I'm cranky this week. The Eagles laid an egg on the way to the Super Bowl. The temperature is in the single digits outside. And my pick to win the national championship, Kansas, keeps losing games that it should win.

In other words, it's a bad day for Bracketology readers to give me a hard time. So beware.

Tweaking The Tourney
The last thing the NCAA tourney needs is to get larger, but that's where the committee, coaches and commentators (including you) seem to be heading. Adding a 65th team was ludicrous -- a single "opening round" game? And all to ensure "enough" at-large berths?

There's nothing magical about the number of at-large berths. Reducing it by one would only mean that the seventh Big East team doesn't get in (or that Butler will never make it), and that's only true if the newly added conference champ would not have made it on merit (i.e., if the MWC champ wasn't going as an at-large team anyway). And it's hard to argue that it's not "fair" that the otherwise last-best at-large team got somehow cheated out of the tourney. If no seed lower than an No. 8 has won, then why are we guaranteeing at-large berths to 12-13 seeds in the name of fairness?

Adding a legitimate extra round would require an extra 16, 32 or 64 teams (look, even numbers, powers of two!), an extra weekend and is a guaranteed losing proposition economically (attendance/viewership for Alcorn State/Siena?). The tourney is already 10 days over three weeks, six rounds, 13 locations and the winner is pushing 40 games in a year.

Cut it back to 64, cut an at-large berth, institute your .500 or better rule, eliminate the 2/4 limits on attending "exempt" tourneys (so the mid-majors have a place to play the big boys on neutral courts every year) and call it a day. But do not enlarge the behemoth.

If the major conferences must have that last bid (greedy), then have the play-in game be between the LAST TWO AT-LARGE teams. Penalize Wisconsin and Georgetown for barely qualifying, failing to win their regular seasons or tourneys. Don't penalize Alcorn State and Siena by sending them to an empty arena to play yet another play-in game to make it to the "real" tourney. They played their way in by winning an elimination game (their own conference tourney championship). Plus, you might actually sell some tickets and get some viewers for a Wisconsin-Georgetown matchup -- better fan base, more familiar teams, better advertising hook. "Which is more deserving, Big 10 No. 7 or Big East No. 7?"

By the way, how does making the .500-or-better rule include conference tourneys help? Finish your conference regular season at one-under (say 7-9), then you'd need to go 3-1 in the conference tourney to get to .500 overall (10-10). But what conference tourney is four rounds or more with a 7-9 team seeded low enough to be in all four rounds? The ACC has everyone in (nine teams), but a 8/9 seed winner is the only team that can play four games, and I can't imagine an 8/9 seed with a 7-9 conference record. Are their other conferences with over eight teams in their tourney?

Peter Schroeder
Dallas

I'm torn over Peter's many valid points, and will thus invite additional discussion for a future column. On the one hand, I really like the idea of not one -- but four -- opening round games to determine the final at-large spots. If we can have a "Bracket Buster" Saturday, surely the interest in, say, a "Bubble Buster" Tuesday would be sizeable. This path would also take some pressure off the Selection Committee in naming the final at-large teams by increasing their margin of error. The promotion and positioning of such a quadruple-header (or, better still, two regional doubleheaders) would be equal or greater than most conference tournaments.

On the other hand, the competitive reality is that the low-majors relegated to "play-in" status by the Lunardi Plan are of mixed worth for the NCAA field to begin with. While I have long been a proponent of additional tournament representation among mid-majors, it's difficult to make such a case for conferences which may go 20 years between NCAA tournament wins. I still like the idea of improving the quality of the No. 16 seeds by essentially creating a playoff among the existing 15/16 entrants. Not only will this make for better 1-16 games, but it gives four teams which have little or no chance to win an NCAA game the reality of actually doing so.

It's a tough call. My recommendation is based more on the political realities of Division I than anything else, but "Bubble Buster" Tuesday also sounds good as it rolls around the tongue. What do you think?

P.S.: The ".500-or-better" provision would have much more impact that Peter suggests. First, it makes the opening conference tournament game for an 8-8 team absolutely riveting (instead of the frequently flat arenas on a Thursday afternoon in March). And there are many conferences with more than eight teams in their league championship bracket. About once every year, some 7-9 team makes a run to a conference championship game only to run out of gas. Under my plan, that team would be automatically "NCAA-eligible."

I just wanted to comment on your idea that there ought to be four play-in games. I agree with you in some ways, but I think the teams "playing in" ought to be at-large teams. Teams with automatic bids ought to actually be in the tournament. There is no reason the winner of the play-in game has to be seeded 16th. It would be more interesting to see that 6th Big East team have to play the 3rd-place MAC team for the right to be an 11th seed. I understand your point of the winning tournament experience, but the school that loses that game never gets a real tournament game at all. Losing to Kansas is admirable. Losing to Coppin State makes you wonder why you even made the trip.

