It appears that the 8-team playoff idea is going to hold onto its lead versus the 4-team playoff in the poll below, so it's time to move on to the next poll questions. And being that a) I don't think I can have more than one poll per post, and b) I don't want to clog up the top of the blog with numerous polls, I'll ask that you leave your responses to these questions in the comments section below.
Okay, so we're creating an 8-team playoff. Due to conflict with Finals Week and Christmas, the playoff really can't possibly start until between about 12/27 and 1/1. After a lengthy discussion, The Beef and I decided that the schedule should go as follows.
Quarterfinals: 1/1 (or, if 1/1 is on a weekend, somewhere around mid-week before 1/1...so about 12/29 or so)
Semifinals: 1/8 or one week later
Finals: A Saturday at least 7 days after the semis.
This year, 1/1 is on a Tuesday, so that would work just fine. Quarters on 1/1, semis on 1/8, finals on 1/19. The idea is, you really can't have the semis on a weekend because it would conflict with the NFL...and that would be a problem. Don't wanna tick off the NFL on this one. You might even need to have the finals mid-week as well. But oh well. Anyhoo, here are the questions I need you to answer in comments. The more answers the better here--some of these are relatively tricky, but I want to hear your opinions...
1 - Do you keep the 12-game schedule, or knock it down a game?
2 - Do you keep the conference title games (even though not every conference has one)?
3 - Do you get rid of any bowl games (if so, how do you determine which ones?)?
4 - Do the Quarterfinals take place in the BCS games (i.e. the quarterfinals are played in the Fiesta/Sugar/Rose/Orange Bowls), or are they somehow separate?
5 - Here's the other date option: have the quarterfinals somewhere around December 10, before finals/holiday, with a 3-week break before the semis. Does that work better?
6 - Assuming BCS conference winners get an automatic bid, what are the rules for the other bids? How do non-BCS conf champs work their way into the equation? Highest BCS ranking among non-BCS schools gets in?