16 teams, 10 conference champs and 6 at large. This would have been my selections. There are some sexy opening round match ups, and look at the potential second round games.
1) Florida State versus 16) Louisiana Lafayette
8) Missouri vs 9) South Carolina
5) Baylor vs 12) UCF
4) Alabama vs 13) Fresno State
6) Stanford vs 11) Clemson
3) Michigan State vs 14) Rice
7) Ohio State vs 10) Oregon
2) Auburn vs 15) Bowling Green
Tell me that is not some tasty college football in late December/early January THAT ACTUALLY MEANS SOMETHING. I smell money.
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The issue with a 16 team playoff is that the top 2 teams are playing an extra 4 games on top of the regular season/conference championship game. In addition to finals, it's a lot of work that's usually put into game planning for one team and getting underclassmen prepared for the next year that's suddenly not available.
Obviously there's no perfect system and everyone has their own opinion, but I'd be in favor of an 8 team playoff. One less overall game and you are left with a more exclusive list of games. Using your rankings it would be:
FSU vs. Mizzou
Auburn vs. Ohio State
Michigan State vs. Stanford
Alabama vs. Baylor
Looks like a hell of a Saturday lineup to me.
An 8 team playoff would have the same problems with extra games. So shorten the regular season by one game and don't let playoff bound teams play FCS matchups or penalize them or something.
But if that was the 16 team playoff... 10/10 would watch again(well maybe not all of them)
They could get rid of the conference championship games but I think that will only happen if 4 18 team super conferences are formed.
It is funny how those extra games are not a problem for FCS, DII, and DIII teams.
Better athletes, obviously
They also don't care about player academics like the FBS schools so. I mean imagine playing a couple games before finals!
I'll go into what I meant more with the extra games issue.
1) Strength and Conditioning. I know you mentioned FCS, DII, and DIII having extra games, but only having a month before the season to prepare mentally and physically only allows these kids so much time to get their bodies ready for the rigors of a 15-16 game season. There's no OTA's or mini-camps like the NFL to get everyone fully ready. After seeing teams like Georgia and Florida get wrecked by injuries, I personally think it's critical to make sure the players who also play school and don't get paid to do football 24/7/365 are as ready as possible to take the punishment of a football season.
2) It's one less week than a 16 team playoff, but I don't believe the quality of games decrease by a significant amount. South Carolina is the only team in the 9-16 seeds on that list that I would have on the fence as deserving a slot in the playoffs, and the level of parity in College Football is not that high, at least not compared to the NFL (in my opinion).
3) Travel/Home Field issues. Does the higher seed keep the home games like the NFL or do you have a site that's designated in advance to host the games (like the bowl games)? Travelling every week for games just isn't viable for alumni and students, so neutral site games might be tough to consistently sell out, and having home field advantage may create issues if it's between two one-loss teams and the difference between getting home field and not comes down to the opinion of a computer/sports writer.
I'll probably think of some other stuff later, but these are the issues I came up with, I just figure it'll help the discussion.
I thought DIII only played 10 regular season?
10 game regular season and then they have to win 4 games to win a championship. 14 games in 16 weeks with bus trips for playoff games covering half the country (Virginia to Trinity, TX was my experience.)
FYI, D3 used a 32 team playoff.
Their venues have10-20k seats. FBS much larger and $ and prep and ...
I have said this several times to coworkers but everyone just looks at me with a blank stare.
But 16 total games for the final two teams? Kind of a lot.
And the comment above beat me to it. Ok.
That's the regular season for those kids on the top 2 teams with aspirations of playing in the NFL. I think they should be able to handle it. I think the bottom line is that any playoff with fewer than eleven teams needs to exclude teams that did not win their conference. There really needs to be a premium on winning the conference title. Rematches suck and I don't care to watch a team play with the attitude of "it doesn't matter if we lose this game because we'll make the playoffs anyway."
Playoffs cheapen the season and the best way to keep that from happening is to make conference champs and top 5 ranked independents the only teams eligible to participate. If you want a conference loser to participate, then you want a 16 team bracket.
I like the idea of getting the postseason started right away for everybody, that way no one *cough*Nick Saban*cough* gets a bunch of extra time to prepare. It's more natural, I think.
That just devalues the regular season so much... Clemson got blown out by FSU and USCe, do you really think they deserve a shot at the title? I don't. One of the best parts of college football is how every game matters.
Also, teams who clinch a spot in their respective Championship game early in the season might start resting players for entire games. I just don't like that.
Nope. If you win your conference, you deserve a shot at a title. If you win your conference in a NCAA team sport including all other levels of football, you get a place at the table. You need the six at large teams to balance the bracket and to keep people who want to see the "power conference" teams like Alabama that didn't win the conference still have a shot.
11 game regular season, 16 team playoff. Anything less completely devalues all the conferences that don't end up with an undefeated or 1 loss champion.
French, the NCAA could practically print their own $ in your format, it would be a fanpalooza with the games played at the home stadiums of the higher seeded teams up to the neutral site championship game, just like the NFL. 11 game regular seasons with one off week during the season, then an off week before the playoffs begin. Maximum 15 games for 2 teams only, not much difference between that and the 14 games that FSU and Auburn will have played this season. And with an 11 game season, the balance of all FBS teams would actually play LESS football than more. Just eliminate the option to play FCS teams for the FBS, and your problem is solved, and the fans don't have to pay for meaningless beat-downs of paid-off travelling FCS teams that nobody wants to watch. THAT would also help eliminate injuries to FCS players having to go up against bigger/faster/stronger FCS guys. (I know that is a generalization, but despite the occasional surprises, most FBS vs FCS games are ugly blow-outs)
But in a sport that has already bifurcated the teams, why not slide Louisiana Lafayette down to compete with JMU and Ga Southern instead of Alabama?
I have no interest in the Big East conference "playing for a championship," so I certainly don't value the MAC and Sun Belt getting their shot.
So let's cut the basketball tournament back to 32 teams and get rid of the automatic bids for teams like George Mason, VCU, Gonzaga, Valparaiso and every other small school nobody has heard of yet made a splash in the tournament.
The Sun Belt, MAC, CUSA, MWC and AAC all play Div I-A football and have, in the past, knocked off some big boys in the process. Their conference champion has just as much right to participate in the playoffs as do the champions of the 5 majors. And if they get in and, God forbid, one of them actually wins a game or two they would immediately become America's sweetheart, the underdog everyone roots for to knock off the big boys and actually win a title.
This is the reason why I see a complete overhaul of the conference alignments. I thought they were headed in that direction before, but it stopped.
Six 16-team conferences would result in 96 teams playing big-time football. That puts 24 teams out that are in now. Tell me you can't find 24 cellar dwellers out there. If it takes "absorbing" some of the mid conference teams into the big ones now, so be it.
There will not be a good solution given the conference alignments and the schedules as they stand now. There must be a complete redo in order to make it work properly. The 4 team playoff is nice, but it's like putting duct tape on the leak.
OK... that would be fine with me but I'm not at all interested in basketball.
I do think there are inherent problems in comparing/equating hoops and football though.
Just play the other bowls with the teams that aren't in the playoffs at that point? Not mention with an 11 game regular season, we are going to eliminate a bunch of 6-6 teams.
I'd say the regular season would still matter a lot if you are throwing in home field advantage for the higher seeds. Just ask the VT Women's soccer team about that. If they didn't have home field they probably don't make the college cup. Not saying it's the only reason they advanced, but even the coaches will tell you it was absolutely huge. And for football I'd say it's even bigger since the crowd can influence penalties (false starts, etc).
Also, I don't see teams resting players in college. I don't think the players would like that since that would give them less of an opportunity to produce film and statistics for getting drafted.
16 is too much. Too many wildcard teams.