Thanks.

Steve Youth
Houston

Very persuasive, Steve. Let's keep this conversation going.

In the meantime, if we went in this direction, some tweaking would be needed to the current bracketing principles. For instance, the Committee might have to compromise things like "no teams from the same conference can meet before a regional final." This is because those making the bracket wouldn't known if that No. 11 seed would be, say, a Big East or MAC representative. All of this tweaking could be done, but it is an issue. Following all existing bracketing criteria isn't as easy as many followers think.

I realize this may seem like a minor point but ...

I'm just curious about your color keys used to indicate seeding movement. Since GREEN is the color used both in traffic signals to "GO" and for rising stocks "on the GO," why not use it to indicate teams whose seedings are "on the go" (i.e., moving up)? And use RED to indicate teams in decline, as red is used to indicate stocks that are declining?

Keep up the good work at Bracketology, whether you change your color scheme or not!

Brian Burnetta

We're probably stuck for this year, Brian, but consider your suggestion passed along to those who make the really important decisions around here. Personally, I never even noticed.

Beating A Dead Horse?
My disagreement with using in football a playoff system or a bracket system like that of basketball has a number of levels:

1) The emphasis would turn the college game into the pro game. Pro sports exist for the fans. They exist to make money off the marketing and the hype and the showmanship. Many people who support a playoff system for football believe the sport exists for them. What is their greatest desire, what would be their greatest thrill? Sure, I would be fooling myself if I thought money and marketing and exposure were not part of the college game. However, college sports should do better to protect kids, most of whom will never play professional sports and are not being paid and should be treated with a little more respect. The bowl system is really what is best for the kids. A playoff system would result in there being no difference between it and the pro game. One could argue "is it best for Carson Palmer not to get a shot at Ohio State?" I would reply with "yes," because USC lost two games. Simply because they were a good team at the end of the year does not mean their two early losses are completely ignored. Is the BCS perfect? Absolutely not; in fact, I hate it. But preservation of the bowl system is important for the kids.

2) Pro sports are designed so that upsets rarely occur (and usually only in the best-of-five series of the NBA). NFL wild cards have to play another game, and only two have ever won the whole thing. This isn't feasible for college sports, so let's stop pretending.

3) Examine March Madness: How often is the best team crowned champion? Let's see, Duke has finished the year ranked No. 1 four years in a row…and won one championship. UCLA (the Ed O'Bannon team) was the last to do it before that, and Duke in '92 before that. What was the last before that? The argument for a playoff is "show who is the best team." Well, college basketball does not typically crown the best team. Very few college teams have ever gone undefeated. Virtually every team will lose a game on a bad day, even the best teams. If it happens in the tournament, a team that doesn't have a bad day wins the whole thing. So, Villanova was fun, but they weren't the best team. The argument really doesn't work to say it would allow the best team to be crowned champion. Last year, Indiana beat Duke and Oklahoma to get to the championship game (and Duke and Oklahoma both beat Maryland). Maryland wins the game, and is champion. Best-of-seven series for each team, who knows who would win? So, the reality of the tournament is not to crown the best team (which is the football argument), it is really about the fun the fan has watching the games. I fail to see how making it more fun for the fans makes the game itself better (look at the NBA that loves to tweak rules to make the game more interesting for the fan). Sorry, but allowing Shaq to run over everybody because he is a star doesn't make the game more interesting, it makes it cheap.

4) Half of all teams that go to bowl games celebrate the end of their season with a victory. Just going to a bowl game isn't always the greatest thing in the world. Going to the Dance is. Okay, I grant that. For a small school to make it is a dream. For a power conference school that rarely gets below an 11 or 12 seed, that seed is a disappointing result. They aren't excited about it. They feel vindicated if they win that first-rounder, but rarely do. But, for the last few schools into the tournament, it was a great experience regardless of whether they won or lost. Still, only one team goes home a winner. In college football, half the teams go home winners. A playoff would take a lot of teams for whom being in a bowl game isn't much of a thrill—only winning it is—and making them play again and then losing.

5) Restricting the bowls to the top eight teams doesn't make sense. One would be saying "these eight teams are the only ones worthy." Sure, and that's why the Dance kept getting expanded, because people didn't think that was true. Right now we already have a Kansas State team that finishes in the top eight every year following a gaudy record, and an unconvincing win in a bowl game. Are they more worthy than a Michigan or Penn State that was in every game they played and had a lot more quality opponents? Would we tell teams that have two or three losses but are in the top eight that, if they beat OSU or Miami and end that teams' season with their first loss, such deserves a better chance at the national championship? This is a better system?

