The Bowl Championship Series saw its most chaotic weekend, possibly ever, when Oklahoma, Oklahoma  State and Oregon all lost to seemingly lesser opponents.

The result is a BCS top three consisting of LSU, Alabama and Arkansas. Three schools from the same six-team division in the 12-team SEC. With two weeks to play in the season, the trifecta at the top for the SEC West is unprecedented.

The possibility of rematches involving Alabama are very strong given that, regardless of a LSU win or loss, the Crimson Tide is assured of a spot in the top two of the BCS.Alabama lost to LSU, but beat Arkansas.

Regardless of what happens, there will be questions as to the legitimacy of the BCS, given the potential rematches involving Alabama-LSU or Alabama-Arkansas now seem inevitable. Mathematically, Alabama, LSU and Arkansas are the best teams in the country. LSU is the lone undefeated BCS team, and Alabama and Arkansas lost to the right teams at the right time. (Arkansas to Alabama, giving the Razorbacks time to climb back up the rankings and Alabama to LSU more recently by a small margin, causing only a small drop in the rankings)

So what can be said for teams like Oklahoma State,Virginia Tech, Stanford, Boise State and (undefeated) Houston?

Has there ever been a better time to argue for a college football playoff? Here’s my suggestion, which I developed with my coworker Katey, in the span of 20 minutes this morning.

BCS Playoff

12 teams, seeded 1-12, with six automatic qualifiers and six at-large bids. Seeds 1-4 are based on final BCS rankings among AQs and receive first round byes.

Automatic Qualifiers:

Conference champions from each of the six “BCS conferences” of the SEC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10, Pac 12 and ACC.

At-large bids:

Top six non-AQ teams as determined by the BCS standings.

Making assumptions related to the rest of the season, this is how it would shake out:

Automatic Qualifiers

SEC: LSU
ACC: Virginia Tech
Big 12: Oklahoma State
Big East: Rutgers
Pac 12: Oregon
Big 10: Michigan State

At-Large Bids (based on current or assumed BCS standings)

Alabama
Arkansas
Stanford
Boise State
Houston
Oklahoma

The playoff seeding would be as follows:

1. LSU
2. Oklahoma St.
3. Virginia Tech
4. Oregon
5. Michigan State
6. Rutgers
7. Alabama
8. Arkansas
9. Stanford
10. Boise State
11. Houston
12. Oklahoma

With a 12-team, single elimination, four-round playoff bracket looking like this (click to enlarge)

Using the 2011/12 calendar as a schedule, four round one games would start on or around December 17^th, four round two games on Dec. 24^th and two semifinal games on Dec. 31^st. The championship game would be played on January 14^th, only five days after the scheduled date of the 2012 BCS National Championship

The only clunker of a first round matchup is the 6/11 of Houstonv.Rutgers. That says more to the Big East than anything else. I think people would happily pay to see Case Keenum take on a non-CUSA defense. Each of those matchups provide for some amazing mid-December football that could easily compete with the NFL’s late-season matchups.

It gets tricky when you talk about where to play these games. The Cotton Bowl, Capital One Bowl and Chick-Fil-A Bowl all come to mind as excellent chances to farm out the playoffs to the major, but non-BCS  bowls. The playoffs provide for 11 total games. The six major bowls, the four current BCS bowls and then a final BCS Championship game will host each game.

The final game could be bid out every year to cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, Indianapolis, Detroit etc., just like the Super Bowl.

Other bowl games could fill the void during the week during the holidays and would feature much more entertaining matchups from schools in major conferences that travel well. It works out well for sponsors, conferences, host cities and fans. Because who really wants to watch the RL Carriers Bowl in New Orleans between Troy and Ohio?

