Rethinking Conference Title Games
Maybe instead of a conference title game, we need a conference mini-bracket
Back in 1992, with the creation of the first Football Conference Title Game, the Championship game concept made sense.
The Southeastern Conference became the first modern conference to grow to 12 teams, splitting into divisions. Since the schools no longer played a round-robin schedule, it was logical to divide the 12 schools into two six-team divisions and hold a conference championship game to determine the champion and the SEC representative in the Sugar Bowl.
By 2011, all of the major conferences held title games. This weekend, there will be nine conference championship games strewn about your television on Friday Night and Saturday.
But what started as a logical way to crown a champion has become an illogical mess as most conferences moved to abandon divisions, leading to a “Top-2” concept that has become more trouble than it’s worth. Only the Sun Belt maintains divisions.
Five of those eight conferences had a tie for at least one of the top two spots in that conference:
Three teams tied for two spots in the American.
Five teams tied for the #2 spot in the ACC.
Three teams tied for 2nd in the MAC.
Four teams tied for the two spots in both the Mountain West and the SEC.
Most infamously, that five-way tie for 2nd place in the ACC put 7-5 Duke in the ACC title game over 10-2 Miami, an almost fatal blow to the Hurricanes’ chances of making the College Football Playoff. More comically, a Duke win over heavily favored Virginia might keep the ACC shut out of the playoff entirely, opening a door for James Madison to make it if they win the Sun Belt title or, even more bizarrely, for the winner of the Jacksonville State-Kennesaw State Conference USA title game to have a shot.1
There is no reason for these conferences to be structured this way. Yet, the mess would be even more apparent if there were no conference title game at all. There were SIX conferences with a tie for first place. There has to be some way to sort out this mess.
How can this be fixed? Well, the easiest way would be to return to conferences of a manageable size instead of the 16 and 18-team behemoths as we have now. But that’s not going to happen in the next ten years.
No, what I suggest instead is that conferences not schedule their 9th week of games ahead of time. Conferences can schedule their first eight games and have still plan for an nine game schedule, but leave that last week open. In the 9th week, conferences schedule the 1st place team to play the 4th place team, and the 2nd place team to play the 3rd place team. That would serve as a de facto conference semifinal, with the winners advancing to the Conference Championship game.
Now I know you’re thinking, “well, what about Rivalry Weekend?” Well, I remember when UCLA-USC, the Iron Bowl, Ohio State-Michigan, and all of those other important rivalry games were held the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving. Move them back to where they were.
As far as the teams from 5th place on down? Just pair them up with another team they haven’t played during the season.
That means, for example, instead of having a four-way tie for 1st in the SEC, we would have seen Alabama, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Georgia figure out amongst themselves who would go to the title game.
Would this scenario fix everything? Of course not. The ACC would still have a tiebreaker mess sorting out those five teams. Other conferences would have ties for the last spot in the “conference bracket.” But it is a much more equitable way of determining who gets a shot at the conference championship, who has a better shot of making the College Football Playoff, and making the last week of the regular season a little more interesting without extending the season any longer than it already is.
It sure beats hearing talk about tiebreakers, strength of schedule, and whatever other nonsense determined this year’s title game participants, that’s for sure.
ONCE AGAIN my years long call to let all conference champions into the playoff would eliminating this kind of silliness.