Sources: The CFP Board of Managers has decided on a 12-team College Football Playoff during today's meeting.— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 2, 2022
One of the main drivers of this College Football Playoff expansion was money. Presidents felt as if they were leaving too much on the table. Monday could end up a powerful motivator for starting prior to 2026.— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 2, 2022
Details on the College Football Playoff expansion here on @espn from @CFBHeather and I. https://t.co/M2zHkQDlTs— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 2, 2022
Source tells @TheAthletic that the College Football Playoff Board of Managers has approved a 12-team CFP by unanimous vote.— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 2, 2022
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Top 5 teams from the SEC + top 5 teams from the Big 10 + Notre Dame assuming they reach a required 2-win minimum threshold + 1 at large team?
Pisses me off that it'll be some variation of this. Optimally it would be 10 P5, 2 G5, Top 6 conf champs autobids, cap of 3 teams per conference. Of course that would make too much sense and be too much fun
In the theoretical 8 team playoff, a cap of 2 per conference was good. I could live with 3 per conference in a 12 team playoff.
It won't be 5 SEC + 5 B1G + ND + 1 WC. Relax.
Not every year, anyway.
If the SEC + B10 number ever gets above 5 I will be very mad. Any higher than 6 I will be absolutely livid. At that point the best of the rest should make their own league
Bout damn time. It was always destined to go beyond 4 (should have started higher than 4 imo). I had grown tired of the "will we, won't we" dance they kept doing every few months for the last few years
4 to 12, that's a big expansion. A Big 12 expansion, some might say.
Well no point to bowl games anymore
considering there are 4000 of them...we've had no need for them for a while.
Nah they're still dope
Oh don't get me wrong I love bowl games, but their attendance suffers like no other and this is going to kill them even more.
True, I wish there were more G5 vs P5 matchups as well
I've been saying for years that they should keep the NY6 bowls tie-ins for the playoffs in some fashion. Would love for the Rose Bowl to still be best on best PAC vs B1G instead of the abomination it is now.
We should see big time players in more meaningful games now, though. Instead of opting out of meaningless nye6 games like as of late
Does this keep ESPN's sole broadcast rights to the playoff?
Looks like this kicks in with the next cycle of the CFP, meaning that the TV deal will have to be negotiated.
Everything getting renegotiated...except the ACC's tv deal we are locked into foreverrrrrrr.
If it's 6 highest conference winners and 6 at large. This may keep the ACC alive for a bit longer.
Let's go top 2 from each P5 and then top 2 G5
This is the only positive about the expansion IMO. And it might be a negative.
This is pretty much the nail in the coffin for football for me. What's the point anymore. There will never be a BYU champion or a 80s Miami championship team anymore. It's all bluebloods from now on.
I don't understand this line of thinking. I feel like this opens the door for so many more teams that would never get picked for the 4-team playoff.
How many teams can win 4 games straight against the top teams in the sport? There are going to be injuries in the games and the most depth is going to win. This isn't basketball where a team can get hot and shoot tons of 3 pointers. Has any G5 beaten 2 P5 teams back to back weeks? Doesn't give them a chance. This is only going to prove the vast difference between the top teams and the other 8-10 each year.
EDIT: Look at the semi final games. How is looking at those games and is like yeah I want more garbage games like those.
So instead of being literally impossible it will now be very hard.
Still an improvement in my book.
Then let's remove the championship game and the play off and make it much easier like it was. Lwts make every week matter.
It's impossible in both scenarios.
Their chances are better than you might think. Doubtful many Hokies right now would lay out of the playoffs because they are "preparing for the draft" like the top 4 deal with now. There are drawbacks to being the top dawg (so to speak).
IDK, you have to have joy in the season that's not a national championship. We can still win our conference, beat our rivals, and spoil someone else's season (I think).
I may be in a minority, but I don't really care if we never win a national championship. I just don't think it's really a big deal. I don't ever want to consider a conference championship season a let down because we didn't win more.
I wonder if they'll kill the conference championship games or "merge" them into the playoff? If each P5 conference gets two autobids, it seems pretty stupid for the top two teams to be playing each other in early December and then probably again at the end of the month.
More info about what was approved
Just figuring out the calendar here.....