Pros:

True championship tournament featuring the best teams from all conferences
Doesn’t dramatically expand the season
Doesn’t encroach on academic year
Increase revenue to be distributed to participating teams and conferences.
Allows all small school conferences shot at national championship
Keeps current bowl system intact as a complement to playoff

Cons:

Lessens chance of major early season matchups for team trying to preserve BCS standing
Difficult/costly for fans and teams to travel to up to four extra games

Can you imagine what a 12-team playoff would look like? Every team, every game would matter. Rutgers and Houston would have the same chance as winning the national championship. No more four “good” games only leading up to the national championship. Every game would count, with equal build up and implications.

Just for fun, what would the playoffs look like this year?

How GREAT would that be?

(Side note: McDonald’s tastes freaking good every once in a while. I had it a few weeks ago as a late-night meal. I enjoyed it. It’s made that way. If it tasted like crap and was still bad for you, Ray Kroc would have only served hundreds, not billions. This is not some anti-McDonald’s rant.)

Millie and I watched “Supersize Me” last night. It’s Morgan Spurlock’s documentary where he eats nothing by McDonald’s for 30 days.

For me the interesting part is not how much he gained in a month, but how he drilled down to what could happen to the average overweight American in a year. Eating only at McDonald’s for every meal, Spurlock gained 25 pounds, shot his cholesterol through the roof, became lethargic, depressed and generally unhealthy.

So he ate 90 meals there in a month and did all that. Of course you say. Anyone who eats unhealthy for a month would gain 25 pounds.

(Side Note: No blame was assigned to Coke/Soft Drink Industry in this movie which I think is kind of lame. A quarter pounder with cheese has 510 calories, 42g of fate and 9g of sugar. Add a 32 oz. Coke to the meal and you tack on 310 calories and an incredible 86g of sugar. Coke should have received some of the scrutiny.)

Let’s assume you’re fairly brand loyal and only dine at McDonald’s.

Do you grab McDonald’s on the way to work on Monday because you didn’t have time to cook breakfast. Then on Thursday, the kids are coming home from soccer practice and you worked late and need a quick bite to eat. So you grab Mickey D’s again. That’s twice in a week. No big deal eh? But that comes out to 104 McDonald’s meals a year. 14 more than Spurlock ate.

I’ve had this discussion with Millie several times about how for a large portion of America, McDonald’s and fast food are the reality of a family meal. It’s quick and easy with food-like qualities and relatively cheap. Feed a family of four for $25? Can’t do that at Chili’s!

The second argument goes that prepping a huge home-cooked meal takes too much time and effort. We’re a nation on the go with little time for our health and can’t afford access to fresh fruit and vegetables. But I’m starting to disagree.We have a choice in this matter.

Millie and I are lucky to have a nice market nearby, it’s nothing special, but it’s a fun local grocery store that has some excellent choices in fruits, vegetables and meat. Our grocery bill this week was approximately $100. With that $100 we get a ton of vegetables, fruit, fresh healthy deli meat, whole grain breads, eggs, organic yogurt, organic milk, orange juice, Pellegrino water (4 for $5!) and a few other side items. We’ll be able to eat almost the entire week, about 12 meals total on that trip. For the two us, the total comes out to less than $10/meal.

Here’s an example…

Tonight’s meal consisted of:
Quinoa – 1/4 box. At $5/box that’s a cost of $1.25 (McDonald’s large Coke)
5 eggs scrambled. At $4.59/dozen that is $1.91 (Quarter pounder?)
Diced green peppers, red peppers, onion – We used about half of this, maybe cost us $1.50 total (Large Fry)
Fresh guacamole – $5/tub – I’ll be VERY liberal here and say we used 1/5 of it – $1 (Med. Coke)
Dash Shredded Cheese – Unknown, I think like $5/bag, we might have used 5% of it – $.25 (Ketchup packet?)

So our total meal cost was about $6 and it took 20-ish minutes to make.

There is this huge disconnect in America that makes people think that a decent meal that’s healthy and will provide sustinence for your body is some huge undertaking. You don’t have to shop at Whole Foods for grain-fed organic wheatgrass bison. If you can afford it, go ahead, but you don’t have to.

