How come the hoops junkies get to have all the fun in March?
Yeah, we have spring football to keep us from going into complete withdrawal, but that’s not the same as the real thing.
So we’re going to take a page out of Washington State coach Mike Leach’s playbook and create our own version of March Madness in football. Leach has suggested college football should reduce the number of regular-season games to 10 and use a 64-team field to decide the national championship.
We’ve heeded his call and — using ESPN’s preseason FPI rankings as a guide — have seeded the teams 1 to 64 and will play out the 2017 postseason round by round, just like they do in hoops.
Sit back, second-guess away (as if that ever happens in college football) and have some fun. Remember, there’s a lot of projection involved and maybe even some fantasy, too. I can already hear “One Shining Moment” playing in the background.
We’ll cut it down to the Sweet 16 today.
The bracket
1-seeds: Ohio State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida State
2-seeds: Auburn, LSU, Clemson, Penn State
3-seeds: Washington, Wisconsin, Stanford, USC
4-seeds: Georgia, Louisville, Florida, Miami
5-seeds: Notre Dame, Michigan, TCU, Tennessee
6-seeds: Oregon, NC State, UCLA, Texas
7-seeds: Washington State, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Baylor
8-seeds: Northwestern, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Kansas State
9-seeds: Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi State
10-seeds: Iowa, Ole Miss, Arizona State, Georgia Tech
11-seeds: Pittsburgh, Colorado, Memphis, Missouri
12-seeds: Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, Syracuse, Duke
13-seeds: Oregon State, South Florida, Utah, BYU
14-seeds: Nebraska, Arizona, Wake Forest, West Virginia
15-seeds: Indiana, Houston, Michigan State, Boise State
16-seeds: Minnesota, California, San Diego State, Colorado State