UrsaMajor said:

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sycasey said:

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BearSD said:

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LunchTime said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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LunchTime said:

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They need to create a rule that only conference champions can go to the playoffs.

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That is just plain stupid.

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Yeah, I don't agree with that either. Conferences are big now, so the teams do not play equal schedules. Plus there is the question of independents. There should be some way for the best non-champions to also be included.

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I shouldn't have been rude, I just think it's begging for some really really awful outcomes. The #1 issue that needs to be addressed before anything else matters is the normalization of scheduling, as you alluded. What if Oregon's QB room got the flu the week of the CCG in 2011? We get a 7 loss UCLA in the CFB playoff? That can't ever be a thing. A 9-4 Minnesota upsets an 11-1 Ohio State and now the Gophers are in? We're begging for disaster. I don't like this erosion of college football tradition, but it's time to pull the bandaid off.

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What you are saying is bull**** and intentionally missing the point.

Alabama is the only team to lose its division and therefore the conference and still get in. The alternative isn't a 7 loss team. It's an 11-2 Ohio State coming off a win over a 12-0 team.

If you allow losers to advance, it invalidates the season. With a 2 or 4 team playoff, you have to use SOME objective measure to place teams. But what measure? There are 3 0 loss teams and 7 1 loss teams. How do you place those 10 teams completely subjectively and then claim the system now is better than the BCS, or better than the traditional bowls where we subjectively placed teams #1 and #2?

The goal of the system is an objective result, but then losers of a conference division move forward (along with the conference champion) because... We think they are better and the schedule was hard? How can you claim to be the objective best when you lose head to head against the division winner and conference loser? Bad day?

If this were basketball, sure, have a 128 team tourney. But this is football: the NFL puts winners through, even if the division sucked. They also put through a team with the next best record, even if the division sucked. They don't look at the NFC and say "the AFC was much tougher, so you get no wildcard, and your division champ doesn't go through, we want more AFC teams to be fair." That's idiotic. The Giants never win a super bowl is a 9-7 record. Are they not a legitimate super bowl champion? Honestly, if you think head to head playoff type systems find the best team, who gives a **** what the next conference champ's record is? Win and go forward.

What would be best, IMO, is 8 16 team conferences (or similar if you HAVE to continue the independents). Winners move on to the traditional big 4 bowls. Winners move onto the semi final. Winners move on to the championship game. Regular season matter. Every game matters. Division and conference championships matter. Traditional big bowls matter. Playoff positions are entirely objective and not manipulatable.

But if your argument is a that in the current system a 7 loss team supplants a 1 loss Alabama, that's ridiculous. It's a 2 loss conference winner at #5 supplanting a conference loser at #4. THAT is stupid and should never happen unless we have a playoff with more teams than conferences.

Anyway, having a system that has conference championships and ignores them is a stupid system.

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The right way to go is a 24-team playoff like FCS has. 10 conference champs, 14 at-large teams.

It's just too bad that the bowl games have their tentacles so far into the system that it won't happen.

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My personal hobby-horse is for a 16-team playoff. 10 conference champs, 6 at-large. First two rounds are played at the home stadiums of the higher seeds, then the semifinals and finals at bowl sites as they are now. Other bowls can have guaranteed slots for teams that get knocked out. It would look like this:

1 LSU (13-0)
16 Miami (Ohio) (8-5)

8 Wisconsin (10-3)
9 Florida (10-2)

5 Georgia (11-2)
12 Memphis (12-1)

4 Oklahoma (12-1)
13 Boise State (12-1)

6 Oregon (11-2)
11 Penn State (10-2)

3 Clemson (13-0)
14 Appalachian State (12-1)

7 Baylor (11-2)
10 Utah (11-2)

2 Ohio State (13-0)
15 Florida Atlantic (10-3)

NOTE: Utah and Penn State are swapped to avoid a Pac-12 rematch. It's actually pretty balanced, in that the power conferences all get at least two teams in. There is an incentive to get a higher seed, because you can get a significantly easier matchup in the first round. All teams have a fair shot to get in by winning the conference.

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IMO, 16 teams is too many (why not go the basketball route and have 64?), because it has to cut the regular season too much. an 8 team playoff with 5 P5 champions, 1 G5 team guaranteed, and 2 at-large which could be an independent (e.g., ND), another G5 team, or at-large teams from P5 conferences (I like the stipulation that no more than 1 at-large from any one conference).