The easiest to implement would be 6. The power 5 conference champs, and the highest ranked Group of 5 champ. Plus, that would essentially turn all of the conference championship games into first round playoff games. Yeah, there would have to be some byes in there, but that's for someone else to work out.
I think the playoffs will grow, just like the FCS playoffs did, and still are.
How about 8... the champs of the SEC, ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, and Pac-12 plus the three highest ranked champions from the AAC, MWC, CUSA, MAC and Sun Belt?
If it's gonna be 8, it'll be the big 5 champs, plus 3 at-large. No way in the world would a Sun Belt champ get in over Missouri or Stanford.
I like the system were going into. I don't think so many teams deserve a chance at the title. Top 4 teams only. Sure any given Sunday and match ups would be fun, but that takes away from a team that has dominated all season and then has to win 4 more games to get to the final. If the other teams were deserving then they would have finished in the top 4 by end of regular season. And no matter how much people want it and NCAA tries to instill it the parity in College Football is not close enough to say 16 teams are legitimately close enough to each other in talent to deserve a shot.
Respectfully disagree sir. Any team can get hot when a critical player returns from injury or a coach's system finally clicks for the players mid-season. The BCS, and the new CFP are designed to deny all but the small cadre of big programs a shot at the title. I want the Boise States, the Utahs, the TCU's and yes, the VT's to have a shot at the title every year that they can play themselves into the top 10-15% of the teams in D1. Cinderella deserves a shot at the title and I, for one, am tired of the repetitive, in-bred aristocracy of D1 football. I want more interesting OOC games like the D1 basketball tourney gives us fans, and I want a level playing field for all teams to play their way into the playoffs. A 16 team tourney gives us fans the best of both worlds: lots of great games at our favorite home stadiums with awesome OOC contests, and the regular season is a dogfight to get the automatic bid for winning the conference and the higher seeding to host more games. WE WIN AS FANS, and the NCAA would win a boatload of $ that the antiquated bowl game system would no longer steal from the universities and fans thru guaranteed ticket "sales". Rant over, sanity returns, the NCAA is broken, impotent and will never grasp the brass ring hanging in front of their vacant-eyed faces.
We want the same thing, but I think that the Vt's, Utah's and TCU's all have a chance to make it to the Top 4 nationally any year they want to. If the do then welcome to the Championship tourney. If they don't then welcome to another very nice bowl game. But each of these teams are in a major conference so in my opinion they only have themselves to blame if they don't make it.
Boise, NIU and others in lower conference's have a harder road I agree but unfortunately in any system biased ranking will come into play. And while a 16 team tourney gives these teams a chance it also is a type of punishment, or at very least additional burden, for the very top ranked teams to have to slog through the additional games.
But don't you think the best team in the country should be able to win 4 more games? The nature of the playoff system is that SOMEONE is going to win out. If the "best" program can't win out, just because it had to slog through games against opponents who wouldn't deserve to be in the picture with your model, is it really the "best" program then? If this year's Duke team had beaten Florida State in the ACC championship game, they would have been left out of the 4 team playoff, and FSU likely would have too. Is that fair to either team? You may think so, but I for one don't. As tired as I am of the SEC, I think it's unfair that a team that's had a run like Bama has had would have a possibility of getting left out in next year's system, or that Stanford could get left out because of a team like Bama. Playing a few extra games, especially with home field for a couple of them would be insane. Can you imagine how loud Lane would be for a first round playoff game? Can you imagine the kind of PR schools would get for showing off that kind of atmosphere on national TV? This is the kind of thing that would make money for schools and the towns they exist in. Yes, the Vt's and the Utah's have A CHANCE at making the top 4 each year, but I would argue that thanks to preseason rankings and things of that nature, they do not have the same, fair chance that other schools do. A school who is preseason top 4 just has to not lose. A school who is not has to not lose, and hope that others do. I don't really think it'd be an additional burden for the top schools, or that they'd be "slogging" through games. This is an opportunity to play marquee opponents on a national spotlight, showing off your school and your campus 3 or 4 times, not a burden or punishment of having to play 800 games against Austin Peay.
No, you have me wrong. I absolutely think the best teams will win out. And that's my point. I think those extra games are more of a penalty to those teams exactly because 99% of the time I expect they will win out. If you have 4 best teams who let's say are undefeated or with 1 loss playing a strong schedule of opponents and winning conference championships, then I don't need to see them play four other teams ranked below them to prove to me they are the best. They already finished the best.
Let me qualify this by saying I also think that rankings shouldn't come out until end of Sept and there should be no conference tie-ins. Just the 4 top teams. I should have said that before. i know this isn't the system coming next and it's not perfect. Likewise I don't think 16 team playoff is either. It works on DII and DIII because teams are more close in skill level. Not DI though.
Don't get me wrong I think a tournament would be a killer money wise and crazy fun for fans. But the burden I mean is that the 4 teams ranked 1 through 4 after regular season would then have to play 4 more games, where by sheer chance they may suck one week and lose.
Let's take French's example for instance. Let's say for some reason Winston goes down with the flu, or some chance occurrence happens, and can't play against Louisiana Lafayette and they pull of the world's most shocking upset, then go down like a chump against Missouri. Does that mean FSU is worse than Louisiana Lafayette or Missouri? No way. They killed all season. Finished it like a Boss and clearly the top team in the nation. But they lost in the tourney that put 4 more games in front of them for some dumb reason. If the clusterfuck that is the BCS taught anything is that chance things can happen where this is a real possibility.
I feel 100% confident that FSU is a better team than Louisiana Lafayette. I love college football and watch as much as I can of any game, but I don't need to see that game to know they are better.
The other burden is just on the wear and tear on college athletes trying to go pro. let's take QB-X as an example. He just finished a huge regular season but is worn down, needs the rest between end of regular season to post-season, but in tourney that needs 4 additional games that's not much time at all. In the 3rd game of the tourney he blows out his knee and never recovers. Goodbye NFL. I don't need to see the extra 4 games to beat these kids up for my pleasure no matter how much I love the game.
Give me the 4 best teams in the country, ranked 1 through 4. Winner takes all.
Would 8 teams be too many still? Also, as a sidenote, I like your rankings idea. My idea on that may be even more extreme, in that I hate that a team who is not bowl eligible (Florida) could ever be in the top 10 of a season. If it were up to me, they wouldn't release rankings at all until there were 25 bowl eligible teams, and you absolutely had to be bowl eligible to be ranked. It may take a while to get to the rankings with this method, but you'd have pretty good sample sizes of how the teams played by the time this point rolled around.
Agree with rankings and with non-bowl eligible teams criticism. Don't need them. But I think this is precisely why you can't really go bigger than 4 teams. It invites too much subjective analysis of this team over that team. I mean can you tell me if the 8th team or the 9th team is the better team? It's French's Missouri vs South Carolina match-up. No I couldn't say that either one of them is better than the other. But look at 1 through 4. FSU, Auburn, Bama, Mich St.
The only one I could say really gets screwed here is Ohio St who like Bama lost their conference championship game and Stanford who won their conference. That's the bias issue. But if you expand to 8 I would say South Carolina, Oregon and Oklahoma all have a bone to pick, UCF as well.
You'll have a bone to pick no matter how big the field is. People get "snubbed" in March Madness every year, but the thing is, the best team is somewhere in those top 66 teams each year. If you only had to pick the top 4 teams, you'd only be getting the number one seeds, who are supposed to win it all, but don't always. Do some teams who don't deserve to get in make the cut? Sure they do. But you're guaranteed to have the best team in that field. I don't know that you guarantee that for yourself by only picking four. I think you do guarantee that at 16 teams, and you come close to a guarantee at 8 teams. I think with 4, you have a "pretty good chance", as opposed to a guarantee.
