BCS Commishes to Look at Plus-One

When the BCS conference commissioners meet next week to discuss the future of the BCS, the idea of a "plus-one" will be a hot topic. Likely two types of plus-one formats will be discussed: a four team seeded playoff culminating in a national championship game and an additional game played after non-seeded traditional bowls. Whenever the BCS attempts to tweak the system, the Big 10, Pac 10, and Rose Bowl do nearly everything in their power to prevent it. The idea of a seeded four team playoff would likely cause those three players to take their ball and go home. A plus-one where a 1 vs. 2 national title game would be played after the traditional bowls, however, could be agreeable to those three parties.

The idea behind a plus-one using traditional bowl match ups would be to improve the tv deal of the non-national title BCS bowls without adversely impacting the regular season. In recent years there have been some rating duds and the BCS commissioners and bowls themselves would be interested in adding meaning to those games. The Rose Bowl and its participants could benefit from this too, and without losing their traditional Big 10 vs. Pac 10 match up or by being a semifinal game. Let's be clear, they could go for it. The Rose Bowl's TV deal with ABC runs to 2014 while the deal for the other BCS games runs to 2010. It would be difficult to do anything without complete agreement on the part of the Rose Bowl, Big 10, and Pac 10. But getting Rose Bowl sign off is far from the only hurdle.

One issue with this type of plus-one is that the number of teams earning BCS bids would drop from 10 to 8 unless another game is added. The Rose Bowl has expressed some interest in adding another bowl (likely the Cotton or Chic-Fil-A Bowl). However, it is doubtful that the other bowls would go for such a plan. The rotating host national title game format was designed to appease the bowls' desire to keep the number of BCS sites at four. An added BCS game would mean each bowl would host the national title game every five years instead of every four. Basically, the BCS money pie would then be split up five ways instead of four.

Keeping the number of bowls at four is not without its problems, however. The two stickiest issues are how to handle your non-BCS conference schools and Notre Dame. In 2006 non-BCS schools were given greater access to BCS bowls (and BCS money) by threatening congressional intervention. Any reduction in access for those schools would likely be met with a similar threat.

Similarly, what type of access Notre Dame should have to a plus-one system would be up for debate. While it is definitely an issue, it's really nothing that can't be solved through negotiation. ND and the BCS would have to reevaluate what the cost of access is for ND. Both parties have crossed this bridge before.

Perhaps the biggest concern with this style of plus-one is that it may not clear up the national title picture. In fact, in many years it could actually make it murkier. Through reporting by SI.com's Stewart Mandel, SEC commissioner and the current BCS coordinator Mike Slive said, "We are in the midst of doing a very careful and thorough analysis of the plus-one model. In doing this analysis, we're looking back on historical data and then thinking ahead to what we know." What he means by looking at historical data is to determine if picking the top two teams is typically easier before or after the bowls. If the data definitively shows that the bowls make it more difficult to pick the top two teams, the plus-one idea would likely be dead in its tracks. However, if determined that the plus-one wouldn't adversely impact the national title picture, the idea will likely get pushed further. Remember, its all in the name of increasing TV revenue for those non-national title BCS bowls.

We'll do what Slive and the boys will be doing next week and take a look at what bowls match ups a plus-one would have given us over the last six seasons.

Notes & Assumptions: Conference champs were slated to their anchor bowls as follows: Big Ten - Rose Bowl; Pac Ten - Rose Bowl; ACC - Orange Bowl; Big 12 - Fiesta Bowl; SEC - Sugar Bowl; Big East - At-large. Non-BCS conference schools were still given an automatic birth if they finished in the top 12. Notre Dame wasn't given access to an automatic birth. The at-large schools were selected by the bowls and in a predetermined order as they currently are. The following symbols were used: *1st at-large selection, ^2nd at-large selection, `3rd at-large selection. The BCS standings used were for the given year, not necessarily the current ranking methodology.

