com.

(16)Tulsa @ (1)Notre Dame
12/15/12, 12pm
Game 1: ND 38, TUL 6
Game 2: ND 19, TUL 0

(13)Wisconsin @ (4)Kansas State
12/15/12, 12pm
Game 1: KSU 10, WIS 6
Game 2: KSU 23, WIS 10

(15)Arkansas State @ (2)Alabama
12/15/12, 3pm
Game 1: ALA 37, ASU 0
Game 2: ALA 51, ASU 0

(9)Oklahoma @ (8)Northern Illinois
12/15/12, 3pm
Game 1: OU 41, NIU 16
Game 2: OU 43, NIU 29

(12)Louisville @ (5)Georgia
12/15/12, 6pm
Game 1: UGA 34, LOU 10
Game 2: UGA 63, LOU 31

(11)Boise State @ (6)Florida
12/15/12, 6pm
Game 1: FLA 36, BSU 10
Game 2: FLA 40, BSU 0

(14)Utah State @ (3)Stanford
12/15/12, 9pm
Game 1: USU 17, STAN 14
Game 2: USU 17, STAN 13

(10)Florida State @ (7)Oregon
12/15/12, 9pm
Game 1: FSU 30, ORE 18
Game 2: FSU 31, ORE 13

FOR THE OFFICIAL PLAYOFF BRACKET, CLICK HERE.

I found it interesting that in this first round, I didn't have to go to a deciding third game for any of them, and we had some fun upsets. I'm not too surprised by the 9-8 win by Oklahoma, but the Utah State upset was this year's Louisiana Tech story from these playoffs. FSU was a bit of a surprise this year, given that they underachieved in the regular season. Largely though, I stand by my seedings thus far. Pretty good football, to say the least.

For those of you who look at this round and say, "This is why NIU didn't deserve the Orange Bowl bid!" or "Florida State is going to murder NIU!", this is why we play the games. This is why a playoff is essential to deciding a national champion. We didn't murder the regular season. Oklahoma proved it deserved a shot by beating NIU in DeKalb. Stanford was debunked as a contender when I rated them so highly by getting knocked off by Utah State. If you couldn't get by an Oklahoma or a Utah State, you didn't deserve to play for a title, but they had a shot at it on the field.

You can click on the link above to see the bracket and schedule for next weekend's games. Notre Dame, Alabama, Kansas State and Florida all get to host again next week for what should hopefully be some fun games again!