pray for an end to the BCS

Behold the future of college football: the Wetzel Plan. He even shows what the brackets would look like if we had it this year. It's a beautiful thing.

Interestingly, futzing around with this system, if we'd had the Wetzel Plan (which you could also call the "every NCAA sport except Division I-A football" Plan) last year, the brackets would've looked like this:

The good points: as you can see, it would've been much less likely for Ohio St. to have had the chance to stink up the championship game, as they would have had to survive, in all likelihood, Southern Cal and LSU, while I think Florida would still have made it past Michigan and the winner of Oklahoma-Auburn (probably Auburn). Boise St. would've gotten a legitimate, if unlikely, shot at the championship (their first round is against USC, and if they pulled off a miracle there, they'd face the Buckeyes next), as would Hawaii this year under this system. Since we actually saw Louisville and Wake throw down in the Orange Bowl, we'd be looking at a sure 2nd round game between the Cards and LSU, which sounds pretty sweet. And how about that Auburn-Oklahoma game in the first round!

Downers: There's a snoozer of a section in the bottom right quadrant, where Michigan is sure to advance, since they'd be sure to beat Houston in the first round, followed by the winner of Notre Dame-Wisconsin, both of which teams they'd already walloped during regular season play. Also, like the BCS, it turned out pretty Big 10- and SEC-heavy, but that's just the way the rankings shook out last year. The other conferences, frankly, didn't do much to deserve at-large bids, and besides, who would you take out? 11-1 Wisconsin? Auburn, who survived the SEC with only 2 losses and beat Florida? Maybe Notre Dame, but I didn't sneak them in there at anyone else's expense; they actually finished #11, and everyone ahead of them got into the brackets, too. And this still leaves a pretty great Arkansas team out in the cold, but there's no scenario to save them; they just lost too late in the season.

All in all, this would've been vastly superior to what we got last year. Eventually, it will be this way. The system is just too compelling and well-tested in other divisions, and the current BCS one is too dysfunctional and has shut out legitimate contenders far too many times.