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Baylor and Utah get in but no Alabama?

Good stuff otherwise.

UrsaMajor said:

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sycasey said:

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BearSD said:

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LunchTime said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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LunchTime said:

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They need to create a rule that only conference champions can go to the playoffs.

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That is just plain stupid.

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Yeah, I don't agree with that either. Conferences are big now, so the teams do not play equal schedules. Plus there is the question of independents. There should be some way for the best non-champions to also be included.

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I shouldn't have been rude, I just think it's begging for some really really awful outcomes. The #1 issue that needs to be addressed before anything else matters is the normalization of scheduling, as you alluded. What if Oregon's QB room got the flu the week of the CCG in 2011? We get a 7 loss UCLA in the CFB playoff? That can't ever be a thing. A 9-4 Minnesota upsets an 11-1 Ohio State and now the Gophers are in? We're begging for disaster. I don't like this erosion of college football tradition, but it's time to pull the bandaid off.

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What you are saying is bull**** and intentionally missing the point.

Alabama is the only team to lose its division and therefore the conference and still get in. The alternative isn't a 7 loss team. It's an 11-2 Ohio State coming off a win over a 12-0 team.

If you allow losers to advance, it invalidates the season. With a 2 or 4 team playoff, you have to use SOME objective measure to place teams. But what measure? There are 3 0 loss teams and 7 1 loss teams. How do you place those 10 teams completely subjectively and then claim the system now is better than the BCS, or better than the traditional bowls where we subjectively placed teams #1 and #2?

The goal of the system is an objective result, but then losers of a conference division move forward (along with the conference champion) because... We think they are better and the schedule was hard? How can you claim to be the objective best when you lose head to head against the division winner and conference loser? Bad day?

If this were basketball, sure, have a 128 team tourney. But this is football: the NFL puts winners through, even if the division sucked. They also put through a team with the next best record, even if the division sucked. They don't look at the NFC and say "the AFC was much tougher, so you get no wildcard, and your division champ doesn't go through, we want more AFC teams to be fair." That's idiotic. The Giants never win a super bowl is a 9-7 record. Are they not a legitimate super bowl champion? Honestly, if you think head to head playoff type systems find the best team, who gives a **** what the next conference champ's record is? Win and go forward.

What would be best, IMO, is 8 16 team conferences (or similar if you HAVE to continue the independents). Winners move on to the traditional big 4 bowls. Winners move onto the semi final. Winners move on to the championship game. Regular season matter. Every game matters. Division and conference championships matter. Traditional big bowls matter. Playoff positions are entirely objective and not manipulatable.

But if your argument is a that in the current system a 7 loss team supplants a 1 loss Alabama, that's ridiculous. It's a 2 loss conference winner at #5 supplanting a conference loser at #4. THAT is stupid and should never happen unless we have a playoff with more teams than conferences.

Anyway, having a system that has conference championships and ignores them is a stupid system.

---

The right way to go is a 24-team playoff like FCS has. 10 conference champs, 14 at-large teams.

It's just too bad that the bowl games have their tentacles so far into the system that it won't happen.

---

My personal hobby-horse is for a 16-team playoff. 10 conference champs, 6 at-large. First two rounds are played at the home stadiums of the higher seeds, then the semifinals and finals at bowl sites as they are now. Other bowls can have guaranteed slots for teams that get knocked out. It would look like this:

1 LSU (13-0)
16 Miami (Ohio) (8-5)

8 Wisconsin (10-3)
9 Florida (10-2)

5 Georgia (11-2)
12 Memphis (12-1)

4 Oklahoma (12-1)
13 Boise State (12-1)

6 Oregon (11-2)
11 Penn State (10-2)

3 Clemson (13-0)
14 Appalachian State (12-1)

7 Baylor (11-2)
10 Utah (11-2)

2 Ohio State (13-0)
15 Florida Atlantic (10-3)

NOTE: Utah and Penn State are swapped to avoid a Pac-12 rematch. It's actually pretty balanced, in that the power conferences all get at least two teams in. There is an incentive to get a higher seed, because you can get a significantly easier matchup in the first round. All teams have a fair shot to get in by winning the conference.

