Russian Solves College Football Playoff Dilemma

Igor Panarin, a Russian academic whose prediction of the United States’ demise in 2010 made him the subject of a Wall Street Journal article today, may have unwittingly provided those calling for a college football playoff with a solution.

Put politics aside for the moment and take a look at Panarin’s 2010 map of the United States that breaks the world’s longest-lasting democracy into four regions, none of which include include Alaska (given to Russia) or Hawaii (see note below).  In essence, the map serves as a foundation upon which member schools of the Intracontinental Collegiate Athletic Association (ICAA) — successor to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) — can reorganize into four super regions as follows for college football purposes:

• “THE TEXAS REPUBLIC” will feature all six teams from the Big 12 Conference’s South Division as well as two-thirds of the teams from the Southeast Conference;

• “ATLANTIC AMERICA” will include all of the traditionally-weak teams from the North Atlantic coast area as well as four excommunicated teams from the former SEC (i.e., Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt);

• “THE CENTRAL NORTH-AMERICAN REPUBLIC” roster of teams will be populated by teams from both the Big Ten Conference and the Big 12’s North Division as well as a handful of lesser squads; and

• “THE CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC” will field what can only be described as a reincarnation of the Pac-10 Conference to which Boise State and a handful of other Top 25 programs will be added.

How will the new playoff system work?

Teams will be limited to playing ten regular season games during a season that ends on the second weekend of November.  Beginning on the final non-Thanksgiving weekend of November, the four top teams from each region will battle for their respective region’s top spot in a single-elimination playoff.  Finally, winners from each of the regions will move on to an intracontinental playoff.

The team judged by a combination of computer and human polls to be the “best overall team” among the four finalists will play the lowest-rated team and the second- and third-best teams will battle each other.  From those games, two winners will emerge to play in the Intracontinental Championship.

NOTE: Due to the fact that Hawaii will, according to Panarin, be given to Japan or China, the University of Hawaii Rainbows will remain a team without a conference that has a difficult time scheduling games.  So sorry.

-- Bob McCarty Writes