Regarding this statement " It works on DII and DIII because teams are more close in skill level."
That is utterly false. Often Mount Union and Wisconsin Whitewater has drilled their opponent in the 60-20 type of whitewash in opening round games. While at the DI level, scholarship limitations mean that underdogs are much more cooperative with big boy football than they were 30 years ago. In the 60's, big schools could sign many more players to scholarships and horde talent. Michigan may have a down year, but they would have never lost to a Appy State. Big Ten schools didn't lose to MAC schools. Boise didn't beat Oklahoma.
Now it happens yet despite examples of upsets, you would rather have a bunch of fat cats in a smoke filled room decide over bourbons that a Fresno State team can't beat Alabama. I think that is garbage. If they do blow out Fresno, then you still get the marquee matchup in the next round. I can't see the negative.
I know what you're saying but in my opinion Mount Union's skill level to any other team in the division is still closer than FSU/Bama to New Mexico State or Georgia State.
And I never said I want fat cats to decide. I just want the 4 best teams in the country to play.
I think the top four is only going to last long enough to prove that we need a minimum of the top 8.
8 teams. Bring on the undefeated major conference champions and three at large selections.
Yeah, any more than that and I think the risk of injury gets too high.
With NCAA limited strength and conditioning preparation, doing more than that will end too many careers at the college level.
I would also advocate finding a way to allow supervised conditioning prep for the athletes in times where there are no scheduled practices.
In the cold of late Dec and Jan is no time for poorly prepared kids to be breaking knees and fingers just so fans can have an extended season.
I hate the idea that conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the tournament. We've had 6-6 teams (UCLA and GT) in conference championship games. What if they pull the upset? "Eh, those six losses you have? No big deal. If you get hot, you can still make the title." One of the reasons I HAVE to tune in to watch every game of college football every week is because those losses and upsets matter so drastically. Fans live and die by a single game because that's all it takes to derail a season. This year, would the Auburn miracle really matter? You know both of those teams are playoff bound, so who really cares? Likewise, non-con games are rendered practically worthless. Lose to an FCS opponent? No big deal, just win your conference. Lose every non-con game? No big deal. Just win your conference. Ugh. I want those losses to be a big deal. I want to feel like dying after VT losses. I want to celebrate like crazy with relief when we win. I want them to matter.
You win your conference, you get a seat at the table. Period. That is the model for every other team sport, including every other level of football. Let the kids decide on the field about their ability to compete instead of deciding for them and not giving them a chance. And, it makes winning the conference mean something again. Imagine the excitement of the Hokie fan base if they won the ACC in this system. They would get a punchers chance. Compare that to the apathy that followed the VT ACC title wins in the late 2000's where a good portion of the fan base declared seasons a disappointment because they were not in the national title hunt. Win and you are in. It is not only fair, but it is also exciting, and for the most part it takes power and influence out of the equation.
agreed. But then I am surprised you favor a 16 team bracket tourney. It devalues the regular season and conference Championships much more.
FSU you just won your Conference Championship and ranked #1... now go play a Cinderella story, then play Missouri who didn't win theirs for the right to play another team who may not have won their conference either... and... then you get the "right" to play for the Championship...
Nah, just top 4 teams for me. If you want to say they must have won there conference then I am all for it. then in my above scenario Stanford would replace Bama. I am cool with that. haha... Actually I just remembered Saban lobbying very hard against the conference champions rule for just this reason. This season would have seen Bama out of the tourney.
The reason for 16 is that there are 10 conferences and, by extension, 10 conference champions. So in order to seed them all, you either have a ten team bracket where the top 6 teams get an opening round bye and the bottom 4 play in...
or you have a 16 team bracket that includes all the champs plus 6 at-large berths for the Bamas of the World who can't seem to win the big one until the postseason.
Haha... sorry, but you are missing huge issues that don't show up in a bracket. I didn't need to see how the brackets work. It doesn't solve the issue I raised in my response to French or in my comments above. 16 team tourney devalues both the regular season and conference championship. You don't need a conference champ, ranked #1 after regular season to play so many games against teams ranked far lower to know they are better. By having a 16 team field you have effectively made conference championships meaningless. Any team ranked 1 - 16 gets a shot in a tourney.
So if I am a (well let's say "clever") clever coach, like Saban, Meyer, Paul Johnson type and my team was ranked 1 - 8 lets say and I had some walking wounded star QB that can play but really needs extra rest. I might give them that rest in the conference championship game and/or final week of play. Why because even if we lose 1 of those games, as long as its to a quality opponent, I am not going to go down below 16th ranked.
Sorry, but the idea of a 16 team tourney does nothing but make college football suck. It clearly makes the regular season and the conference championship meaningless, it unnecessarily puts college kids in more danger of injury and if FSU does get knocked off by a UCF-type it in no way means that UCF is a better team. It's called any given Sunday for a reason, because flukes happen to anyone, and as I just illustrated it is highly susceptible to any number of gerrymandering by coaches and players because they will be guaranteed a spot in the tourney. Gamblers could have a potentially HUGE affect on the game. And all of these reasons are why basketball season is irrelevant and only March Madness matters.
Please show me brackets that solve those issues and then you have a point. Until then this is a highly flawed concept. Worse than BCS in my opinion.
Top 4 teams. Winner takes all. I may be persuaded to 6. Not 8 and definitely not 16.
That is why I would prefer the 10 team "conference champ only" bracket above. I believe the premium on a conference championship should be as high as possible. If there is only going to be a four-team bracket, then they must be the four best conference champions. If the Bama fans want to piss and moan about being so good and left out of the playoffs, my response is simply to tackle the guy returning a missed FG next time. Win your conference first otherwise you have no right to be in the playoffs.
I'm with you on the Bama comment but really 10 teams is still way too many.
I don't think they need to be the 4 best conference champions either. If someone like Boise St was able to schedule a very strong season and beat ranked teams, go undefeated then they have a shot at being top 4. It's a long shot yes, but that's why it's called a Cinderella story. There will always be haves and have-nots. VT is somewhere in the middle of that but could magically make a run like in '99 and get to the final game.
And frankly until VT boosters start ponying up SEC level cash they have a much better chance in a 4 team scenario than a 16 team scenario. I love the Hokies but conceivably beating teams ranked 16 and up, repeatedly one after the other, is going to very, very difficult to do. When is the last time we beat 2 top ten teams in a season, let alone in two weeks?
I get the appeal but I think everyone is missing the bigger issues with large bracket tournaments.
I think you're misreading what I mean by "four best conference champions." If Boise State goes undefeated and wins the Mountain West Conference, I'm pretty certain the poll voters and playoff committee would consider them one of the top four conference champions. The only way they wouldn't make it is if the ACC, SEC, Big XII and Pac-12 (or Big Ten) champions were also ALL undefeated. In a 4 team bracket, I believe that any time there are fewer than 5 undefeated teams, then they will ALL be conference champions and they will ALL be in the playoffs. I really like the 4 team bracket... as long as it only includes conference champions. With over 120 teams playing at this level, then it is imperative that conference titles be used to pare down the teams under consideration for those four playoff spots.
Yes, absolutely agree with only conference champions. And agree about your Boise example. This is what I mean as well. But for me, 4 teams is ideal. 6 team bracket would be the absolute most I could see being viable. Anything more and you invite too many problems.
The current process has already done the same thing. The best teams in the SEC avoided big OOC match-ups because they know if they can run the tae in the SEC they are guaranteed a BCS title birth or a top 4 spot in the playoff. It doesn't matter if the SEC is down, reputation dictates they will get the spot.