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IMO, 16 teams is too many (why not go the basketball route and have 64?), because it has to cut the regular season too much. an 8 team playoff with 5 P5 champions, 1 G5 team guaranteed, and 2 at-large which could be an independent (e.g., ND), another G5 team, or at-large teams from P5 conferences (I like the stipulation that no more than 1 at-large from any one conference).

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I don't really like the current concept of "the regular season is the playoffs" so I'm on board with expanding it to as much as 16 (I'll settle for 8, but I think 16 has a lot of merit).

So, conference championship games won't make or break a playoff birth anymore (except in cases where really bad team gets into a conf champ game), but it will have a huge impact on seeding. And it will have that intensity and excitement that CBB conf tourneys have where teams on the bubble really feel the urgency to win to make the ncaa tourney.

While it won't be do or die in a lot of cases for one team, and in some cases both teams when the loser is still likely to get an at-large bid due to only having 1 or 2 losses, I don't think it will lose the excitement traditionalists are worried about.

It will in fact in crease excitement (and viewership) because SO MANY games down the stretch for SO MANY teams will be meaningful and theoretically do-or-die games. I think the MLB is a great example of increasing postseason participants which made hundreds of games down the stretch have playoff implications as opposed to two teams running away with the division in June and no games mattering.

Is Mich/OSU, Bama/Aub etc going to really be less interesting if the loser likely has a strong chance at an at-large bid? I don't think so.

LunchTime said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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LunchTime said:

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They need to create a rule that only conference champions can go to the playoffs.

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That is just plain stupid.

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Yeah, I don't agree with that either. Conferences are big now, so the teams do not play equal schedules. Plus there is the question of independents. There should be some way for the best non-champions to also be included.

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I shouldn't have been rude, I just think it's begging for some really really awful outcomes. The #1 issue that needs to be addressed before anything else matters is the normalization of scheduling, as you alluded. What if Oregon's QB room got the flu the week of the CCG in 2011? We get a 7 loss UCLA in the CFB playoff? That can't ever be a thing. A 9-4 Minnesota upsets an 11-1 Ohio State and now the Gophers are in? We're begging for disaster. I don't like this erosion of college football tradition, but it's time to pull the bandaid off.

---

What you are saying is bull**** and intentionally missing the point.

Alabama is the only team to lose its division and therefore the conference and still get in. The alternative isn't a 7 loss team. It's an 11-2 Ohio State coming off a win over a 12-0 team.

If you allow losers to advance, it invalidates the season. With a 2 or 4 team playoff, you have to use SOME objective measure to place teams. But what measure? There are 3 0 loss teams and 7 1 loss teams. How do you place those 10 teams completely subjectively and then claim the system now is better than the BCS, or better than the traditional bowls where we subjectively placed teams #1 and #2?

The goal of the system is an objective result, but then losers of a conference division move forward (along with the conference champion) because... We think they are better and the schedule was hard? How can you claim to be the objective best when you lose head to head against the division winner and conference loser? Bad day?

If this were basketball, sure, have a 128 team tourney. But this is football: the NFL puts winners through, even if the division sucked. They also put through a team with the next best record, even if the division sucked. They don't look at the NFC and say "the AFC was much tougher, so you get no wildcard, and your division champ doesn't go through, we want more AFC teams to be fair." That's idiotic. The Giants never win a super bowl is a 9-7 record. Are they not a legitimate super bowl champion? Honestly, if you think head to head playoff type systems find the best team, who gives a **** what the next conference champ's record is? Win and go forward.

What would be best, IMO, is 8 16 team conferences (or similar if you HAVE to continue the independents). Winners move on to the traditional big 4 bowls. Winners move onto the semi final. Winners move on to the championship game. Regular season matter. Every game matters. Division and conference championships matter. Traditional big bowls matter. Playoff positions are entirely objective and not manipulatable.

But if your argument is a that in the current system a 7 loss team supplants a 1 loss Alabama, that's ridiculous. It's a 2 loss conference winner at #5 supplanting a conference loser at #4. THAT is stupid and should never happen unless we have a playoff with more teams than conferences.

Anyway, having a system that has conference championships and ignores them is a stupid system.

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Ohio St beat Wisconsin by 31 points this year, but the CCG decides the best team? GFTO.