At least 12 days between conference champs and round 1. This year, conference champ games fall on the weekend of December 3. Add 12, December 15 is a Thursday, so we're looking at round 1 being around the weekend of December 17. (Sounds like they're protecting Army/Navy weekend.)
After round 1, there's still 8 teams remaining. If they continue the games weekly, that puts round two around Christmas, which probably isn't a popular idea. So they'll probably push round two to be around New Year's, in place of the current semi-finals.
Probably keep the rounds roughly weekly, so the new semi-finals would go into the second weekend of the New Year, which matches up with the final weekend of the NFL regular season. And now the championship game falls during NFL Wild Card weekend.
Man, I hate #6. Lean into the on campus experience. If you want to make this interesting, make Bama travel to Michigan in December.
Yeah I'll take the first round home playoff games but I wish they could figure it out for the second round too. Feel like only the final 4 should get neutral site.
I think this is their way of boosting the NY6. In this structure, all of the NY6 bowls are part of the tournament every year.
We've already got some dope on campus games covered in #4. I really just want two G5's in. Imagine Coastal hosting like Michigan or Oklahoma in round 1, that would be so awesome.
The quarterfinals with the top 4 would really make first round winners play at Bama or in the Shoe every year. Honestly better for the little guys to have those games be neutral
One point that will need clarification will be seeding of the bottom two conference champs. Are they automatically #5 and #6, or do they fall in line with the wildcard teams?
For instance, back in 2014, Boise State was the highest ranked G5 conference champ, but they were ranked #20. Would they be the 6 seed or the 12 seed?
I was wondering how this would work. ESPN link
I like that they appear to be keeping existing bowl games included in the process. It also keeps basically the same schedule as currently. I wish they could find a way to have the championship close to the new year, though, rather than over a week later.
I don't care which week it's in, just get it off of Monday night.
Give me all 10 conference champions and two atlarges randomly drawn from a pool of all 10 plus win teams, capping the number of teams from any one conference at 2.
Rotate the playoff games between 10 different bowls, and have the championship game at whatever location is hosting the super bowl the week before the super bowl.
I am significantly more deflated about this than I thought I would be given that it was inevitable. This is just going to be mini-NFL now.
Ohio State can lose its two most important games (Oregon and Michigan last year) and comfortably make the playoff with a potential home game to boot.
The unique regular season of college football is dead in that scenario. Almost no consequences or stakes for the best teams losing 2-3 games. That just isn't college football. There was nothing like college football's regular season in any other sport in the world.
Yes, this virtually guarantees Alabama/OSU/Georgia a spot every year even when they lose a game or two. But they already got that benefit of the doubt and made it anyway half the time, so who really cares? This isn't gonna diminish the regular season as much as people are acting - if you're not one of the ridiculous blue bloods you're still gonna have to have an EXTREMELY good season to make it, and if you are one of the blue bloods you were already getting bailed out by the committee anyway under the old system.
The blue bloods, since you used OSU as an example, already had a bias anyway. Bama, OSU, etc have always gotten the benefits regardless of the system used. Old polling? They were almost always ranked higher even if they weren't as good as teams in other conferences (or in their own). Same for the BCS and then the 4 team playoff. I mean its pretty obvious when basically the same teams have made the 4 team playoff every year anyway. How the old way operated with the regular season and how it impacted the championship was basically this: The blue bloods had some wiggle room. Everyone else had to be perfect. And even if you were perfect, then you still might get passed over for a blue blood. So yeah, it was unlike anything else. Its okay for anyone to be a fan of that, but this way at least open things up a bit more where there's greater chance for things to be settled on the field rather than ingrained voting biases tilting the scales. Those biases still exist, they just aren't tilting things as much.
Plus, they still have consequences. Actually, they may have more consequences now. Because its more likely that say a 2 loss OSU gets put as a 6 seed and faces a harder road in the 12 team playoff than that bias showing them being voted in as the 4 seed over more deserving teams in a 4 team playoff. So you're still incentivized to win your regular season games to get the best possible seeds. And even if its true that the regular season means less to a blue blood, it means more to everyone else. Because now everyone else doesn't have to be perfect. A loss in September doesn't mean the rest of your season is toast, which keeps fans engaged and keeps revenues flowing.