This way, we don't leave the discussion up to guessing which teams can and can not compete. You have a game that settles the issue. The only downside is that my system disincentives playing tough OOC teams, but you make that up by playing those games IN THE PLAYOFF. And, you are only playing 1 additional game (11 game regular season and 4 playoff games versus 13 regular season games, a month layoff where the kids have a break from practice and lose their conditioning, and then a championship game like we have now. And, when the 4 team playoff goes live, I guarantee those kids won't get a break either. The outcome of the game is too important. Let them play.
D3 kids play 14 games. I believe DII and FCS play 15. All still play even with exams. Their travel is tougher because they don't have the $$$ to travel as well. There is no argument against this.
I have a feeling we are going to go up and down this thread...
You'll get no argument on the severity of travel with academics and athletics on the lower Divisions. Cross country bus rides are terrible. Especially after you just lost a big game or got your ass handed to you and your banged up. My brother played in D3. I know what you are talking about. But there are still too many problems with large playoff formats to make it viable for D1.
I don't think any conference should have a guaranteed spot. Just the top 4 teams who won their conference Championship game. that opens it up to literally any team in D1, except independents who would naturally just join a conference.
Baseball typically has the worst GPA on campus if i remember correctly
Agreed.
Over time that could even out the upper conferences. Why would a 5star go to the SEC knowing only one team will make it. Could be a good thing
8 teams. 5 conference champs. 3 at large.
Skip the FCS games...save them for the spring game.
Play 11 game reg season, make them ALL count.
Take this year for example...
F$U, Auburn, Ohio St, Baylor, Arizona St get the autos. Bama, Stanford, Northern Ill (by way of being undefeated) get the at larges. Conference winners get first 5 seedings.
1.F$U - 8.Northern Ill
4.Baylor - 5.Arizona St
2.OSU - 7.Stanford
3.Auburn - 6.Bama (Yes, again with the seeding. And for the record, I have no problem with this.)
Play the first rounds at the major bowls. As it lines up this year, Orange=F$U, Fiesta=Baylor, Rose=OSU, Sugar=Auburn. After that, pick the Cotton Bowl Stadium, Cowboys Stadium (they won't be using it in January), Super Dome, Raymond James, where ever to play the next 2. Then, play the NC game the week before the Super Bowl in the same stadium.
Just some thoughts...
Surely you made a mistake saying Ohio State gets the automatic bid considering they didn't win the championship. So then the question becomes, does Ohio State get the at large or does Northern Illinois get it for being undefeated while a 2 loss Stanford still gets in?
No conference championship game, so they would go. Same for AZ St...they had a better reg season conference record than Stanford.
Umm...they just played Michigan State last weekend and lost.
That was the big ten championship game. In my scenario, that game doesn't get played.
So, the rankings/standings at the end of week 15 are used, thus OSU are the 2 seed since they would be undefeated.
Oh I see...you're nixing the conference championships entirely. Personally I don't like that idea. Take the ACC this year. You could have a schedule like ours where you avoid playing the two best teams in the league and then have a better record than the team that had better competition and lost a game. That doesn't mean you're the best in the league though.
There's still room for the at larges. Plus, look at if Duke beats F$U. They would be in the 8 team playoff??? Make the regular season games matter. Win all games=>get into playoff.
And, the reg season wouldn't have the FCS games, so another conference game can be added.
With 11 games, in a 16 team conference, 7 games in your division, 4 (half) from the other division.
If you wanted to add an outlier in there for 12 games, fine...but make the conference games matter.
There is a difference between best team and champion.
That's just asinine. In these scenarios for a team to be a champion it must be the last remaining undefeated team in the playoff. The playoff is made up of top teams. Therefore a team that goes undefeated in a 8 or 16 team playoff is the champion and as a result the best team. If you meant conference champions, then it's still a silly statement. Very rarely is the conference champion not the best team in the conference, if you ignore sanctions and bowl bans which makes them ineligible because they cheated to get to be the best and deserve to not qualify.
That argument only held during the BCS because there was no way to evaluate the best teams outside of the manufactured Top 2 at the end of the season. And in many years teams were on the outside looking in with a legitimate argument of why they should be there in the Top 4 or 5 such as Boise St, TCU, Utah, VT, Hawaii, and a host of other teams with the same record in power conferences as #1 and/or #2.
Let's use examples close to home.
VT vs. FSU in the first year of the ACCCG. Records and ranking wise, VT was the better team, but FSU won the championship game, and therefore was the champion.
There was one year where VT lost to GT, and therefore missed the ACCCG, but was still considered to be better than both teams in the CG. I think it might have been 2006.
And then this year, if Duke or any team from the Coastal could have pulled off the upset against FSU, they would be the champion...but we all know that if you rank all 14 ACC teams from top to bottom, FSU and Clemson are both above any Coastal team.
Agreed. The Patriots had won 19 games in a season. They were 19-0. Then, they had to play the Giants again, a team they had just beaten at the end of the regular season. Giants won. They were the champions. They were not the best team. Hell, they were only 1-1 against the Patriots.
And that is my go to example.
So you guys want upsets to ruin people's chances at a championship during the regular season because it adds intensity and excitement, but don't want that in a playoff? Isn't that the ultimate upset? It'd be way more exciting and thrilling. Bama losing to Vandy halfway through the season won't be better than Bama losing to UCF or Wake Forest(ACCCG Upset) in the finals or semi-finals.
I prefer college football to basketball. I realize March Madness is a lot of fun, but honestly, that's really the only time I watch college basketball. I watch college football every weekend from September to New Years, and part of the reason is because of the prolonged intensity of it.
Are you sure that intensity isn't because there are only 12 games in the regular season for a team and in basketball there are 30+ in a basketball season and all they're playing for is seeding? That's why you give a huge advantage to the conference champs. That way you aren't playing for seeding, you're playing for the top 2 spots in the conference of 12-14 teams where conference losses could be devastating in a close race.
No one is advocating a 32 team CFB playoff. Most want a 8, 12, or 16 team one. I get the 16 team playoff probably could water things down since you will have 2 and 3 loss teams in there. But you cannot tell me that an 8 team playoff would water anything down since you still have to win your conference.
Absolutely you can. the problem with anything above 4 is that you wouldn't be able to limit to just conference champions. The argument that a 1 loss Bama is still better than most every team in the country is extremely valid. And if you truly want to see who the best team in the nation is you can't exclude them from a tournament so large just because they lost their conference championship game. Saban, Meyer and Slive already said this when the idea of only conference champions in the plus one or 4 team play off systems were being discussed.
With only 4 top teams you take only the best ranked. Here you could argue against Saban and SEC that only conference Champions can make it. 6 team tourney maybe you can do it as well, but I doubt it.
What about those times they don't even PLAY in their championship game? They allegedly won a goddamned NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP by beating LSU after they'd already LOST to LSU and had the benefit of having Georgia (I think it was>) soften them up first. They didn't play for the SEC title this year either and if Mizzou had won, there'd be a contingent of whiney pantywastes (a great many of whom work for SECSPN) screaming that Bama should be the number 2 team playing FSU for the national championship.
were still talking about the same things. I agree about the absurdity that they "won" a national championship after beating a team they lost too. Again that's why large tournaments create more problems. Keep it to 4. Only 4. (maybe 6)
An 8 team totally waters it down, because all you're going to have to do is win your conference. Sure conference games take on more importance, but non-con certainly lose it. And just take this year, for example - suppose Duke lost to UNC and we got to go to the ACC Championship game. And then, imagine we upset FSU (maybe Winston breaks his hand on Manbearpig or something). So now, this VT team that has lost 4 games this year (including games to Duke and UMD!) and got blasted by Bama in the opener is in the playoff. Those four losses - nbd. Just win your conference, even if it's by the skin of your teeth, and you're in. Boo.
