Tournament of Champions - 2007 Redux

We've been testing the Tournament of Champions playoff concept for the 2005, 2006, and 2007 seasons, with some predictive guessing prior to the playing of the BCS bowls as to how a 2007 playoff might have turned out. Now that the bowls have been played, we return to the 2007 season with the following playoff teams, each having won their Division 1-A conference:




We had originally predicted Oklahoma would win such a playoff. Given how the teams actually performed in the post-season, we can replay our fictional tournament for 2007.

First Round

• Undoubtedly, West Virginia cruises past Florida Atlantic.
• We'll take BYU over UCF; in spite of struggling, they beat UCLA in the Las Vegas bowl.
• Hawaii vs. Central Michigan? Hawaii stunk against tough competition in Georgia in the Sugar, while Central Michigan lost a shootout to Purdue in the Motor City. While Purdue isn't quite the competition this year that Georgia was, we'll take Central Michigan. Hawaii made way too many turnovers and was dominated at the line.

Second Round

• Ohio State wins comfortably against BYU. The Cougars struggled too much against UCLA to expect they would have done much against the Buckeyes.
• USC trounces Oklahoma. Probably scores as much as West Virginia did in the Fiesta, but without giving up as many points to the Sooners.
• LSU takes out a scrappy Central Michigan team, overwhelming them in the second half.
• West Virginia wins a surprisingly easy game against Virginia Tech. The Mountaineers looked great in their Fiesta win, while it took everything the Hokies had to hang with Kansas in the Orange.

Third Round

• #1-seeded Ohio State vs. #5-seeded USC. Based on their actual bowl play, this one isn't tough. USC comfortably handles Ohio State, but credit OSU for giving the Trojans a better game than Illinois did in the Rose.
• #2-seeded LSU vs. #6-seeded West Virginia. Wow. What a game this would have been. West Virginia would take the early lead, not unlike the Buckeyes did vs. LSU in the BCS title game. But we'll take LSU's overall quality in all phases of the game and with good halftime defensive adjustments, the Tigers take a fourth-quarter nail-biter.
  

And the National Champion is...

How to even call it? In their win against the Buckeyes in the championship game, LSU proved their strengths in all facets, and ability to adjust to OSU's surprising first quarter offensive strike.

However... USC cleaned Illinois' clock in the Rose. Those two teams didn't belong on the same field in a top-tier bowl game. And when we realize that in November, Illinois took it to Ohio State on their home field, USC's dominance in their bowl game might ring more impressive than LSU's victory.

#5 USC beats #2 LSU. And what a fantastic game it would have been.

Tournament of Champions - 2005 Edition

The Tournament of Champions is a proposal for a playoff alternative to the BCS to select a genuine national champion among 11 division 1-A conferences and 119 teams. Invitations are given to all eleven conference champions and to qualifying independents. For the purposes of this run-through, the BCS rankings is used for the seeding order, and independents ranked sixth or higher qualify.

We've looked at the 2006 and 2007 regular seasons and the Tournaments they would have produced. For 2005, we have the first opportunity going back in time to test this system with a qualifying independent. Notre Dame at 9-2 will be seeded among conference champions having earned their place finishing sixth in the BCS rankings.

Seeding	Team	Conference
1	USC	PAC 10
2	Texas	Big 12
3	Penn St.	Big 10
4	Notre Dame	Independent
5	Georgia	SEC
6	West Virginia	Big East
7	TCU	Mountain West
8	Florida St.	ACC
9	Boise St.	WAC
10	Tulsa	Conference USA
11	Akron	MAC
12	Arkansas St.	Sun Belt

The Rose Bowl hosts the National Championship game this year, with the Tournament leaving some excellent teams available for the other top-tier bowls: Ohio St. (9-2), Oregon (10-1), Miami (9-2), Auburn (9-2), Virginia Tech (10-2), LSU (10-2), Alabama (9-2), Texas Tech (9-2), UCLA (9-2), Florida (8-3), Wisconsin (9-3), and Louisville (9-2). Pick any six for the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange bowls for some outstanding matchups.

With a qualifying independent in the mix we have our first 12-team bracket:

Notable in the 2005 edition:

• With an independent qualifying, the fifth seed must play a first-round game.
  
• 2005 Tulsa is a decent team that improved throughout the season; its first-round matchup against TCU would prove to be a very good game.
  
• We have another example of a non-BCS champion (TCU from the Mountain West) out-seeding a BCS champion (the ACC's Florida St.)
• It seems that the Sun Belt conference is the bottom feeder in each of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 tournaments. Not being the bottom feeder would be good incentive for lesser conferences to improve.
  
• Penn St. vs. West Virginia and Notre Dame vs. Georgia are great second-round matchups.
  

And the National Champion is...

In 2005, the BCS probably had its easiest year with no controversy in selecting USC and Texas to compete. We also think nothing would stop USC and Texas from colliding in the finals of this tournament. We could see Georgia upsetting Notre Dame, and West Virginia having a good shot against Penn St. along the way, but otherwise we'll take Texas and Vince Young repeating their real-life victory over USC.