6) What the BCS has wrought: A lot less fun. It used to be on New Years Day, every bowl competed to put the most interesting game on. And there were crazy matchups, unranked versus No. 4 in the country in a game that goes to the wire. That was fun. The top teams needed to win, and needed to win convincingly, and there were arguments about who was the best. Has the BCS fixed it? No. This is the first year it resulted in someone being crowned that no one argued about. Has it created more interesting games? Well, the Orange and the Fiesta were interesting matchups (ignore the blowout the Orange Bowl was, that could not have been anticipated). Outside of that, no. What has really happened? The BCS has diminished the importance of all other bowls and made afterthoughts of many of the other teams that want to celebrate a good season. Gee, that's a good result. And we think a playoff would make the game better? It would only reduce those games even further in importance. Again that's not fair to the kids, and it doesn't make the game any better.

7) Compare the pro game. Did SF have a good football season? Then why was Mariucci fired? Does anyone remember Dallas in the early '80s? What they were AFTER '78? How many times did they lose in the NFC Championship game? Rams, Redskins, Eagles, 49ers. Florida State gets to point to how many years they finished in the Top 5. Dallas gets to point to what? No super bowl, no championship, no glory, no recognition. What a terrible thing it would be if FSU's terrific run became less than an afterthought because only one game matters, the national championship game.

8) So, an alternative to the current system exists. But no one can say it will fix the game, and there are reasons why it will damage the game—all in the name of satisfying Doritos eaters sitting on their sofas. There is a right thing to do, for the right reasons. Let's find it. A playoff system is the wrong thing and would be for the wrong reasons.

Thank you.

Brian Clise
Chicago

Thank you, Brian, for a well-reasoned and well-written argument. As I am frequently accused of giving more space to those in favor of a playoff, you have certainly ended that complaint.

Having said that, I'll respond very briefly to your various points:

1) It's OK by me to preserve the bowl system ("for the kids," as you say). I don't think that and a playoff are mutually exclusive.

2) I strongly dispute the word "rarely" as a description for upsets in pro sports, but it's not an especially relevant point to me.

3) In no way am I arguing that the NCAA Tournament determines the "best team." What is does determine is a legitimate national champion. In major college football, we get neither. And that is the overwhelming reason for a football playoff, in my opinion.

4) So, again, keep the bowls. Just as college basketball keeps the NIT. Both will likely survive so long as there is interest.

5) I have no idea if a Kansas State or a two- or three-loss Michigan should be in a potential football playoff. But real people could make that decision the same way the NCAA basketball field is selected.

6) I dare say that New Years Day would be just this side of awesome if four quarterfinal or two semifinal games were being contested. It will also sell more than a few chips.

7) We'll have to agree to disagree on this. The Cleveland Browns didn't win the Super Bowl this year, but I bet they and their fans feel awfully good about the progress of the franchise. Regardless of sport or level, there is overachieving and underachieving—with corresponding emotions after the fact.

8) It ain't world peace we're after, but a legitimate national champion in the only college sport that doesn't have one. Let's not make it more complicated than it has to be.

I couldn't agree with you more on your point that there was no actual national champion in football, this year or any year that there is not a playoff. I believe you need to add one point to your 10 reasons for football "bracketology" and a playoff:

Conference play would actually mean something. In football, as it is now, there is no point to playing a conference schedule. Actually, being in certain conferences harms certain teams and helps others.

The SEC, Big 12 and Pac-10 generally are very competitive from top to bottom, and offer some very difficult games in hostile environs to visiting teams, while the Big East and ACC in recent years have given Miami and Florida State the opportunity to rest on their early season laurels with only one, or no, tough games to play. Also, a team such as Marshall or Boise State, because they are in non-BCS conferences, have no shot at a national title.

My football bracket idea would have a 16-team playoff, with all conference champions getting automatic bids and, I believe, five at-large teams determined by a selection committee rounding out the field. Isn't it always the Cinderella conference champion from a mid-major conference knocking off one of the big boys that generates most of the interest in the NCAA tourney each year?

Think "Gonzaga." Imagine TCU winning the C-USA title and not having to accept a bid to the "Whatever Company Pays the Most" Bowl, but knocking off Ohio State in a tough first-round matchup, then moving on to the second round with all the accompanying hype and media attention.

I hope your voice gets heard, above the confusing din of pro-BCS self-backslapping as they imagine that this year the system worked. It didn't. Kansas State and USC got jobbed, period. Even Oklahoma, etc., etc., etc.

Jeff Knapp

I don't follow individual teams closely enough to know who did or did not get "jobbed." But I do know two things:

1) I agree with Jeff 100 percent. The system is broken and easily fixed.

2) With the Super Bowl this weekend, no more "football talk" will appear in this space for the rest of the basketball season.

Happy Hoops to all!

Joe Lunardi is the resident Bracketologist for ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio. He may be reached at bracketology@comcast.net.