Some teams get better as the season goes on. It happens int he NFL all the time. Look at the Eagles this year, they started out atrocious and now found their way and have a chance to win the NFC East. Under your logic they shouldn't go to the playoff because another team might have 1 more win that didn't qualify for the playoff. (I know this is Granny Smith to Golden Delicious, but it still has parallels).
If we would be able to beat FSU because Winston went down to a season ending injury, FSU probably wouldn't fare as well in a playoff. VT would deserve their spot unless maybe there was a undefeated mid major that won their conference, but you're against that too.
NCAA to NFL does not parallel. NFL is designed for a playoff system. There is one league of 32 teams is nothing like the 120 odd team in Div 1 football with major and minor conferences of mostly 12 teams each, plus independents. You cannot have a large playoff like NFL. It just will not work. Only way to make it remotely "fair" is to do March Madness style that keeps getting bigger and bigger, and that's never gonna happen.
The NFL was never designed for a playoff, it adapted to have one. A large playoff will and can work. It will just piss off traditional powers because they have to play "inferior" competition to advance. Nothing we're going to come up with in two days is going to be perfect or maybe even be fair, but if you lock us all in a room for 2 months we could probably come up with something. That's what got us the 4-team playoff and beforehand lots of people bitched and moaned about it ruining the regular season when they announced it. Now all I hear is people saying it should of started this year.
But in the NFL, you regularly have mediocre-crappy teams making the playoffs. It's an understood part of the system. Do you really want college football to be like that? Because that's what I'm arguing against. I don't want an 8-8 (or in college, I guess 6-6) team making the playoffs, ever. I like the 4-team, because it's still exclusive enough to keep the pressure on, but if/when it gets expanded, you're going to see more and more teams with warts make the playoffs, and (to me, at least) that really detracts from the overally enjoyment of the sport's regular season.
In an 8 team play off with Big-5 winner automatic bids and 3 at large, there would be similar rules to the current set up an a mid major would have to have at least a certain rank or higher than a Big-5 champ. Unless a Big-5 conference has a TERRIBLE year you'll probably never have lower than a 9 or 10 win team winning the conference. If that happens that just means there is lots of parity and chances are they beat up on each other. Think about it, when was the last time the SEC champ, "the conference king of all parity," has won with fewer than 9 wins? Yes it would happen every so often, but that would be one team out of eight.
Not only that but it would make the end of the season more exciting as the conferences fight for the ability to play in their championship games. I know I had a hell of a lot of fun trying to see who would represent the Coastal this year the past few weeks.
Yes there would be blowouts and boring games, but that happens now! Just re-watch the previous to MNCs.... In the end it would produce much better semi-finals and finals.
In the 98-99 season, 8-3 Syracuse (#15 overall) won the Big East.
In 99-00, 8-3 Stanford (#22 overall) won the Pac-10.
In 00-01, 8-3 Purdue (#17) won the Big 10
In 01-02, 9-3 LSU (#13) won the SEC
In 02-03, 9-4 FSU (#14) won the ACC
In 03-04, 11-3 KSU (#10) won the Big 12
In 04-05, 8-3 Pitt (#21) won the Big East
In 05-06, 8-4 FSU (#22) won the ACC
In 08-09, 9-4 VT (#19) won the ACC
In 10-11, 8-4 UCONN (unranked) won the Big East
In 11-12, 9-3 WVU (#23) won the Big East and 10-3 Clemson (#15) won the ACC
In 12-13, 8-5 Wisc (unranked) won the Big 10
All of these teams had at least 3 losses, and they all won their conference and would recieve an automatic bid. They'd all be one lucky hot-streak away from winning the national championship. Don't you think that deadens the impact of losing games? "If you lose some games, that's fine, as long as you can still make a run at the conference title in the end." I hate that sentiment, and I think this proposal encourages it.
And then in order to create something that has a level playing field we come up with a computer ranking system and BAM: we've got BCS 2.0
could not agree more with both of you. turkey legs all around
I for one have always been for the 4 team playoff ever since I was at VT. I agree this is all speculative fan-crap but when you do that sit in the room stuff with power players they (and the conference's lawyers) run every scenario through Noah's Ark. They find the holes in every system and go with the one that has the fewest so as to protect everyone. Large tournaments just have way too many holes to ever be viable. Ever.
You are correct about NFL at its inception not having a playoff however it is in it's current state designed for a playoff system. The NCAA, Div 1 football, all the conferences simply are not. You may as well just scrap everything and start a new NCAA with new conferences, etc that is designed for a large playoff, because it's the only way it will work. I posted numerous issues in other comments on this thread that subvert any large playoff system over 4 teams. It cannot work.
Very much agree fernley. It almost seems that one could argue to keep the BCS rankings because of the way they are calculated, and allow the top 4 BCS teams to make the 4 team playoff.... I believe a general concenus was that the BCS became more accurate as the season went on, but sometimes missed on the outside teams looking in... (Auburn '04)
shhh... don't mention the 3 letter acronym! haha, yes, I agree. No matter what system there still needs to be rankings. Polls and computer programs are going to decide who the top 25 are in every post season scenario. And I agree that the BCS seemed to get better as it went along, and this is why they will continue to use it under a new name for post season rankings.
I did a write on my blog for this last year. I don't get how the NCAA doesn't see dollar signs all over this opportunity. Plus give the folks an extra home game or two for the higher ranked seed. Gotta think fan bases would eat this up as well
16 team playoff or die
It has to be losing the traditional bowl games
I could see, especially since it's such a debateable topic in the NFL, player safety being the biggest discussion point into doing a 16 team playoff. You're talking about adding 4 games against stellar opponents at the end of a season.
Counting conference championship games, you're talking 17 games per year. Now, that is less than what NFL players play in a full season counting the super bowl, but I could see where this discussion would come up.
Kill the minor conference champs and have a bye for the top 4 teams. That solves the too many games problem and keeps it as interesting as possible. I don't care that it marginalizes minor conferences. That's why they're called minor conferences.
The way things are going, they're eventually going to be marginalized by 16 team superconferences anyway. It will allow weak football programs to stop wasting so much money on football and major programs will be more profitable. Everyone is financially better off and the football is as exciting as possible. You could conceivably have a Cinderella team from a minor conference in an at large spot, but it would be rare.
Also, I would stipulate that the higher seed gets the game on their home field up until the championship, which would be at Wembley Arena to try to develop the European market for college football.
The existing bowls would need to be incorporated in some way yhey arent just going to go away.
They can be exactly what they are now. Consolation prizes for not being in the 2-Team Playoff. The whole system is archaic and out of hand. Except for the top 6 or 8 bowl games the rest are 1/4-1/2 stadium messes of an 9-3 team playing a 7-5 team. Or it's something putrid like 7-5 vs 6-6. To me these games just kind of feel empty since they don't matter except for some reason the talking heads like to think that just because a team wins the Cotton Bowl in 2013 they'll magically be good in 2014 even if they lose most of their team to graduation and hte draft.
Been saying it for a few years...How is playing in Idaho in late December a "reward" for a good season. I understand the extra practicing in December that is allowed for bowl teams, but honestly. They are playing football in baseball stadiums with limited room in endzones, 30* temps, the day after Christmas in the middle of the afternoon. Who wants to travel to see that? Who wants to play in that? This is not a reward for a good season.
Contract the bowls to maybe 12 at the most, and allow all teams to practice until December 20th or so. No need for the silliness that is some of these bowls.
the answer to your question is simple. If you don't want to play the Idaho's of the college football world then... WIN MORE GAMES. It's really that simple. If you didn't win enough games to go to a better bowl stop whining about it, man up and play better next season.
