Ok so forums are supposed to be about discussion. So I have a topic for y'all. The college football playoff committee currently waits till later in the season to release rankings. What if, and this is a big if, they decide that it would be best to not release rankings until after the final whistle of the conference championships. This idea would be even better if all other rankings were dropped as well. As much as we love to debate the week to week rankings, wouldn't the discussion at the end of the year be just a little bit more pure if you don't have to worry about who beat the #1 team in country in week two? The NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and MLS all don't have rankings, they let the records of the teams do the talking. I understand they play more games and have less teams. But I feel this is why the playoff was established so that the best team in the country would earn the trophy. I don't know, just some food for thought.
A different way to go about rankings
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It'd be nice if we were able to do that, but as you mentioned, the sheer number of teams in college football makes going purely off of record pretty much impossible. Add in that ESPN and other pretty much make a living (and by "living" we mean "several billion dollars") off of the intrigue created by arbitrary rankings, and that's something that just won't change.
Pretty much what I was going to say. I'd like to do away with preseason rankings, too, but even without the actual rankings, all sports media will still prognosticate about what the rankings should be rather than debating what they are. There will be no escaping it; it's ingrained in the sport.
Yep. Even without rankings there would be top ten lists and mt. Rushmores, etc. There is no way to get rid of rankings.
Sportswriters, TV analysts and fans have fallen in love with rankings - almost everything gets ranked by somebody these days no matter how ridiculous and pointless it might be (see the various articles on and the chest thumping/discussions about "ranking the open college football jobs...before they've even all opened").
The professional sports leagues have an autobid process where there can't be a tie for a playoff spot (except MLB, but they have a way around that). CFB does not.
Most other leagues have established rules for how to make the post-season. If the conference champions had a clear route to the playoffs then, this would make a lot of sense. However, since they don't, i think it's hard to justify a big "Surprise! You won your conference, but you're not making it this year." At the end of the season since there is nothing else to gauge success along the way.
Right so I guess what I am suggesting is that much like the tourney. Every conference champion gets a bid to the playoff (Notre dame and the other independents won't be happy). Then you can make the statement that the most deserved teams would be in.
I think one of the major hesitations to this is the de-escalation of the excitement of the regular season. Trust me when I say I am frustrated with the current hidden nature of the playoff selection. However, I don't think that pure conference bids would allow for the excitement of every week of college football (see NFL football, esp NFC east). I think that an easily accessible algorithm should be used to determine rankings. This algorithm should include efficiency, defense rankings, redzone efficiency, etc.
Interesting. I think the regular season would actually have more excitement. Look at the coastal. Every year, it is madness. Now imagine that whoever comes out of that madness can enter the playoff. Chaos is beautiful.
Ok, I see your point with the coastal. Each division race gets more interesting. But does that make each game across the nation more interesting? I'm not sure. The OSU v MSU game remains just as interesting, but the UNC v VT game becomes less interesting. UNC has to beat us to stay relevant this year. However, i think they would still clinch the division if we won, which makes that game less important. Which is better? I think that this is the heart of the issue.
But there was still a way that they didn't make the acc title game if they lost that game. But then you can just say that a better record will give you a better seed in the playoff.
How about we just take human opinion out of the equation and turn the entire regular season into a legitimate playoff. Cement 8 conferences as part of Division 1 football, each conference with 2 divisions. At the conclusion of the regular season, the top finishers of the divisions (standings based only on Divisional records) host the 2nd place finisher in the Divisional Championship (in the event of a tie, the head to head earlier in the year determins home field). Divisional Champions meet at a neutral site for the Conference Championship. The 8 Conference Champions meet in the College Football Playoff, seeding based on a predetermined computerized formula that is announced in advance of the season, whose formula is also announced for full transparency.
It's amazing how we keep screwing this up by wanting to desperately hold onto the eye test in lieu of actually allowing the champion to legitimately determine it on the field.
