College football playoffs: this year's seedings and schedule

Under my playoff plan for Division I-A college football, there are 16 teams in the tournament: the champions of the 11 Division I-A conferences, plus five wild card teams.

Seedings are by the Coaches Poll. The standings will be expanded beyond the traditional 25 teams, if necessary, to include all conference champions that received votes in the polls. Conference champions are seeded 1-11. Wild card teams are the top five teams in the Coaches Poll that did not win a conference championship. These teams fill the bottom five seeds in the tournament.

The higher seeded team is the host team. Highest seed faces lowest seed, and so on. First and second round losers are eligible for bowl games.

Here is this year's playoff tournament pool:

Seed	Conference	Team	Coaches Poll
1	Southeastern	Alabama	1
2	Big 12	Texas	2
3	Mountain West	Texas Christian	3
4	Big East	Cincinnati	4
5	Western Athletic	Boise State	6
6	Pacific 10	Oregon	7
7	Big Ten	Ohio State	8
8	Atlantic Coast	Georgia Tech	10
9	Mid-America	Central Michigan	26
10	Conference USA	East Carolina	28
11	Sun Belt	Troy	37
12	Wild Card	Florida	5
13	Wild Card	Penn State	9
14	Wild Card	Iowa	11
15	Wild Card	Virginia Tech	12
16	Wild Card	Louisiana State	13

That means the first round matchups would be:

1) Alabama vs 16) Louisiana State
2) Texas vs 15) Virginia Tech
3) Texas Christian vs 14) Iowa
4) Cincinnati vs 13) Penn State
5) Boise State vs 12) Florida
6) Oregon vs 11) Troy
7) Ohio State vs 10) East Carolina
8) Georgia Tech vs 9) Central Michigan

Under this plan, there would be some good games played in the first round. And, second round. And third round. And a true championship.

Arguments against talk about the number of games played. I addressed that here.

Oh, and, yes, in earlier posts, I suggested using the BCS standings. I've changed my mind. The Coaches Poll is as good a single source as any for seeding. Keeping it simple is better.

Anyway, there you go. This year's college Division I-A tournament, seedings, and pairings.

Tell everyone who doesn't like it that they smell funny. Or a communist.