Tournament of Champions - 2006 Edition

We had so much fun with the 2007 Tournament of Champions, we thought we'd go back in time to look at how much fun the playoff could have been in prior years. If you haven't read it yet, make sure to look at the rationale behind the Tournament of Champions.

For 2006, we have a very interesting field. We'll use the BCS standings as our ranking/seeding system, and allow any independent that finishes #6 or higher an invitation.

Conference Champions:

Seeding	Team	Conference
1	Ohio St.	Big 10
2	Florida	SEC
3	USC	PAC 10
4	Louisville	Big East
5	Boise St.	WAC
6	Oklahoma	Big 12
7	Wake Forest	ACC
8	BYU	Mountain West
9	Houston	Conference USA
10	Central Michigan	MAC
11	Troy	Sun Belt

Independents: None qualify. Notre Dame finished #11 in the BCS standings.

The championship is played in the Fiesta Bowl, and in preserving the bowl system as much as possible, there could be terrific games for the the other top-tier bowls:

Rose: Michigan (11-1) vs. California (9-3)
Orange: Auburn (10-2) vs. Notre Dame (10-2)
Sugar: LSU (10-2) vs. Wisconsin (11-1)

The seeding for the 2006 Tournament of Champions produces the following bracket:

Notable in 2006:

• As in 2007, Ohio St. secures the #1 seed.
• The WAC champion (Boise St.) seeds better than the ACC champion (Wake Forest). This format does not take for granted that BCS conferences should have all the top seeds.
• Second round USC vs. Oklahoma would be a fun game. So would third-round Florida vs. USC.
  

And the National Champion is...

Boise State had an amazing season and proved in its real-life victory over Big 12 champion Oklahoma that it could hang with the big guys. As flat as Ohio St. was in its real-life bowl game, we'll take Boise St. to the finals with victories over Louisville and the Buckeyes. As strong as the Gators looked in real life, we don't think anyone beats them in this fictional post-season. Florida cruises past Wake, has a reasonable victory over the Trojans, and ends the Broncos' Cinderella season.