2013 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 9 Seedings

One thing I will credit the current system for: they do do a pretty good job of creating some drama in the college football regular season. I still think more could be created with a playoff, since more games would have implications, but what do I know? I'm not a money-laden, easy-to-be-bought sheep who believes every lie the big conference commissioners spit out for a long time. Hold on, let me get off my soapbox.

A couple of the unbeatens fell from the pedestal this week, leaving us with only 8 teams at that mark through 9 weeks of football. Of these, amazingly only one is guaranteed to fall (and at the latest, that would be during the ACC title game between Florida State and Miami). Could you imagine if we have 7 undefeated teams at the end of the regular season? How much anger would that drum up against not only the current system, but even the "College Football Playoff" that will debut in 2014? If this year were the first year of that and those seven unbeatens held firm, you'd have to snub three teams. Obviously we know Kirk Herbstreit doesn't have a problem pissing off fan bases of schools from mid major conferences, but Fresno State's fan base would be upset too. On a bigger scale, you'd have to keep one of the following teams out: the winner of FSU/Miami, Baylor, Ohio State, Oregon, or Alabama. This is why 4 teams is not enough. Of course, knowing the way college football works, 4 of these teams will probably end up losing and we'd have to discuss the merits of their wins and losses, which is why we need a 16 team field. Give every conference champ a berth, add in at larges to fill the field, and let them play to decide who's the best. Isn't that the way football was meant to be?

But enough of my grandstanding. With Week 9's results taken into account, here's how I would seed the 16 team field if the season ended today. If you want to see last week's setup and a key to the acronyms next to each team, you can view it here.

1. Alabama (8-0, SEC "Champion", LW: 1- PP: 29; NCSS: 4; SAG: 1st; FACT: 3rd)
2. Oregon (8-0, Pac-12 "Champion", LW: 3- PP: 24; NCSS: 4; SAG: 2nd, FACT: 1st)
3. Florida State (7-0, ACC "Champion", LW: 2- PP: 25; NCSS: 0; SAG: 3rd; FACT: 2nd)
4. Ohio State (8-0, Big Ten "Champion", LW: 4- PP: 28; NCSS: 4; SAG: 7th; FACT: 5th)
5. Baylor (7-0, Big 12 "Champion", LW: 7- PP: 22; NCSS: 1; SAG: 4th, FACT: 4th)
6. Stanford (7-1, At Large, LW: 8- PP: 32; NCSS: 3; SAG: 9th; FACT: 10th)
7. Missouri (7-1, At Large, LW: 5- PP: 23; NCSS: 4; SAG: 6th; FACT: 6th)
8. Auburn (7-1, At Large, LW: 10- PP: 24; NCSS: 2; SAG: 19th; FACT: 8th)
9. Oklahoma (7-1, At Large, LW: NR- PP: 27; NCSS: 4; SAG: 16th; FACT: 18th)
10. Miami (FL) (7-0, At Large, LW: 9- PP: 19; NCSS: 6; SAG: 26th; FACT: 12th)
11. Central Florida (6-1, AAC "Champion", LW: 11- PP: 15; NCSS: 8; SAG: 27th; FACT: 23rd)
12. Northern Illinois (8-0, At Large, LW: 12- PP: 15; NCSS: 7; SAG: 46th; FACT: 27th)
13. Fresno State (7-0, MWC "Champion", LW: 13- PP: 18; NCSS: 3; SAG: 49th; FACT: 43rd)
14. Ball State (8-1, MAC "Champion", LW: 14- PP: 16; NCSS: 5; SAG: 63rd; FACT: 52nd)
15. Tulane (6-2, C-USA "Champion", LW: NR- PP: 19; NCSS: 5; SAG: 87th; FACT: 70th)
16. Louisiana-Lafayette (5-2, Sun Belt "Champion", LW: 15- PP: 14; NCSS: 7; SAG: 66th; FACT: 74th)

Out of the playoffs: Texas Tech (6), Rice (16)

I think I feel a little better about these rankings than I did last week. Only a couple "champion" changes, one out of necessity, and the other based on looking at my metrics. I also dropped Texas Tech in favor of Oklahoma since Oklahoma had a really good playoff point total. Obviously, with a few weeks left this is probably going to change a lot still and this field will look a lot different, but for now, I think this is a pretty good field.

I'll try to have the schedule rankings done either tomorrow or Thursday. Meanwhile it's Nathaniel's turn for NFL work and he'll have our picks up on Thursday.