by Donny Hunt

Created on: September 01, 2010

As another college football season approaches, the arguments about the BCS will begin again.  As a dedicated fan of college football, I must come out against the idea of a playoff.  Instead, I think that the BCS will work fine, if there was some simple adjustments made to the process.  May I present to all college football fans: The Hunt Plan.

Step One: Better scheduling

Some simple scheduling rules would help ensure teams of equal caliber play similar schedules and would make for better viewing, especially early in the season.  I suggest three things.  First, you can only play one FCS team per every four non-conference games you play.  No team with fewer than four non-conference games could schedule a FCS opponent.  Two, every team must play at least one non-conference road game each year.  Three, every team must schedule a home-and-home series every two years with a team of equal level.

I determine the levels, or tiers, by looking at every team's three year trend.  I chose three years because that's about what each recruiting class will give to you if you consider that the best talent will leave early and everyone else will sit for at least a year.  I then group teams into four Tiers:  

Tier I - 10+ wins a season.  These are the elite teams

Tier II - 7-9 wins a season, solid bowl teams

Tier III - 5-6 wins a season, bubble teams

Tier IV - 4 or fewer wins a season, the bottom feeders.

Each Tier I team would schedule a home-and-home with another Tier I team and so on.  (I know schedules are done years in advance, but that can change.  There's no need for that anymore.)  This way, every team has to challenge itself against at least one opponent of similar strength each year, and it would make for some great early season games.

Step Two - Judging the teams

I have developed a system that grades teams based upon what they do on the field.  The criteria is uniform, so bias plays no role.  It is all based on common sense stuff like strength of opponent and margin of victory or defeat.  Points are awarded for victories and deducted for losses.  The tougher the game, the more the higher the potential rewards.  Points are totaled and divided by games played to arrive at a points per game average.

I have tested this system in three separate years.  In 2004, I had USC and Auburn playing for the title instead of USC-Oklahoma.  In 2007, I have Oklahoma and Ohio State

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