Heck, if you want to make every game still important, seed the playoffs based on conference OOC records among the 8 Conferences
There seems to be a fear of really good teams being left out and really bad conference winners getting in, so we end up with the eye test. I don't have any problem with the playoff being tied to conference championships. If a good team slips up and misses the championship, it's nobody's fault but their own. If a bad team gets in, make them seeded against the best team.
If we don't move to a conference seeded playoff, I am no longer a fan of expanding from the 4 team system we have now. Initially, I was banging for 8 or 12 teams because that playoff would be absolutely great. But now seeing that the 4 team system is forcing teams to evaluate strength of schedules, it should improve the regular season. I'd rather have the whole season be great than only the playoff.
I don't think we need the extra divisional game, especially if those teams have already played.
But, it would be entertaining to watch the Sun Belt get in as the bottom seed every year, and once in a while, screw up the playoffs by winning one.
This would have to be based on some sort of power ranking that accounts for record and strength of OOC games to be effective.
Could not agree more. Every week, the selection committee meets, and each member of the committee argues about which top 25 team would win in an imaginary game against another top 25 team. The team with the most imaginary wins gets a higher ranking. Right now, Clemson has the most imaginary wins. This is what the 'eye test' is. This is how championships are decided in college football. In the 21st century. It's laughable.
Expansion of the post season is a dead issue. It's not happening.
At least not for a couple more years.
Doubt it. Not unless the university presidents do a 180 and completely drop the amateur student-athlete status of football players.
1.) Money. Universities and athletic departments like it. More games gets it.
2.) ESPN. More games = more ratings = more money. Refer to point #1.
3.) The SEC. Let's see them get left out of the 4 team playoff one year.
4.) The other conferences. Let's see one of them get left out multiple years.
5.) FCS. There are five rounds of the playoffs at that level. If a team goes through all five rounds, they play 16 games in one season. And those are at the schools that care about grades.
1) Politics**
**This is really the only number that matters**
But for argument's sake...
2) There is a point of diminishing returns and a single semester season already bumps up against that point.
Beyond that...
3) The entire show comes to an end the moment college athletes are professionalized (See No. 1). ESPN knows it, the institutions of higher learning know it, the NFL knows it, and those other (FCS) institutions know it. An extended season for the sake of greater monetization of the sport represents an even bigger finger in the eye of amateurism. The only entities interested in it are sports journalists with page view counts and fans.
Something, something... goose... golden egg.
An extended season wouldn't be just for money, it's for fairly deciding a champion in the sport. Imagine for a second that it didn't have the following that it does. Deciding the champion the way we do would be laughable.
I don't think the four team playoff is laughable at all. That's plenty of teams to establish a fair post-season competition. I just think the CCGs should be the first round of the playoffs.
Additionally, the notion that academics are as competitive at Charleston Southern, Portland State, etc... as they are at Michigan, Stanford, Virginia Tech, et. al. doesn't seem accurate (to me at least).
Regardless of how important academia is at those schools, their regular season is one game shorter (11 games) with at least one or two of those games being money makers against FBS schools. A full season is still a one semester affair with the championship taking place Jan 9.
Then why do they have a 24 team playoff, while FBS only has 4 teams?
Not a lot of support for shortening the regular season at the FBS level.
Also, see number 1.
5.) FCS. There are five rounds of the playoffs at that level. If a team goes through all five rounds, they play 16 games in one season. And those are at the schools that care about grades.
This is the one that always gets me when FBS university presidents start talking about the season being too long for a FCS style playoff. So it's OK for those kids on those few schools to play more games and have a longer season, but not for FBS kids? Give me a break.
Not to diminish the efforts of players in the FCS, but the level of commitment required isn't equal to the FBS, especially the P5 schools. You're not comparing apples to apples.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure FBS and FCS still have the same 20 hours/week rule, do they not?
I think they should go to blind picking. No team names. There is too much politicking. Committee puts too much emphasis on 50 years of history rather than the best/most deserving teams.
Sadly computer rating systems would be the best. They don't factor in subjective data.