I remember in 99 it being a legitimate concern that 1-loss Nebraska would jump us in the final BCS. 1-loss Tennessee did jump us a few weeks before the end of the season but they lost a second game otherwise an undefeated VT would have missed out on the championship game because a 1-loss SEC team leapfrogged us. The final BCS poll had 2-loss Alabama and 2-loss Tennessee #4 and #5, respectively.
The more things change, etc.
This is what I think needs to happen - we as VT fans need to forget about national relevance, playoff hopes, national titles, etc. Its not going to happen in this landscape. The deck is stacked against us, as it was before and even moreso now.
If the ACC stays together, so be it. I think moving to a non-divisional schedule is great. More Clemson and FSU on the schedule. If we aren't going to compete with the B1G and SEC money wise anyway, I think we need to absolutely add WVU immediately to the league. Two rivalries (Black Diamond and Backyard Brawl) instantly become conference properties. ACC goes to 9 game schedule, 3-6-6 model.
I completely agree, could not have said it better myself.
There's one positive way to spin it IMO - this might be the only way that realignment/super conferences work.
Yeah there are a few silver linings here: That one (I agree), and home playoff games are theoretically pretty cool.
I know we hold a lot of similar perspectives in how we view/care about the sport, and overall this seems like another concession in the direction of "Only the playoff matters," which simply cannot be the case in a sport with this many teams and this little parity. You need the weirdness and uniqueness to keep this sport special.
This is a win for VT any way you slice it. We had virtually zero shot of ever making the 4-team playoff without going 12/13-0, which we've done literally once in our history. There's now a realistic/tangible path to the playoff and championship we can hope for.
What's VT's record against top 5 teams? How is this a realistic path to a championship?
What was the realistic path to a championship otherwise? We were gonna have to win Top 5 games either way. I'm not saying it's happening next year or anything. But previously we would have had to win all our games AND impress the committee while doing it, all while in a conference that's clearly a step behind the big dogs - now there's a way to control our own destiny.
In 99 we only had to beat 1 top 5 team, we have a win over a top 5 team, in a 12 team play off we are going to have to beat atleast 2
It's not 99 anymore. As long as we're in the ACC we're both playing against our actual opponents as well as against the perception of the conference against the SEC and B1G. I'm not convinced one win over a Top 5 Clemson would get the job done these days to get us "in" like it might have 20 years ago. We're talking about hypotheticals anyway because obviously we're not gonna have a team good enough in either of these scenarios any time soon. But in the current landscape of college football I'll take the tangible path over relying on a subjective committee to like us out of a second tier conference any day.
Right, it's not 99 we have a playoff which is designed to keep the championships away from he VTs of college football. You can't get lucky any more, you have to have depth and talent to survive the gauntlet
I'm still not sure what exactly you're arguing? I agree it was stacked against us either way. We're not exactly likely to bring in a Natty anytime soon, if ever. But previously the committee had full authority to hold our schedule and standing against us and keep us out. Now there's a way for us to fight our way in regardless of what they think.
Prior to the playoff if we went undefeated then we had a really great chance to play for a title and it's one game. Think about in 99 if Peter Warrick stayed in jail, that's a different game. You have a chance to get lucky and beat a top team. Currenrly you have to beat two top 4 teams in a row, which makes it way harder for VT. Going forward you're going win 3 to 4 games in a row against the top teams. So what was a 10% chance became a 1% chance and now is a .01% chance.
Convincing humans to let you play for a title when undefeated is way easier than winning those games.
EDIT: this is not just for VT but every team that doesn't have a ton of 5* guys, the MSUs, the Wisconsins, the Oregons etc
The problem with this rationale is that it's completely anecdotal and has burned waaaay more teams than it helped. We got lucky- newcomers were rare (under both that and the current 4-team format). It was awesome that one time for us, but we are basically looking at pairing the same 20 or so teams with the best resumes year in and year out. Those formats leave 110 irrelevant programs regardless of anything they ever do on a football field.
As a Virginia Tech fan it would be easy to fall into the "well it helped us that one time in 99", but most of the teams with rare "contender" seasons got screwed with the the old format.
Dozens of undefeated teams get screwed (we played Auburn in 2003) because of other shinier schools with the same record.
Almost every season a G5 squad gets blocked with a superior record but a G5 schedule. And many times over, a great team with a similar record gets shut out for a similar team with more name recognition.
It's okay if those teams lose in a bigger playoff. Let them get beat on the field.
