I have a dream

The first ever NCAA College Football Tournament is finally about to begin! After decades of greed-induced confusion in relation to crowning a collegiate gridiron champion, the title will be decided on the field for the first time in history. Here's a rundown of the 16 teams (11 conference champions and five at large teams) seeded by the polls in the tournament and when they play, along with projections on who will advance throughout the tourney:

Round One:
Friday, Dec 8
The Motor City Bowl, Detroit Mich.
#1 Michigan 12-0 (BIG 10) vs. #16 Middle Tennessee St. 8-4 (Sun Belt)
The Capital One Bowl, Orlando Fl.
#8 Auburn 11-2 (at large) vs. #9 Georgia Tech 11-2 (ACC)

The AT&T Cotton Bowl, Dallas, Tex.
#5 Texas 12-1 (Big 12) vs. #12 Wake Forest 10-3 (at large)
Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Fl.
#4 Florida 12-1 (SEC) vs. #13 BYU 10-2 (MWC)

Saturday, Dec 9
The Pacific Life Holiday Bowl, San Diego Cal.
#6 Cal 11-1 (PAC 10) vs. #11 Boise St. 12-0 (WAC)
The Alamo Bowl, San Antonio, Tex.
#3 Louisville 12-0 (Big East) vs. #14 Houston 10-3 (Con. USA)

The Insight Bowl, Tempe, Ariz.
#7 Notre Dame 11-1 (at large) vs. #10 Rutgers 11-1 (at large)
AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Memphis, Tenn
#2 Ohio St 11-1 (at large) vs. # 15 Ohio 10-3 (MAC)

The five at large teams come from one independent (the Irish) and four of the six power conferences, with the PAC 10 and Big 12 receiving only one bid each (USC was left out after losses to Cal and Notre Dame in November, opening the door for Wake Forest, who lost a heart breaker to the Ramblin' Wreck in the ACC title game). There was of course, some controversy as there always is in college football with many believing that a two loss West Virginia team should have been invited, or Wisconsin, who quietly had a fine season. Tennessee and Nebraska (who gave away a game to Texas earlier in the year) felt that they had a gripe as well. They will have to prove that they belong with their performance in one of the many non-tournament bowl games this holiday season.
The first round will be a great opportunity for some of these smaller conference winners to show their stuff on a national stage. Middle Tennessee State, in only their fifth year of D-1 football, will have their work cut out for them against the Wolverinees. And Louisville had better be ready for Houston QB Kevin Kolb, the best player you never heard of until the post season. (And probably never would have heard of if not for this tournament.) BYU's John Beck is the fourth highest rated passer in the nation. Will he be able to lead the Cougars to an upset of #4 Florida? Boise State will finally get what they've been asking for since 2002: a chance to show they're one of the best teams in the land. This just may be the best weekend of college football in history. Let's get rolling!

Round Two, NCAA Quarter Finals:
Friday, Dec 15
Chick-Fill-A Peach Bowl, Atlanta, Ga
#1 Michigan 13-0 (BIG 10) vs. #9 Georgia Tech 12-2 (ACC)

The Outback Bowl, Tampa, Fl
#4 Florida 13-1 (SEC) vs. #5 Texas 13-1 (Big 12)

Saturday, Dec 16
The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Glendale, Ariz.
#3 Louisville 13-0 (Big East) vs. vs. #11 Boise St. 13-0 (WAC)

The Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi, Pasadena, Cal.
#2 Ohio St 12-1 (at large) vs. #7 Notre Dame 12-1 (at large)

Round two features a rematch of last year's Fiesta Bowl with Ohio St. and Notre Dame, playing this year in Pasadena, among three meetings of top ten seeds. Boise may have had the perfect draw to pull off a real Cinderella story in this tournament

Round Three, NCAA Semi Finals:
Saturday, Dec. 23
The FedEx Orange Bowl, Miami, Fl.
#1 Michigan 14-0 (BIG 10) vs. #4 Florida 14-1 (SEC)
The Allstate Sugar Bowl, New Orleans La.
#2 Ohio St 13-1 (at large) vs. #3 Louisville 14-0 (Big East)

The polls seem to have done their jobs, with the top four seeds all making it to the semi final.

Round Four, NCAA Championship:
Monday, Jan 1
NCAA Championship Game, Glendale Ariz.
#2 Ohio St 14-1 (at large) vs. #4 Florida 15-1 (SEC)

That's one hell of a month of college football!

There is one problem with this scenario: The fact that many teams play more than one game at distant locations. As played out above, Ohio St. fans would have to go to Memphis, Glendale, New Orleans, and then back to Glendale for the title game. That's a lot of travel. Florida on the other hand never left the state of Florida until the final round. Would Buckeye fans not make the effort to follow their team for a month? Maybe not. Would people living in and around the bowl locations buy tickets to see them in a playoff game? Buy tickets to a playoff game regardless of who was playing? I think so. This could also be corrected by having first round bowl locations set up in each region to accomodate potential participants. The idea that this would provide an added academic strain on players doesn't fly here either. Players on bowl teams are practicing every day in December anyway. Let them spend the weekend proving they're the best. Every round doesn't need to be traeted like a current bowl game, where teams leave a week early and spend days engaging in pomp and circumstance before kick off. It would be more of an extension of the regular season. This would actually provide more time for most athletes to devote to academics, as fewer teams would be active every week.
I didn't plan the travel required or the game locations. I tried to put all of the high seeds as close to home as would be reasonable in the first round, (which can be difficult, as there are few good bowl opportunities in the mid west, where Michigan, Ohio St. and Notre Dame are located) but after that it was all up to chance. Some later round game locations actually favored the lower seeded teams (Michigan playing Georgia Tech in Atlanta in round two for instance). I'm not sure that should be a factor in deciding who should play in which game though.
The title game could easily continue to rotate between the four current BSC bowl locations, with the final game also rotated among the four current locations on New Year's Day. The one sad part about that is that it would take away the excitement of all of the great New Year's Day bowl games, but let's face it, The BCS ruined that about five years ago. All of the Bowls are meaningless as it now stands, and that would be a small price to pay for this awesome tournament that includes the major bowls and provides a true National Champion.
The NCAA forces it's basketball teams to play in their own sanctioned post-season tournament. It's time for the NCAA to flex some football muscle with the conference commissioners who are afraid to take on the smaller schools and would rather sit in their money grubbing boys club in bed with the BSC. Give everyone a chance at the title. There is a misconception that big conference teams want to make as much money as possible. That isn't entirely true. A football tournament like this one would bring in twice as much money as the NCAA gets now out of the bowl system. The BSC conference teams and coaches only want to make as much money as they can while keeping the non-BCS teams relatively poor. They get enough trouble as it is when every couple of years a Utah, Tulane, Colorado State, Fresno State, Air Force, Marshal, BYU, or TCU has a good enough team to get ranked in the top ten. (They got so sick of Louisville that they eventually included them into the club.) What would happen if those smaller schools could actually tell their recruits that if they come to their school, they could win a National Title? Pretty soon the smaller schools will get a little bit more of the pie, and the big boys won't be quite as big any more. I'm sure any SEC athletic director will tell you, life is hard enough when you're winning in big time college football. Most don't have the guts to do it on a level playing field.