2007
Rose: USC (#7, Pac 10) vs. Ohio State (#1, Big 10)
Sugar: LSU (#2, SEC) vs. `Hawaii (#10, automatic at-large)
Orange: Virginia Tech (#3, ACC) vs. *Georgia (#5, at-large)
Fiesta: Oklahoma (#4, Big 12) vs. ^West Virginia (#9, Big East)
Just missed: Missouri (#6), Kansas (#8)
Comments: Could have caused greater controversy as all four winners could potentially have a claim to the title game. Assuming a West Virginia win, all three other winners would still have a strong claim to the title game and the plus-one would have left people no happier than the current system.

2006
Rose: USC (#5, Pac 10) vs. Ohio State (#1, Big 10)
Sugar: Florida (#2, SEC) vs. *Michigan (#3, at-large)
Orange: Wake Forest (#14, ACC) vs. ^Louisville (#6, Big East)
Fiesta: Oklahoma (#4, Big 12) vs. `Boise State (#8, automatic at-large)
Just missed: LSU (#4), Wisconsin (#7), Notre Dame (#11)
Comments: The plus-one likely wouldn't have helped Boise State get into the national title game, but the dramatic Fiesta Bowl would have ended Oklahoma's national title hopes. The winners of the Rose and Sugar would have met one week later in a slightly more agreeable title game.

2005
Rose: USC (#1, Pac 10) vs. Penn State (#3, Big 10)
Sugar: Georgia (#7, SEC) vs. ^Notre Dame (#6, at-large)
Orange: Florida State (#22, ACC) vs. `West Virginia (#11, Big East)
Fiesta: Texas (#2, Big 12) vs. *Ohio State (#4, at-large)
Just missed: Oregon (#4), Miami, FL (#8)
Comments: There would be a true semi-final feel as the winners of the Rose and Fiesta would meet for the national title. However, an upset in one of those games would have prevented fans from seeing one of the all-time best games.

2004
Rose: USC (#1, Pac 10) vs. Michigan (#13, Big 10)
Sugar: Auburn (#3, SEC) vs. `Pittsburgh (#21, Big East)
Orange: Virginia Tech (#8) vs. *Texas (#4, at-large)
Fiesta: Oklahoma (#2, Big 12) vs. ^Utah (#6, automatic at-large)
Just missed: California (#4), Miami, FL (#8)
Comments: Perhaps the most controversial year in BCS history is helped little by this format of the plus-one as having three unbeatens after the bowls would have still been possible, if not likely. The placement of Utah and Pittsburgh could have been flipped. Ideally two of the top three unbeatens would have played each other, but that would have required a bowl to give up its anchor conference champ - not likely. Auburn would have had another gasp, but 2004 would have likely ended up in controversy even with the plus-one.

2003
Rose: USC (#3, Pac 10) vs. Michigan (#4, Big 10)
Sugar: LSU (#2, SEC) vs. *Oklahoma (#1, at-large)
Orange: Florida State (#7, ACC) vs. ^Miami, FL (#9, Big East)
Fiesta: Kansas State (#10, Big 12) vs. Miami, OH (#11, automatic at-large)
Just missed: Ohio State (#5), Texas (#6)
Comments: This would have been a great year for the plus-one as AP #1 USC would have played LSU a week later for the national title. The Kansas State vs. Miami, OH would probably stand as the least watched BCS game.

2002
Rose: Washington State (#6, Pac 10) vs. Ohio State (#2, Big 10)
Sugar: Georgia (#3, SEC) vs. ^USC (#4, at-large)
Orange: Florida State (#14, ACC) vs. `Iowa (#5, at-large)
Fiesta: Oklahoma (#7, Big 12) vs. *Miami, FL (#1, Big East)
Just missed: Kansas State (#8), Notre Dame (#9)
Comments: This is a classic example of how the plus-one isn't always necessary. The four BCS bowls would have served to only ruin what turned out to be one of the top 2 BCS title games of all time. A wacky bowl season could have yielded a Georgia/Iowa national title game.

In closing: One remaining idea would be to have a more flexible way of slotting teams into the BCS bowls to help out the national title picture. At the least that would require the at-large selection process to deviate from a predetermined order. At the most it would require bowls to give up their anchor conference champion. That's something the Rose Bowl would have no interest in doing. Ultimately, how flexible the bowls are willing to be for this would be based on how much more lucrative a new tv deal would be.

If the bowl selection process is no more flexible than above, college football fans would get a few more exciting bowl games, but a similarly controversial national championship game.