The problem is, that it's not a reward. It's a way for the cities to make money at the school's expense because people generally don't go to Miami for a week after New Years or during Christmas when they fly to Bum-Fuck-Nowhere to visit grandma. Schools LOSE money going to bowl games because they have to stay in certain hotels at jacked up rates, eat at certain expensive restaurants, go to certain events, and pay to fly their team, band, cheerleaders, families, etc there.
Look at the ACC and the Big 12 going to their BCS bowls. Sure they paid out millions, but they had to pay 1.5x what they got to go there. It's nothing but a scam to get money out of fans at the school's expense.
Take a look at VT
Schools lose money because of fans, not because of the game. Fans that don't buy tickets cost the school money. Fans that buy tickets through secondary markets cost the school money. And no, schools don't pay more than they receive in the bowl payouts from the 5 major conferences. Maybe in the small ones, but not anybody in the big 5. It is a reward to the players. It's a last chance for seniors to showcase their talent. It's a free trip, sometimes to a fun location, where you get lots of free swag. Ask UVA if they would rather go to a bowl game and see what they say.
Exactly. For players, especially 5th year seniors that aren't going to the NFL or don't play much, an extra game with bowl swag is a great reward. Kyle Chung may be making fun of the hair dryer now but in his last year he'll die to go to any bowl he can just for one more game.
And if it was such a dismally, bad option to go to a bowl game in some far off location with a nobody team as you say, then schools would just refuse. They don't have to accept bowl births. They have clauses in conference contracts on backing out of bowl games.
But going to a bowl game allows for the extra 4-5 weeks of practice and a jump start on next season. That's the hidden agenda on why there are so many bowl games...
you see, you just solved your question though. The extra practice time and jump on next season is in itself a great reward. So you play Idaho in freezing temp but it's still worth it dude.
I said it in another post...just let everyone practice those 10-15 days.
Don't make a team/school lose money to send the team/circus to a bowl that nobody wants to be involved in. There are too many bowl games. Make every game matter. Including the bowls.
You do realize that teams will make less money when smaller bowls are eliminated right? The payout that would have gone to them (or been split by the conference) is no longer there. So the team that made a better bowl but didn't sell enough tickets gets less to cover that cost. While they will still be able to cover that cost from their payout, they won't make as much money as they could if the smaller bowl games were played.
Now some people have thought that you could just increase the payouts on the large bowl and cut the small ones to make up the difference. It just doesn't work like that. Payouts come from sponsors who make money as well from the bowl. No bowl game will get multiple sponsors because nobody wants the Advocare Little Ceasar's Chick-Fil-A Bowl. Also, nobody is going to pay a team twice as much as they currently are for a bowl payout. So the way the system works is that the conferences need the small bowls just as much as they need the major bowls and the reason behind it is $$$$$
Pretty sure teams are limited to 10 days of practice or something around there. Maybe 15, but they don't get 4-5 weeks. That's why teams who play in January games go home and come back to campus for practices. It's not a huge leg up for the next year, but it can make a difference for those young players. Not sure how being rewarded for a winning season is considered a hidden agenda.
EDIT: Correction, there is no limit, so yes, in theory you could have 4-5 weeks of practice, but I don't think any team does that. http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/postseason+bow...
ah yes, this is correct.
Also I watched Miami play Nevada in Boise years and years ago. It was a great game. 90% sold out because the local community loved their bowl and wanted to see that extra game as much as the fans of teams did. Some locations don't have the local crowd. Others do. But the ticket allotments to teams can cause issue if fans can't go. But with these smaller bowls allotments are comparatively not that high. Again schools would refuse. Plus the conference also pays for unsold tickets to bowl games as well.
Oh, I agree. I would love to see these bowl just plain not happen. Don't "punish" a team that won 8 games...make them earn the nice vacation to warm spot next year by winning 9 or 10. There are too many bowl games.
But you see, cancelling bowl games would then cripple teams and leagues who need the payout from the smaller leagues. It would also cripple the cities where the games are hosted that depend on that influx of money yearly. If teams were only supposed to play in warm areas, there wouldn't be a football team in Blacksburg.
Only talking bowls...
And the entire system needs an overhaul.
They "profit sharing" can be altered. But what I have offered up would be different than what's out there now. There wouldn't be mid-major confernces in football. Only 6 big conferences. Split the money similar to March Madness. Let's be honest that $1million from a bowl game is a drop in the bucket compared to the contractual haul from the networks.
As for the Cities, there are several "new" bowls that have popped up in the past decade that might not change that much. If the teams playing in the bowl aren't bringing fans with them, there's not much money to be made anyway.
the point is that 1 million dollars to an Idaho is a bucket full, not a drop, because they get next to nothing from networks. And had we followed what you are saying it would had been exceedingly difficult for Frank to climb the Hokies out of obscurity and into a major conference. we never would have gotten the money to build on.
Most recently Boise and Utah got this chance. Utah won the lottery and Boise got the shaft. This is why Peterson left.
That's why I'm proposing to draw a line in the sand. Don't put duct tape on what we have now. Revamp the entire system and layout. Six conferences. 16 Teams apiece. 96 teams. All monies split among them. If there was an 8 team playoff, the 6 winners would be in plus 2 at-large. The money division become easy among the conferences.
Each SEC school is receiving $10-14mil per year just on the reg season contract. Yes, OleMiss is getting some crumbs from the bowl games that they AREN'T playing in, but it's not a make-or-break amount. $1mil? maybe. Again, revamping the entire system, they won't have to worry about how much they may or may not be getting from the bowls. And won't have to make a decision on how mush they might lose to go play in the Pin Stripe Bowl in a baseball stadium in New York over the Holidays.
And you can't tell me that a sponsor wouldn't pay $5mil to advertise in the national semi-final game versus $1mil apiece in 5 minor bowl games?
Im all for a 16 team playoff. Like many have said above me, get rid of the FCS matchups and limit the regular season to 11 games. Keep conference championship game for tournament seeding purposes. My playoff would be based off of the final BCS rankings or whatever system is being used, combination of AP, coaches, etc. This way I feel we get the best teams to play for it all. The only tweak would be that conference champions that are ranked in the top 25 or maybe even just top 20 but not in the top 16 would get the invite into the tournament over teams that may be say a 15 or 16 seed but didn't win their conference.
These were my matchups from this past year
1 ND vs 16 Louisville (Big East champ ranked in top 25, ranked 21 in pre bowl rankings)
8 LSU vs 9 TAMU
5 Kstate vs 12 FSU
4 Oregon vs 13 Oregon State (civil war rematch)
6 Standford vs 11 Oklahoma
3 Florida vs 14 Clemson
7 Georgia vs 10 South Carolina
2 Alabama vs 15 Northern Illinois (most likely blowout here)
All opinions welcome
I think we might be killing the golden goose here... I love college football, because of those crazy moments when some wild underdog pulls of the miracle upset and completely changes the season. It happens every year, and I watch football all day hoping to be there for the moment. Goliath slips up, and goes down, and everything changes. A single loss in college football can completely change a season, to the point that near perfection is required to make the championship.
The thing is, every time you expand the championship field, you dilute that a bit. Every time goliath can pick himself up after a huge upset, dust himself off, shrug, and still make the playoff (granted at a lower seed, but whatever), that upset losses meaning. It won't be as special. Could you imagine if after VT lost JMU (or Michigan to App St) our attitude had been "Meh, no big deal. Just win the ACC and we're in." Do you really want that in college football? I like the bar really high, personally, although I feel like it's a losing battle.
exactly. +1 for not drinking the kool-aid
Yes, because I am tired of winning the ACC not meaning jack squat, and that was pretty much the attitude of this fan base every time they won after 2004.
Yes, the playoff should be the 4 highest ranked conference champions. That would place the proper value on winning your conference; hedge against an 8-5 conference champion dogging its way in; and maintain the tradition of valuing the uninformed, unintelligent, and uber-biased opinions of sports journalists.