I was thinking the last time we discussed this, if we wanted to maintain rivalries and "inter league" play, if you will...
Divide regular season into quarters. First 3 games are your rivalries & inter conference match ups (like VT/Alabama home & home). Second 3 is your conference opponents (rotates annually based on whatever). This is essentially a "round of 128". Best conference rankings out of this round get re-seeded to the 3rd set of 3, an eliminator or "round of 64". Since everyone is reseeded in conference, all teams keep playing (like NASCAR), and the schedule is always fresh, but only the survivors would be eligible for the championship. Re-seed again. The final three regular season games (round of 32) set you up for championship week (8 conference championship games, sweet 16).
After this you still get finals & winter break, you keep the bowl games for the other teams, but you are down to 8 contenders for a New Years 6 type playoff similar to what we have now, except everyone actually had a fighting chance starting in the season.
I'll put this into a table later. Battery dying.
My battery
Get rid of the selection committee. My plan:
I feel like this was part of the problem two years ago
When they first announced "four team playoff", my initial reaction was "oh, they're expanding the BCS to 4". (made sense because the major complaint was top 2 might not be best or >2 undefeated)
The problem pre-BCS was human bias. So we get the BCS (computers). What do we have now? Humans again, only 12/13 instead, meeting behind closed doors.
Clearly not having fun
The problem with the BCS wasn't the computers...it was still the human bias. There was too much riding on the polls that could be influenced too much. Because honestly, the coaches poll is garbage, and even the other polls were influenced entirely too much by ESPN. (Either there were ESPN staffers voting, or the voters were getting most of their info from ESPN.) The 2011 lovefest for Alabama/LSU was just too much.
I think it was Cowherd that was talking about a nice balance. The computers can run all the numbers and come up with something, but you still need a human element to balance it out that can take care of the intangibles. (Things like certain players not being available for certain games, etc.) Flip side, the computers can balance out the humans that just want to put all SEC teams in all of the top slots.
Never will happen..... rankings, whether they are accurate or not, draw better ratings.
No way.
College Football is unique in major sports as we get to argue and bitch and moan about rankings and such all year.
I'm already irritated with the playoff structure as I think it destroys a lot of out of season arguments.
The playoff committee has put emphasis on wins against teams over .500, not on what the rank of the team was at the time they played them.
You will never remove an aspect of a sport that encourages engagement. Irate fans are engaged fans. Engaged fans stay interested. The networks rely on this. That's why ESPN's format is so dependent on scripted conflict. Polarizing opinions, like those coming from the rankings, make college football more profitable.
Which is why the P5 makes sense. One conference getting shafted has the potential to make an entire region of fans irate. Plus they can pit conference against conference in a season long discussion about the best four resumes out of 5 champions.
But how will the SEC have so many top 25 matchups/wins, if there are no rankings and 75% of the SEC doesn't start the season in the top 10? /s.
I hate the comittiee, it puts way too much human element into the rankings. I mean it seems the criteria changes from week to week. The BCS, in all its flaws, wasn't bad, it just left some good teams out of the top 2 (which is obviously easy to do when you only pick 2 teams). Gives me the BCS polls and make the playoff 8 teams and you have the perfect system.
Totally agree.
I don't know why we need a committee for 4 teams, though. A basketball committee for 68 teams makes sense.
The illusion of impartiality.
While rankings have always been ingrained in the sport of college football, I do believe we have started down a path toward them becoming obsolete, if not extinct. I believe within a decade, the playoffs will expand to 8 teams, with each of the P5 conference champions getting an automatic bid. There will then be three wildcard spots, which will be selected via committee, and then all eight teams will be seeded by the same committee. So while polls could continue to exist in that selection process, the guarantee of five conference champions making the playoffs would remove some of the value of polls. Basically, polls would become a "best of who's left," and then finally, a poll of the eight playoff teams. The traditional AP top 25 would have diminished value in the system I think we're ultimately moving toward.