Ironically our 1999 squad is not the best VT team ever based on metric comparisons. We were technically a better team in both 2000 and 2009 by the numbers.
The current format votes in the "best" 4 of 133 teams, but this still leaves out some teams with legit potential and admits teams who aren't even competing for the best team in their conference.
12 teams still leaves a lot to the voters, but it's granting much more clout to conference champs and undefeated teams.
Ideally we get a 16 team tourney (every conference champ and the top 5 outsiders). Every team has a path. And the top two seeds gets to pound the CUSA/MAC champs (not exactly a bye but a reward) in the first round while everybody else faces a ranked opponent.
So you think it's better for fans and the schools for a G5 champion to get trounced by Bama/UGA/anOSU/OU/USC just for a participation trophy in a playoff than to win a bowl game and end the season on a high note?
As Jon Bois points out, a playoff is nothing more than a gigantic loser machine. No matter the size or number of entrants, everybody loses except one team, no exceptions.
I've mentioned in the past that winning percentages based on betting lines in college football are far less predictable than college basketball. This would likely to be based on having less data.
March Madness produces 67 losers a season, and it's still pretty damn popular and full of (less likely) upsets (even if most of these games truly have no effect on determining who the champion is):
Playoffs already happen in just about every sport every season. The bowls are "participation" trophies. Handed out to most teams most seasons for the mundane task of achieving 6 wins. They're fun, too and they're not going anywhere.
If you think Toledo would rather finish on a coin flip matchup against Utah State rather than take on a top team like Georgia or Ohio State (and possibly beyond!) as a reward for winning the MAC, then they'd also probably rather see the G5 and P5 go ahead and split so they can seek out their own postseason tournament. That, too is a workable solution to remedy a 133 team FBS pseudo-playoff.
At the very least- you've got that "participation" trophy comment completely backwards.
Doesn't matter what VTs record is against top 5 teams in the past. What was Georgia's record against top 5 teams before Kirby Smart. This is depressing.
Cant find the info for top 5, I am sure it's more than 1 win.
However, for top 10, UGA ia the 17th best team at 35%
VT is 60th at 14%. We have 8 top 10 wins all time.
(USC is #1 and only team over 50%)
I don't understand why people are complaining. Do I wish it was conference champs only? Yes. Do I think the top (best, in reality) teams will still win most years? Yes. Am I thrilled that conference championship might actually mean something again? Yes. Am I thrilled that we now have a path to theoretically compete for a natty without having to sell our soul? Yes.
I agree with all of this.
Professional sports admit anywhere near 25-50% of the teams to the postseason. Most college sports are closer to 25%. We're moving from 3% to 9% of the field and suddenly it's just like every other sport?
Same as the "B-b-but Alabama and Ohio State" thing. They're making most playoffs where only 4 teams get picked; they'll still make most 12-team playoffs. They're one of the top programs in a sport with asymmetrical parity. Now other teams get to play in the postseason, too. Is that even a serious critique on the postseason, or a disguised argument about the fairness of the sport in general?
50% of teams in college football make the post season ...
I can use "tournament" or "playoff" in the future.
Bowl games are fun and they're not going anywhere. But as far as determining champions are concerned, they're meaningless exhibitions.
It completely devalues the regular season. There will be no more 'spoiling' someone's season. There will be no punishment having a bad game. You'll see teams rest players.
The non-bluebloods haven't had a shot at winning a title since the 80's. The playoff won't change this. All that has changed is that teams like VT won't be able to ruin someone's season.
Just wait until a top team rests players in a major rivalry weekend game after Thanksgiving...
Or refuse to play OOC P5 games. Why would anyone play P5 teams, 10-2 pretty much gets you top 12, so why risk it?
They could expand to 68 teams like basketball and VT wouldn't be in it. Also, stop spamming my email for donation requests because I got a ACC Basketball Championship banner that was the size of a garden flag for $20.22 donation.
I don't think expanding the playoff "fixes" whatever they think is "broken"
The playoff isn't what's wrong with the sport. They're just trying to fix phantom problems at this point. I think they will find that the expanded playoff is interesting and exciting for a couple years and then it'll get stale again. Just like the 4 team playoff. We're just on a path to expanding the playoff every 8-10 years to try keeping fans interested.
I don't think those in charge have any vision
They're not trying to fix anything. They're trying to make more money.