And I think that’s the point that Supersize Me is really trying to make. It’s not about McDonald’s, it’s about the shift in eating habits of an increasingly obese country that thinks, or doesn’t care, it can never be healthy. Sure McDonald’s has handed us a loaded gun, but they’re not saying we can’t go out and kill a turkey and have some nice healthy lean meat sandwiches for a few days. Nope, we just point it straight at our foot and pull the trigger.

We think somehow a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke constitutes a well-rounded meal and can be had in 90 seconds from the comfort of your car. If you came over to my house and said “I’m hungry” and I dissappeared into the kitchen and microwaved something for 30 seconds, dropped some potatoes in grease and poured you a huge glass of sugar water, would you think I was being a kind host? Would you think I had your health and well-being in mind? Of course not. So why do we mindlessly pull through the drive-thru and get handed coronary artery disease in a bag and pay $6 for it over and over?

Why is it we can then go home and carve out an hour to watch Dancing with the Stars and Survivor, but we can’t spend 20-40 minutes whipping up something quick and easy that won’t kill us?

Americans need to share in some personal responsibility in all this. You shouldn’t be able to sue McDonald’s because you fed it to your kid three days a week any more than I should be able to sue the CTA if I jump in front of a train.

I love this article from the WSJ today about how product proliferation is hurting companies. The general gist is companies are offering more and more varieties of generally the same product to discourage entry to the market place, prevent comparison shopping in stores and holding on to longstanding customers

I’ll get it out of the way so you don’t have to wait for the payoff. Yes, I’m going to use Apple as my example.

Apple does the complete opposite and as a result has gobs and gobs of cash. Want to buy a computer from Apple? First you make a decision between laptop or desktop. Once that decision is made you decide how big you want your screen to be, what processor/graphics card and how big the hard drive is on the machine. For laptops you have roughly seven choices, desktops lets you pick from four. (Mac Pro not included, you are not a filmmaker)

So that’s 11-ish computers total that Apple offers.

A quick perusal of the HP web site shows (I think) that I can choose from up to 23 base models of laptops. I don’t care to check out customization, but even for base models there are more than three times the amount Apple offers. And HP printers? Take your pick of 85. How can I make an informed decision that I know I’ll be happy with if I have 85 options of something that generally does the same thing!

I’m more inclined to not spend money on something than potentially shell out hundreds of dollars for something I can’t find definitive reviews for because it’s one of hundreds of products in the same space. No one can possibly review every printer on the market, but it’s dead simple for a tech blog to look at Apple’s products, because they’re basically the same thing with variety coming from the core components that separate them into price layers.
Which is why people are willing to pay a premium. There is no guess work for the customer, they know they’re getting a superior product at a price that provides them value. They won’t be left wondering if maybe that different model with the same screen size, slower processor, more RAM, different DVD-ROM, red skin wrap, upgraded audio card, enhanced display, cheaper video card was a better deal.

This isn’t just an Apple vs. Everyone argument either. I have an HP laptop that I love, but recently when I had to replace an audio driver on it I found that there are AT LEAST 100 different HP Pavillion dv6000 models. (Mine is a DV6985SE to be exact).

Brands are making it impossible for people to recommend their favorite products to their friends. What’s available that store may not be available at this store because of limited shelf space,  exclusivity deals, demographics etc. People call me and ask my opinion on this desktop or that monitor and the only thing I can say is “Hold on, let me check the Amazon reviews.”

The WSJ article points out the benefits of focusing on producing/offering a handful products that are superior to a competitors offering. It even points to Trader Joe’s customers being okay with less selection in return for better prices. There are no loss leaders in Trader Joe’s says the WSJ:

“Trader Joe’s, a privately held specialty grocery chain, states on its Web site that if a product “doesn’t pull its weight” in stores, it is removed to make room for an item that will. The strategy results in more relevant merchandise for consumers and higher sales per square foot.”

Basically if your product sucks, they aren’t going to sell it. So the onus is on the manufacturer to make a good product, not the store to push it. That’s providing me the customer with that I want. A few options that are right for me, not a glut of products hoping to capture the long tail of sales.