4 team, (6 team tops) is all college football needs right now.
Yes, but it deserves 16.
I with you, fellows.
For everyone opposing my proposal, remember VT 25 years ago would not have a seat at the table as a struggling independent, even if they went on the road, built the program, took on the toughest teams, and then got into a neophyte conference. In an 8 team playoff, there is no incentive to join a conference outside of the top 4 and try to build. The door would be closed, regardless of any gold rings offered to those smaller conferences.
well, that's not true. VT is where it is now by building it's program over that 25 years largely in a completely biased post-season bowl system. Boise and Utah did the same. Just because the national championship is not open to a Cinderella run doesn't mean programs can't be built up and improved.
For example, in a 4 team playoff system, lets say JMU enters D1. They will largely get their ass handed to them for many years (save for the Hokies taking a nose dive from time to time). However, they are able to get bowl eligible after several down years. First taste of recognition. Then another bowl. Then another. Then they get to mid-level bowl. Let's use Peach Bowl as example, where they play a team from a major conference with national recognition and win. Boom, now they have name recognition. Then a few years later they keep winning and get into a big time bowl against a national powerhouse like Texas. And what do you know, they win. That catapults them into the spotlight and just 4 years later they are playing Florida State in the national championship game.
yes this is what VT did. All the while the "national championship" was in a completely biased system before the BCS and then with the BCS. It can happen for any team. And it can happen in a system with just 4 teams. If you just take the top 4 teams, that are conference champions, no matter from what conference. Then every team in D1 has a shot. No need for 16 team playoffs and all the potential issues with it then.
I think newer nationally recognized programs like Boise, Utah, UCF, USF etc will drop off the national scene significantly (if not completely). JMU and ODU will have little or no chance for 5-10 years. The key for them will be having a visionary coach like Frank Beamer to not give up and continue to play better teams no matter how 'outmatched' they might be. Without a loyal dedicated staff no program can evolve the way VT did. Loyalty has always been rare in college football.
Frank's quite the exception.
If Boise had any real chance of not falling off drastically their coach may not have jumped ship. Unfortunately they might just go back to become known simply for their 'smurf turf'
I disagree. Utah is definitely not marginalized. They are in the PAC-12. Boise's issue was that they were riding their success and looking to jump conference and PAC-12 selected Utah instead. That doesn't mean that Boise can't continue to be good but Peterson also knows that the road he paved is not going to get smoother and went to Washington. It's a smart move for him, but does that mean Boise can't also keep improving? No, not at all.
Let's also use Louisville and Cincinnati as examples. Both were only known as basketball programs and they were able to grow out of obscurity and into major conferences. It has happened before and can still happen in future. It takes time, dedicated school and program, and the even luck of getting chosen to join a new conference but it definitely could happen. UCF is in the AAC, which yes is a shadow of it's Big East days but certainly can become relevant again. UCF is in fact making them more relevant.
I think everyone is somehow wishing that every team somehow gets a fair shake to become a BAMA. That there should be some method of helping these small universities compete on a "fair" level. But you're forgetting while the sports may be "amateur" this is a billion dollar business. This is not youth football where everyone wins a trophy. Companies don't get forced into giving competitors a fair shake at growing into a direct rival. That's ridiculously naive.
Every industry has the powerhouses and the smaller companies. College football is no different and should never be made so.
I'm going to expand on this. You say that's it won't be possible for teams to become relevant in the future. However, this flatly is just not true. Teams in minor conferences can keep improving hoping for chance to jump up or they can take matters in their own hands.
Let me propose a way to make a lot of teams extremely relevant right now:
The New American Athletic Conference
EAST DIVISION
UCF, Cincinnati, Northern Illinois, Bowling Green, Ball State, ECU, Marshall
WEST DIVISION
Boise, BYU, Frenso St., Nevada, Houston, Rice, Utah State
Championship game alternates from East coast to West coast every year but in same location.
Boom. Every single one of those teams now has been made VERY relevant and could easily build a program up that could reach the top 4 ranked teams to play for the national championship.
Any given team should have a fair chance to win the title, any given year. If someone could have said that "Ohio State's undefeated season from last year shouldn't matter" when arguing against them prior to the Michigan State game, then I can say "JMU should not have to win and go to bowl games 25 years in a row before they're eligible for a national title." The beauty of goliath going down is just as present in college basketball as it is in college football. When a number 2 seed loses to the 15 seed in the tournament, it's exciting not just because the 2 seed lost, but also because Oh my god, what if this nobody of a program won it all. It's unlikely, yes, but let's take ODU who already is a division I program. What if ODU really is the best team in college football next year? What if they go undefeated and dominate their schedule? Will they make the 4 team bracket? Absolutely not? Will they make the 8 team? Doubtful. Would they (or any program on an equivalent footing) make the 16 team? They might, and at least then you have a chance to see what they have. The problem with the 4 team or 8 team system is that they right off certain teams just because of their conference affiliations. For instance, the 4 team system is going to keep out a conference champion from what was formerly an AQ conference. I don't like that. As it is now, after you lose one game, every other game that doesn't knock you from conference contention doesn't matter. After we lost to BAMA, the next three conference games really didn't matter. We could have started 0-4 with a loss to WCU as long as we won the ACC, and we still would have gone to Miami. A 1 loss ACC team isn't going to the NC as it is now, and so really, after we lose so much as one game, we can lose the rest that don't cost us the ACC. It's already a system that relies on winning your conference (save for the top 2 teams), so let's make winning the conference really mean something, instead of meaning you play in a prettier, shinier bowl game that frankly doesn't mean anything. I love bowl season as much as the next guy, but the only bowl game that means anything at all right now is the NC. The rest is just money.
When it goes to Eight- any chance they will have the semifinal losers play for 3rd place?
It be great to see as a warm up on the eve of the NC game.
I like an eight team playoff. The conference championship is simply a "playoff game" itself towards a playoff, in a scenario of conference champions get a spot. So 16 teams to me is alot. I also think we should keep divisions within conferences for scheduling purposes, but only the top 2 in the conference play in their title game regardless of what division they are in. That way every game still matters, and you arent some 7 win team sneaking into the conference title game. I understand their could be some tie breaker conflicts but that i think can be worked out.
Then, maybe 5 auto bids from "the big 5" conference champs, 2 at large bids from "the big 5" based on rankings/committee selection/schedule/OOC game(s), and the last spot is for one team thats not in the "big 5". If the smaller major conferences get rid of their conference title game and we just take the top 4 of all the small conferences and have a mini playoff for the last at large spot. They can just crown their conference champ based on record.
I used to like the BCS. It was fun and exciting. But i think its been ruined over the years especially by the media pushing non stop SEC hype. I feel the media (mainly ESPN) if they wanted to can pick any conference they want and hype the hell out of them and turn them into the next SEC if they wanted. When Alabama played LSU last year i was done. Do you think in 2007 they would have rematched VT vs LSU , no. It was even a talking point that year that LSU already beat VT so they deserved to be in, and it was already proven on the field when the 2 teams played. When they rematched Alabama and LSU I was done. Its time to move on from it (the BCS).
I also think we need to get away from "the best team" mentality and that "the best team" deserves this and that. This mentality i feel takes away from what is happening on the field, and alot of it is media driven. In sports the best team doesn't always win, and isn't always a champion, sorry. We should just skip the whole regular season and just take the (2) teams with the most 5 stars and have them face off for champion.
(At this point im just spewing out randomness, with not much thought.)
Wait a minute - best two teams from each conference meet in the championship? Isn't that the exact same problem a playoff is designed to avoid?? Could you imagine VT getting left out of the ACC title so Clemson and FSU (which we did not play) could have a rematch? That idea is completely bananas, sorry.