I know VT is never going to win a national championship, and I'm at peace with that. But today, VT can still spoil another team's season. That will no longer be possible in the new playoff. And, it will still be impossible for VT to win a national championship.
An argument against playoff expansion like this is entirely emotional, and I'm sorry but just lazy.
In 2014, we beat Ohio State in week 2 and didn't keep them out of the playoff. In 2016 we took Clemson to the wire in the ACCCG. This possibly wouldn't have been enough to keep them out had we won, either.
Wouldn't beating a top ten Pitt/UNC/NC State/Notre Dame/FSU late in the season push them off of their playoff spot? Wouldn't simply winning the ACC prevent any ACCCG opponent barely in the top ten from getting in most seasons?
What was the scenario where screwing over another team's postseason used to be true? How is this scenario actually less likely than a second half top-10 upset in the future?
The fundamental difference in either system, is that in the latter version, we could still make the playoff every once in a while.
That's it. That's the only major difference in the ol' "hatin' on" scenario.
Your examples are quite selective since they were one loss teams, which have always had a chance to still play for a national title. A much better scenario to talk about how you can't ruin someone's season anymore is Ohio State last year. Additionally, let me be very clear, if we beat Clemson in 2016, giving them TWO losses AND they wouldn't be a conference champ... They absolutely miss the playoff. No question. No two-loss team has EVER made the playoff, and the only one who for sure could have was 2017 Auburn if they won their rematch with Georgia in the SECCG. That Auburn schedule was up for "hardest schedule in the entire history of college football".
2021 Ohio State lost their two biggest and most important games of the year to Oregon and Michigan. The consequence of losing two games for them, the second coming to the biggest rival in Michigan, was that they missed the playoff. Despite their high ceiling and talented roster they lost the opportunity because they choked in their two biggest games/were beaten.
In a 12 team playoff, not only does Ohio State still make the playoff anyway, diminishing the significance of Michigan's win (and likely loss for Michigan in a rematch in a dome if they meet again), but Ohio State doesn't risk injury in the B1G championship they won't be in before hosting a home game in the playoff as the 7 seed.
No consequences for top teams. Sleepwalk through 2-3 games? No problem, as long as you show up in December/January.
Just wait until we start to see top teams resting players in the Thanksgiving weekend rivalry games. When we make the sport solely focused on the national championship, you will continue to see more decisions based on only the national championship.
This is why you have to keep the playoff small and only take conference champions. That will force the regular season games to mean something. Every game against a conference opponent could be the deciding factor between making the playoff or missing it. Every game could be an opportunity to bring a team down from the conference title race (and hence, the playoffs). Top 4 ranked conference champions make the playoffs. If you don't win your conference you don't get a shot. If you're not ranked as high as 3 other conference champions schedule tougher games ooc to build your cred.
Eh. The comment I responded to was "VT can spoil another team's season", and these are precisely those examples. We're talking about knocking teams out of a 4 team playoff. That... that whole conversation is one loss teams.
In 2015, we could have beaten #12 UNC the week before UVA and wrecked their championship bid.
In 2017 we had a chance to beat #9 Miami in week 9 and do the same.
In 2019 we had #16 Notre Dame in week 7- probably get to knock them out of playoff contention there.
In 2020 we saw #9 Miami in week 8.
In 2021 defeating #14 Notre Dame in week 5 might have been too early, but worth mentioning.
It would appear that our chances of knocking a team out of playoff contention doesn't exactly evaporate with the expanded playoff.
(Sadly, we lost every last one of these games. Ugh).
If Ohio State or Alabama or Clemson can win ten games a season and still make the playoff,
Good. For. Them.
I mean, I'd rather see 10 conference champions and 2 at-larges, but the Big Ten, SEC & Notre Dame has more money and a seat at the table where these things get decided, so I'm going to lose that fight every time.
If you can win 10 games a season & finish amongst the best teams year in and year out, good on you. And frankly, a playoff always gives us every entrant but one going out on a loss. That's kind of a fun thing, really.
Here's the thing. It's already those teams' trophy to lose, no matter what system we're using. I'm sort of wondering if you're just messing with me at this point. There's no system where these same teams don't get some kind of an advantage in almost any scenario.
They're... They're the best current programs. We all already agree on that.
