2011 Playoff Format

Last season, 5 Conference Champions and 6 At Large Champions made the playoff picture easy to sculpt. But this year with 6 Conference Champions and 5 At Large Champions, the Mythical Championship bracket would have to be extended by one week to narrow the selection down to 8 teams.

13 Virginia Tech (11-1) L
ACC
24 Clemson (9-3) W

15 Wisconsin (10-2) W
BIG10
22 Michigan St (10-2) L

7 Houston (12-0) L
CUSA
16 Southern Miss (10-2) W

29 Northern Illi (9-3) W
MAC
44 Ohio (9-3) L

1 Louisiana St (12-0) W
SEC
18 Georgia (10-2) L

6 Oregon (10-2) W
PAC12
72 UCLA (6-6) L

The winners of the 6 Conference Championships gives us our automatic 6 qualifiers: Clemson, Wisconsin, Southern Miss, Northern Illi, LSU, and Oregon. The remaining 2 spots would be have been decided by matching the At Large Conference Champions against each other. Ideally the 2nd and 3rd highest ranked teams would face each other as would the 4th and 5th. The winner of the 4th and 5th would then face the highest ranked team a week later to determine the 2 At Large Conference Champions. Here is how that may have looked using my rankings, not the BCS.


19 Tex Christian (10-2) W
2V3
23 Arkansas St (10-2) L

26 Cincinnati (9-3) W
4V5
36 Louisiana Tech (8-4) L

2 Oklahoma St (11-1) W
1V4/5
26 Cincinnati (9-3) L

We will assume the 4th seed beats the 5th seed and would move on to play the 1st seed. We will also assume 2 beats 3 and 1 beats 4 to finalize Oklahoma St and TCU as the 2 At Large Champions. We would then rerank those 8 teams by overall rank going into the Conference round of the playoffs.

RR Team Rnk
7 Clemson (10-3) 24
4 Wisconsin (11-2) 15
5 Southern Miss (11-2) 16
8 Northern Illi (10-3) 29
1 Louisiana St (13-0) 1
3 Oregon (11-2) 6
2 Oklahoma St (11-1) 2
6 Tex Christian (10-2) 19

And that would leave you with the following bracket to determine a true National Champion. First round would be played before Christmas, lower seed playing on campus of the higher seed. The subsequent 2 rounds would be played at neutral sites on/around New Years Day and a week later to determine the National Champion.

1 Louisiana St (13-0)
8 Northern Illi (10-3)

4 Wisconsin (11-2)
5 Southern Miss (11-2)

3 Oregon (11-2)
6 Tex Christian (10-2)

2 Oklahoma St (11-1)
7 Clemson (10-3)

And that my friends, is how a National Champion should be decided.