Five-Minute College Football Althists

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls07/bracket

This website enables you to simulate a 16-team college football playoff for the 2007 season. If you replace the "07" in the URL with 08, 09, 10, or 11, you get a different bracket for those four seasons.

This enables us to envision potential national championship showdowns from 2007-11 under a playoff system.

I used the "BCS Standings" option to simulate five years of this potential playoff. Here are the national championship game results along with some notes.

2007: Ohio State 25, USC 20... USC opens with win over Hawaii and knocks out OTL national titleholder LSU... Buckeyes beat Tennessee, West Virginia and Georgia to reach championship... Missouri is upset by Arizona State in the first round.

2008: USC 41, Florida 34... USC takes relatively easy path to title game, beating Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, and Boise State... Florida defeats Georgia, Texas Tech, and Texas... Utah loses to TCU in first round... Oklahoma upset by Boise State in quarterfinals.

2009: Texas 24, Alabama 20... Reverse result as in real life... Texas beats Miami, Iowa, and BYU to reach title game while Alabama beats West Virginia, Ohio State, and TCU... Cincinnati (undefeated in OTL) upset by BYU in first round.

2010: LSU 27, Arkansas 26... LSU pulls three straight upset wins over Ohio State, TCU, and Oregon - teams that reached the Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, and National Championship in OTL... Arkansas also upset Michigan State, OTL national champ Auburn, and Stanford in succession.

2011: LSU 31, Oklahoma State 24... Tigers repeat... LSU opens with back-to-back wins over conference foes (Georgia, South Carolina), follows up by KOing Stanford 31-23... Oklahoma State beats Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin to reach title game... Alabama upset by Wisconsin in quarterfinal, 29-24.
 
I tried another five-year ATL, this one imagining the playoff teams as being seeded by ESPN's power rankings.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS

2007: USC 25, Oklahoma 22
2008: USC 38, Penn State 29
2009: Alabama 28, Oregon 18
2010: Auburn 32, Boise State 31
2011: Alabama 28, Oregon 22

Try your own!
 
Here's another - this one is based on the Allstate Top 16 and later the ESPNU Fan Rankings.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS

2007: Ohio State 31, Florida 23
2008: Texas 36, TCU 25
2009: Texas 30, Ohio State 25
2010: Oklahoma 29, Missouri 22
2011: Alabama 28, Oregon 22
 
This ATL is custom made based on Jeff Sagarin's computer ratings.

For the first time, I'm treating the quarterfinals as BCS bowl games and including their year-by-year results.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME RESULTS
2007: USC 31, West Virginia 16
2008: USC 32, Ohio State 20
2009: TCU 29, Texas 26
2010: Auburn 34, Stanford 28
2011: Wisconsin 38, Oklahoma State 33

ROSE BOWL RESULTS
2007: USC 31, Auburn 17
2008: USC 32, Mississippi 21
2009: Texas 34, Oregon 27
2010: Stanford 28, Ohio State 26
2011: Oklahoma 39, Oregon 34

ORANGE BOWL RESULTS
2007: Georgia 32, Kansas 23
2008: Florida 47, Penn State 30
2009: Florida 26, Virginia Tech 20
2010: Wisconsin 29, TCU 26
2011: Oklahoma State 37, Michigan 31

SUGAR BOWL RESULTS
2007: Virginia Tech 27, LSU 19
2008: Georgia 29, Alabama 15
2009: Cincinnati 25, Alabama 23
2010: Auburn 35, Arkansas 27
2011: Wisconsin 29, Alabama 24

FIESTA BOWL RESULTS
2007: West Virginia 30, Missouri 27
2008: Ohio State 31, Boise State 22
2009: TCU 34, Georgia Tech 27
2010: Oregon 31, Boise State 26
2011: LSU 31, Stanford 23
 
This one deals with the Colley Matrix rankings; I'm listing the national championships only.

2007: Florida 30, LSU 27
2008: Alabama 30, USC 22
2009: Alabama 25, LSU 12
2010: Wisconsin 26, Alabama 24
2011: LSU 32, Arkansas 21
 
This one is from Kenneth Massey's ratings.

2007: LSU 29, Georgia 23
2008: Oklahoma 45, Texas 39
2009: TCU 30, Iowa 19
2010: Alabama 27, Virginia Tech 25
2011: Michigan State 31, Oregon 27
 
This post actually covers seven alternate versions of the 2007 season, based on the BCS Standings in seven weeks. Timeline I, for example, imagines if the initial BCS Standings had held the entire year, while Timeline VII deals with the final BCS rankings.

Timeline I: USC 27, LSU 23
II: Oklahoma 36, Florida 30
III: Boston College 25, USC 15
IV: LSU 31, Florida 27
V: Georgia 29, Ohio State 21
VI: USC 27, LSU 23
VII: West Virginia 30, Missouri 27

Only one team (USC) won the national championship twice in seven different 2007 Playoff ATLs. LSU won it once and lost it twice, while Florida lost twice. OTL national runner-up Ohio State made it to the title game just once, in Timeline V, and lost to Georgia.
 
This is another "multi-post" covering eight different 2008 ATLs based on every set of BCS Standings from that year.

I: Boise State over Alabama
II: USC over Alabama
III: Florida over Texas Tech
IV: Oklahoma over USC
V: TCU over Georgia
VI: Texas over Penn State
VII: Florida over Utah
VIII: Texas Tech over Penn State

Interesting. 2009 is next.
 
2009 BCS Standings ATLs

I: Boise State over TCU
II: Alabama over TCU
III: Texas over Pittsburgh
IV: Oregon over Ohio State
V: Florida over Boise State
VI: TCU over Georgia Tech
VII: TCU over Georgia Tech
VIII: Florida over Texas
 
Here are 7 different alternate 2010 seasons based on the BCS Standings from week to week.

I: Oregon over Auburn
II: Oklahoma over Boise State
III: Boise State over TCU
IV: Auburn over Boise State
V: TCU over LSU
VI: Oklahoma State over Wisconsin
VII: Arkansas over Wisconsin
VIII: Wisconsin over Oregon
 
This timeline imagines a region-based bracket for the 2007-11 seasons.

REGIONAL CHAMPIONS BY YEAR

EAST
2007: Virginia Tech
2008: Pittsburgh
2009: Virginia Tech
2010: West Virginia
2011: Virginia Tech

MIDWEST
2007: Illinois
2008: Cincinnati
2009: Iowa
2010: Wisconsin
2011: Wisconsin

SOUTH
2007: LSU
2008: Oklahoma
2009: Florida
2010: Auburn
2011: Alabama

WEST
2007: Hawaii
2008: USC
2009: TCU
2010: TCU
2011: Oregon

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
2007: LSU over Hawaii
2008: USC over Oklahoma
2009: Florida over TCU
2010: Auburn over TCU
2011: Wisconsin over Alabama
 
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