The only way to keep the top programs away from "their" trophies is to beat them on a playing field. Keep the decision as far away from the voters as possible.
That's why sports have playoffs.
Arguments against playoff expansion seem to involve either
a) feelings (shouldn't the singular objective of the entire College Football Playoff be to occasionally fuck over a 10-win
ClemsonOhio State?), orb) minutiae (well the new loophole, for those teams still having EXCELLENT seasons while no longer competing for conference championships and byes will be simply making it into the playoff and worrying less about their seeding).
Meanwhile we've had one team outside the PRESEASON top 20 make the 4 team playoff. Rendering 100+ teams a season obsolete just to sometimes fuck with
ClemsonOhio State is not a fair trade for, well I can't really think of anybody exceptSouth CarolinaMichigan fans. And maybe the occasional angsty Virginia Tech fan.(I know I'm throwing shade at you for keeping the crossed out Clemsons on here, but I'm moving back to Ohio next year, too. If memory holds, Ohio State fans can be insufferable, spoiled assholes, too).
In an asymmetrical sport with a parity deficit, it's not worth throwing away something like an actual on-field championship, when the alternative is we just hand the trophy to whoever probably would have won it anyway.
College football was awesome in spite of that. That wasn't what made the sport great- that's the shit that makes you slap a paper bag over your head at the end of every season like a damn Browns fan, walk away and say "Whatever. I'll see you next year."
The 4 team playoff is progress. The 12 team playoff might not be perfect, but again- it's progress. With the 12 team playoff, we may never see an undefeated team finish their season in a consolation exhibition ever again. You know, progress.
Of all of the factors currently driving the direction of the sport, the fact that there remains a National Champion is certainly one of them.
If you're concerned about the direction of the sport, don't overthink it. What's the most batshit crazy thing that's happened in the past year or so.
Maybe that Texas, Oklahoma, USC and UCLA just set fire to their entire storied histories and two major conferences?
(Plus, USC and UCLA just crossed the Alliance. THE ALLIANCE! Who does that?)
Ironic, as their odds of winning future championships plummeted. Something much bigger is spray painting their face silver and driving this sport into oncoming traffic.
Please just let this (finally) semi-legitimate postseason happen. Auto bids, and Ohio State being really good almost every single season are not what's destroying this 133-team sport.
Haven't had a chance to respond to any of your comments, so I will do so here. I'd like to make both an emotional argument and a rational argument.
FEELINGS:
I feel like having voters make decisions is just part of college football, and I love it.
I would also argue that CFB results have a ton of 'luck' involved. By expanding the playoff, and allowing more teams (with lesser records) to enter the playoff, you take luck out of the game. The reality is, it's easier for a not-as-good team to get 'lucky' and knock a team out of the playoff than it is for two not-as-good teams to beat a good team. IF you're goal is to see less repeat semi-finals/finals/champions, then the more luck in the game, the better.
RATIONAL ARGUMENT:
I think most people would agree that CFB too top heavy, and that inequity is perpetuated by two problems:
An expanded CFP does nothing to address either of issues.
An important thing to build off this last line... The talent imbalance isn't going to be materially impacted by the expanded playoff because the primary reason elite talent chooses a school is often based primarily on the NFL and which school will prepare you more for that reality. The best teams pitch the iron sharpens iron aspect, and you practice against those guys multiple times the amount of games you play. It requires a very fan-oriented perspective to think that the end goal for an elite high school football recruit is to win a college championship rather than to make it to the NFL.
FEELINGS- I've gone on at length why I don't agree with this, but it's a fair take, and it's not an opinion that you'll be pushed off of.
We shall agree to disagree.
RATIONAL- The inherent imbalance in college football was never created by the postseason. (it's a shared culprit to some extent by means of the bowl structure's payouts and attendance agreements- but it's never been a driving factor in the disparity).
It feels like an immense and misplaced responsibility to suddenly call on a postseason structure realignment to "fix" that.
If that's a rational argument against playoff expansion, it's still a bad one (along the lines of "Yeah, well this new postseason won't cure my cancer, PAWWWL").
Is there ANY postseason structure that actually fixes parity? (Including all conference champions at least makes it possible for every team in the FBS to show up in the first round and get outmatched by the number one team in country. That's a change I want; I think it's fair in the spirit of competition, but I have no misgivings that it will make much difference at all on the allure of the average MAC or CUSA champion).
