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Tuesday, December 10
Updated: December 11, 11:18 AM ET
 
If only 'Fantasy Bowl' could become a reality
By Mark Kreidler
ESPN.com

The USC Trojans are the slight-surprise winners of the NCAA's first postseason Division I-A football playoff, but that's not important right now. No, the important thing is that the playoff exists, that it works every bit as beautifully as we've been insisting for years that it could, and that the Trojans traveled a true champion's road to earn the distinction of being called the kings of collegiate football.

Pete Carroll
The hottest team in college football would seem to have the best chance to win a national championship -- if only there were a playoff system in Division I-A.
Granted, it's pure hallucination, but you can't have everything. If you allow for this minor defect in the model -- the fact that it's being carried out strictly within the Webby confines of our interactive minds -- it's solid gold the rest of the way in.

An NCAA playoff exists, all right. It has existed for years. We reliably date the concept to at least the mid-1980s, when a Dallas sports guy, Norm Hitzges, produced a perfectly acceptable 16- or 32-team postseason championship scrum among the I-A titans. (We can't remember which number of teams Hitzges proposed, but it couldn't matter less. Pick one. Satisfy as many corporate and administrative interests as you must.)

Norm had charts and graphs and everything. He was enthusiastic as heck. It was as easy as pie. We eventually settled on a 16-team, 15-bowl-game approach as our personal favorite, and we've essentially been stuck on that notion for more than a decade since.

Now, in the current case, USC wins its way through a very straightforward Final Eight, and that's fine, too -- not inclusive enough for our tastes, perhaps, but those are quibbling details. If the ESPNers are going with eight, we can live with that.

The format is shockingly simple, and that is part of the playoff appeal. In this model, we're simply taking the teams that finished 1 through 8 in the final BCS standings -- Miami, Ohio State, Georgia, USC, Iowa, Washington State, Oklahoma and Kansas State -- and letting it rip. Highest seed plays the lowest, 2 plays 7, and so on. The top half goes 1-8 and 4-5; the lower half is 2-7 and 3-6.

It looks a lot like a bracket. It is a lot like a bracket. And it goes exactly this way:

  • Quarterfinals: Miami 34, Kansas State 17 (Rose Bowl). USC 28, Iowa 27 (Capital One). Oklahoma 9, Ohio State 3 (Cotton). Georgia 21, Washington State 16 (Outback).

    Kansas State's comparatively weak schedule comes into play here; the Wildcats just haven't seen an all-around power like the Hurricanes. The USC-Iowa game, which we hear may actually get played in real life, is every bit as intriguing as its quarterbacks, Heisman nominee Carson Palmer and Heisman winner Brad Banks, suggest it would be -- it's decided on a botched conversion attempt early in the game that stands up as the difference.

    Oklahoma, given a favorable geographic bowl site by the inscrutable Championship Committee, provides Ohio State the shock of its season. Washington State plays well enough to win, but can't overcome Jason Gesser's lamed right foot to produce enough offense.

  • Semifinals: USC 31, Miami 28 (Sugar). Georgia 15, Oklahoma 7 (Orange).

    Willis McGahee
    Willis McGahee provides Miami with a formidable offense threat, but it is questionable whether the Hurricanes would run over every team it faced with the pressure of the playoffs.
    The Trojans catch the break of the tournament by getting the Hurricanes in the semis, since no college team in its right mind wants to meet Miami with a national title on the line. Is it possible the Hurricanes were looking ahead even 1 percent? And what this game shows, by just a hair's breadth, is the slight difference at QB between an ascendant Palmer and the Canes' Ken Dorsey, an excellent college quarterback who may not actually be having his best season. Palmer was the best at his position over the second half of the season; Dorsey, while a staggering 38-1 for his career at Miami as a starter, wasn't as great in some big games: Florida, Florida State, Boston College. Palmer guides the battle-tested Trojans (toughest schedule in I-A) to the winning drive in the game's final five minutes. Instant ESPN Classic.

    Georgia-Oklahoma, by contrast, is every bit as exciting as watching Bob Stoops tie his shoes. The Sooners meet a team that can get just enough points on the board to win, and finally run dry on offense themselves with Nate Hybl behind center, accentuating some of the struggles they had to score at times during the season. Georgia, meanwhile, has been storybook all year. No reason to alter the script now.

  • Championship: USC 27, Georgia 10 (Fiesta).

    A breakout performance by the Trojan defense is overshadowed by the career-capping night of Palmer, who completes 28 of 37 passes for 325 yards and three touchdowns. It's a show fairly indicative of Palmer's sensational tear through the last half of the USC schedule this season; he averaged 334 yards through the air over the Trojans' final six games leading to the championship tournament.

    On the podium at midfield in Tempe, Ariz., a tearful Palmer raises aloft the NCAA championship I-A football trophy and says, "We know we earned this one." Around the country, for the first time in modern history, viewers nod their heads and can think the same. It's the Fantasy Bowl, brought to you by our unceasing certainty that a playoff system is not only do-able but would be an all-around grand old time -- and, shoot, we're just getting warmed up.

    Mark Kreidler is a columnist with the Sacramento Bee and a regular contributor to ESPN.com




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