What if? 2010 Playoffs

Just for fun, I also did a scenario for the hypothetical 2010 playoffs, mainly because I have that season on my Xbox game and wanted to play it out.

Since that would have been a season where the Fiesta and Peach Bowls were semi-finals, it meant no one was displaced from their normal bowl, and I could actually come up with matchups for all six bowls.

It's almost not fair to apply the playoff scenario to 2010, though, because the conference landscape was so different, but again, this is a hypothetical situation for me to play a video game.

Top four:  Auburn (#1, SEC champs), Oregon (#2, Pac-10 champs), TCU (#3, Group of 5 champs), and Wisconsin (#5, Big Ten champs)

Again, I ran into the problem at #4/5.  Again, it involves Stanford and Oregon.  Since Oregon beat Stanford in the regular season, I opted to choose the #5 team, which was a conference champion.  Well, sort of.  The Big Ten had not expanded to add the championship game, so three teams were tied for the championship.  Since Wisconsin was the highest ranked, they got recognized by the BCS and this hypothetical CFP.

We could potentially have a problem with seeding the semi-finalists.  The Auburn vs. Wisconsin matchup would go to the Peach Bowl.  Geographically, it makes since, especially since Auburn would have just played in the same stadium a month earlier for the SEC Championship.  However, the Fiesta Bowl might give a geographic edge to TCU.  Although, with both TCU and Oregon being 12-0, that point might not matter.

The Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowls are easy, because either I have conference champs, or I can just go down the list of next highest ranked.  The Cotton Bowl was extremely easy, as it was the only at-large bowl, so I just picked the two highest ranked teams not already in a bowl.

Peach:  Auburn (#1, SEC) vs. Wisconsin (#5, Big Ten)
Fiesta:  Oregon (#2, Pac-10) vs. TCU (#3, Mountain West)
Rose:  Stanford (#4, Pac-10) vs. Ohio State (#6, Big Ten)
Sugar:  Arkansas (#8, SEC) vs. Oklahoma (#7, Big 12)
Orange:  Virginia Tech (#13, ACC) vs. Michigan State (#9, Big Ten)
Cotton:  Boise State (#10, WAC) vs. LSU (#11, SEC)

We get the top 11 teams, plus #13, so it's not all that bad.  We have 3 SEC teams, 3 Big Ten teams, 2 Pac-10 teams, 2 Group of 5 teams, 1 ACC team, and 1 Big 12 team.

If I opted to put Stanford in the playoffs instead of Wisconsin, then we would have an unranked Washington vs. Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.  Ohio State would move down to the Orange Bowl, and then Michigan State would replace LSU in the Cotton Bowl.