For one, some might argue that the asymmetry is a feature, not a bug. Pro sports tend to have a superficial feel, and that's by design- they have an auto-leveling parity structure.
Those enhancements are things like player acquisition rules (the draft, FA rules), resource sharing (Salary caps, luxury tax).
Those same changes in college football would likely have similar results. That said, they're not realistic changes:
NFL Draft/CFB Recruitment - NFL Teams decide who plays where. In college the players control their destiny. The only way this would ever change is if a legitimate regulatory body is created, or the federal government mandates it.
Revenue sharing - The NFL runs the pro league with total control and consistent enforcement. CFB is run by the UNCAA. The furthest the schools will agree to revenue sharing is the conference agreements (and if UT, OU, USC and UCLA are any indicator, that too is subject to the whims of the haves, anyway).
Sports are always tinkering with the design of their post seasons, but I've never understood it to ever have any measurable effect on parity.
I agree with this, but a lot of people in the media and online who are promoting the playoff seem to believe that this will fix inequity in the sport
Anyone catch that Georgia-Oregon game yesterday?
Turned it off after 5 min lol
Georgia really pissed in the 12 team playoff Cheerios
If anyone's interested in seeing what a 12-team playoff most likely would have looked like in the CFP era (2014-2021), I put it together here:
http://cfarena.blogspot.com/2022/09/12-team-playoff-what-if-cfp-era.html
Each year, at least 10 teams from the NY6 are the same as the projected playoff teams. 2017 and 2021 are years where all 12 teams are the same in both scenarios.
And since it's a holiday weekend, I had time to apply the 12-team playoff structure to the late BCS era (2006-2013):
http://cfarena.blogspot.com/2022/09/12-team-playoff-what-if-late-bcs-era...
Of course, VT is in the mix in that era. Spoiler alert -- we're either a road team or we get a bye in the first round.
Does this account for 6 conference champions getting autobids?
He states it at the top and follows through (it's a really weird coincidence that the top 4 teams never shared a conference in this era).
In 2010 the FBS was back to 5 power conferences, but VT would have gotten bounced due to both the MWC and the highest WAC co-champ having a higher ranking. I think he's following the proposed format fairly strictly.
They did, most obviously in 2011, but I was numbering the teams based on seeding, not rankings.
I'm pretty sure if we'd had this format back then, results would have been greatly different. On one hand, there would have been some "adjustments" in the rankings to move some teams up or down, and on the other hand, some of the teams might have performed differently based on how often they were or weren't getting into the top 12. Boise would certainly have had a much different story, going from Cinderella to the NCAA equivalent of the early 90s Buffalo Bills.
I'm still working on the details for what the early BCS era (1998-2005) would have looked like, but overall in the BCS/CFP combined era (1998-2021), VT would have made 7 playoff appearances. We would have gotten byes in 1999 and 2007, hosted first round games in 2000 and 2004, and been on the road in the first round in 2005, 2009, and 2011.
Clearly all of this is academic, because the governing body would most likely have adjusted the selection process by 2002 or so. I'm sure a situation like 2003 would have sparked some sort of change, where #1 Oklahoma is defeated in their conference championship game to K-State (ranked #15 going into that game, #10 after). That would have bumped the Sooners down to the 5th seed at best, and they would have had to go all the way down to #7 to find the fourth highest conference champ (FSU).
2005 really would have pissed some people off. Miami and VT would both get into the playoffs as at-large teams, but FSU - the actual ACC champion that beat both of them - would not, because they were the 7th highest ranked conference champion.
And....my buddy just pointed out that I mixed up the Mountain West champion in 2011. I mistakenly thought it was Boise State and gave them the #4 seed, but the actual champion was TCU, who was ranked much further down but would have been the sixth conference champion. Boise State was still high enough to be one of the at-large teams, so that would have pushed the last at-large team out of the tournament...which was #11 VT.
So we would only have six appearances in the 12-team playoff, 2 each of first round byes, first round hosting, and first round road trips.
Nice, this is exactly what I thought they should go to. 12 teams keeps it fairly small, rewards the top teams by allowing first-round byes, and gets whatever random flavor-of-the-month G5 school or schools who are having great years (UCF, TCU, Boise St, etc) in there as well.