Your apologizing for one of my ideas? I'm confused...
What is so hard taking the top 2 teams in a conference to put into a conference title game. Isn't that what we are kind of doing now? It's not based on polls or human voters trying to decide who is the best. Its overall conference record based.
Every other major championship is determined by splitting teams into groups and having the winners of both groups play each other at the end.
If you want the chance to play in that championship game, beat everyone else in that group. Or at least beat more people in that group than everyone else.
Clemson didn't beat FSU, so they weren't able to play in Charlotte. Yes, they're probably better than Duke, but Duke did what was required - they won more games than everyone in the Coastal.
I'm apologizing for not liking your idea. Imagine a scenario where Clemson and FSU were both top-10 teams, and we didn't play either (hint - this year). Now, imagine VT is ranked, say 12th overall, but has dominated the coastal. Are you seriously proposing that we get left out of the ACC Championship game (which is essentially a play-in game for your tournament) in favor of having a Clemson-FSU rematch?? Isn't this exactly the scenario (LSU-Bama rematch) that we are changing the system to avoid?
That's all you had to say the first time. I thought the last sentence in your first post was a little dickish, that's all. Sorry. I do see your point and agree.
"I also think we should keep divisions within conferences for scheduling purposes, but only the top 2 in the conference play in their title game regardless of what division they are in. That way every game still matters, and you arent some 7 win team sneaking into the conference title game."
I thought the same way in 2005, when we lost to a 8-4 or 7-5 FSU. But looking at the bigger picture, it always works in cycles. We've benefited from the format, like Duke did this year. Otherwise, we would have had another Clemson/FSU rematch, and Clemson probably would have been beaten down again.
"But i think its been ruined over the years especially by the media pushing non stop SEC hype."
Oh dear lord, that's exactly why I have issues with the SEC. And it was really bad in 2011 when you could see ESPN lobbying for the LSU/Alabama rematch. They have an enormous amount of control over college football. Not only do they employ a lot of people who vote and rank, but they are generally the #1 source of information for everyone else.
"I also think we need to get away from "the best team" mentality and that "the best team" deserves this and that."
And that's why I tossed out the point of best team does not always equal champion, but you also explained that point.
I'm just tired of whenever Alabama loses a game, they only get knocked down one or two spots, while other teams could lose in the same fashion to the same team and end up falling out of the top ten. I don't like the fact that we were potentially one or two more upsets away from them backing into the title game.
I have been thinking about this for a little while as well. I see pro's and cons but what really stood out was when I talked to an good friend of mine who played at OSU a couple years ago and he said... What really sucks is not being able to be with your family and friends on christmas, new years/new years day. If we were to have a 16 team playoff just think how difficult it would be to spend time with family...
Just my thought.. might be a little lame but most of these kids are still 21-23 and family is important.
Question. If you value the conference champions label so highly, why would you have non-conference champions seeded higher than the Non-AQ champs? I don't mind the match-ups you have listed at all, but I do find it interesting how some folks are so focused on the conference champion qualification, yet contradict it by seeding non-conference champions above them.
Also, the kids who win state championships in football in Virginia will have played 15 games this season. Just saying.
Collisions among HS football players are significantly different than collisions among high tier college players.
College guys are faster, hit harder and weigh more when they fall on top of each other, than the very diluted field of H.S. athletes.
The difference between college and NFL is the length of time spent in conditioning and the fact that only the top of the cream gets to this level.
NCAA limits the amount of time college athletes can use in professionally supervised conditioning and practice. NFL does not and the teams have MUCH more money, time and stake in making sure their athletes are at the top of physical conditioning.
Half way through this season HCFB was glad for the bye to heal wounds. If NCAA goes to more games than it has right now, it must lift restrictions to strength, conditioning and testing so the athletes can properly protect themselves for the coming season.
Actually this is not true. In fact it is completely the opposite.
Injury and even death in football is far, far more likely in High School than at any other time. There has been a tracking study on this since 1935. Since it began 678 deaths in High School football to 89 in college, and 80 in Pro that are directly caused by football. And 493 deaths for H.S. to 119 for college and 23 for Pro that are indirectly caused by football. http://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/2012FBInj.pdf
As with fatalities, it's the same for injuries. High School is a lot more. The reason is that there are obviously more kids playing but also that so many kids either do not have the proper protection, coaching and training, undersized/not athletic enough, or push themselves to far. This is why the statistics go down from H.S. to college to pro. However, that doesn't mean that college kids should be playing so many games in a season.
The potential for injury in college football is quite high and games per season is a major contributor to kids staying healthy. http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/ssi/resources/sports+inj...
If you look at percentages, those numbers are entirely different. Most recent number of registered high school football players in the US I could find was 1,023,142 in 2010, compared to college where the number is 65,648, and the pros, which has around 1,696 players.
That means the likelihoods of death increase drastically as a player reaches the higher levels of competition. It's not got to do with the number of games played, but rather the caliber of the athletes that they are playing against.
I have absolutely ZERO data to prove this, but I think the other factor is that as you get higher in the leagues, from high school up to NFL, you get players who actually know how to play. On the other hand, in the low leagues, you get players who don't tackle properly or use proper techniques when playing. Playing recklessly is just as dangerous as being hit harder properly.
pfft.. percentages..
jk. Yes I know. But I believe they state in the research paper that H.S. players are more prone whereas college and pro more controlled. At least in coaching and technique.
You can also see that the numbers have sharply declined over the years across the board. I remember the research paper that accompanies the report mentioning VT's football helmet studies as well. But that paper is like 80 pages long and I can't find the link anymore.
But you have a most valid point and I concede
I realize that this is an older topic, but I thought I would go ahead and add my idea. I would suggest an 8 team playoff using the following selection rules:
This system would yield the following results for the current season:
Auto Bids:
5 Highest Ranked Conference Champions
#1 Florida State ( 13-0)
#2 Auburn (12-1)
#4 Michigan State (12-1)
#5 Stanford (11-2)
#6 Baylor (11-1)
Other Undefeated Conference Champions and Independents
None
At Large Selection Pool:
Other One Loss Conference Champions
#15 UCF (11-1)
Other Top Ten Teams
SEC
#3 Alabama (11-1)
#8 Missouri (11-2)*
#9 South Carolina (10-2)
B1G
#7 Ohio State (12-1)*
PAC12
#10 Oregon (10-2)
*Indicates Loser of a Conference Championship game
If I were on the selection committee, My picks for the remaining 3 spots would be UCF (conference champion, only loss by 3 to USCe), Alabama (1 loss team, highly ranked) , and Ohio State. (1 loss team, Missouri not eligible because 2 SEC teams already selected)
I would set the initial round up with the following match ups adjusted for travel and to avoid rematches. First round match ups would be hosted by higher seeded teams, subsequent rounds to be played at neutral sites. Numbers indicate where I had them seeded initially.
#1 Florida State vs. #7 UCF
#4 Baylor vs. #5 Stanford
#3 Michigan State vs. #6 Alabama
#2 Auburn vs. #8 Ohio State
I would also have the system set up so that the winner of 1v7 doesn't necessarily play the winner of 4v5. For example: If the winners of the first round games were Florida State, Stanford, Alabama, and Auburn. I would have Alabama and Auburn avoiding a rematch so 2nd Round would be Florida State vs Alabama and Auburn vs Stanford.
I like it ...a lot.
IMO, I would replace Bama with Missouri. Their only loss in the regular season was by 3 to USC-E and they shouldn't be penalized that heavily for losing in a CCG to a team that also beat Bama. If you can't win your division, the only argument you have is if the loser of the CCG has worse than a 1 loss record coming in. Their ranking wasn't that far off and Mizzou finished higher.