GBear4Life said:

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UrsaMajor said:

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sycasey said:

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BearSD said:

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LunchTime said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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sycasey said:

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ducktilldeath said:

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LunchTime said:

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They need to create a rule that only conference champions can go to the playoffs.

---

That is just plain stupid.

---

Yeah, I don't agree with that either. Conferences are big now, so the teams do not play equal schedules. Plus there is the question of independents. There should be some way for the best non-champions to also be included.

---

I shouldn't have been rude, I just think it's begging for some really really awful outcomes. The #1 issue that needs to be addressed before anything else matters is the normalization of scheduling, as you alluded. What if Oregon's QB room got the flu the week of the CCG in 2011? We get a 7 loss UCLA in the CFB playoff? That can't ever be a thing. A 9-4 Minnesota upsets an 11-1 Ohio State and now the Gophers are in? We're begging for disaster. I don't like this erosion of college football tradition, but it's time to pull the bandaid off.

---

What you are saying is bull**** and intentionally missing the point.

Alabama is the only team to lose its division and therefore the conference and still get in. The alternative isn't a 7 loss team. It's an 11-2 Ohio State coming off a win over a 12-0 team.

If you allow losers to advance, it invalidates the season. With a 2 or 4 team playoff, you have to use SOME objective measure to place teams. But what measure? There are 3 0 loss teams and 7 1 loss teams. How do you place those 10 teams completely subjectively and then claim the system now is better than the BCS, or better than the traditional bowls where we subjectively placed teams #1 and #2?

The goal of the system is an objective result, but then losers of a conference division move forward (along with the conference champion) because... We think they are better and the schedule was hard? How can you claim to be the objective best when you lose head to head against the division winner and conference loser? Bad day?

If this were basketball, sure, have a 128 team tourney. But this is football: the NFL puts winners through, even if the division sucked. They also put through a team with the next best record, even if the division sucked. They don't look at the NFC and say "the AFC was much tougher, so you get no wildcard, and your division champ doesn't go through, we want more AFC teams to be fair." That's idiotic. The Giants never win a super bowl is a 9-7 record. Are they not a legitimate super bowl champion? Honestly, if you think head to head playoff type systems find the best team, who gives a **** what the next conference champ's record is? Win and go forward.

What would be best, IMO, is 8 16 team conferences (or similar if you HAVE to continue the independents). Winners move on to the traditional big 4 bowls. Winners move onto the semi final. Winners move on to the championship game. Regular season matter. Every game matters. Division and conference championships matter. Traditional big bowls matter. Playoff positions are entirely objective and not manipulatable.

But if your argument is a that in the current system a 7 loss team supplants a 1 loss Alabama, that's ridiculous. It's a 2 loss conference winner at #5 supplanting a conference loser at #4. THAT is stupid and should never happen unless we have a playoff with more teams than conferences.

Anyway, having a system that has conference championships and ignores them is a stupid system.

---

The right way to go is a 24-team playoff like FCS has. 10 conference champs, 14 at-large teams.

It's just too bad that the bowl games have their tentacles so far into the system that it won't happen.

---

My personal hobby-horse is for a 16-team playoff. 10 conference champs, 6 at-large. First two rounds are played at the home stadiums of the higher seeds, then the semifinals and finals at bowl sites as they are now. Other bowls can have guaranteed slots for teams that get knocked out. It would look like this:

1 LSU (13-0)
16 Miami (Ohio) (8-5)

8 Wisconsin (10-3)
9 Florida (10-2)

5 Georgia (11-2)
12 Memphis (12-1)

4 Oklahoma (12-1)
13 Boise State (12-1)

6 Oregon (11-2)
11 Penn State (10-2)

3 Clemson (13-0)
14 Appalachian State (12-1)

7 Baylor (11-2)
10 Utah (11-2)

2 Ohio State (13-0)
15 Florida Atlantic (10-3)

NOTE: Utah and Penn State are swapped to avoid a Pac-12 rematch. It's actually pretty balanced, in that the power conferences all get at least two teams in. There is an incentive to get a higher seed, because you can get a significantly easier matchup in the first round. All teams have a fair shot to get in by winning the conference.

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IMO, 16 teams is too many (why not go the basketball route and have 64?), because it has to cut the regular season too much. an 8 team playoff with 5 P5 champions, 1 G5 team guaranteed, and 2 at-large which could be an independent (e.g., ND), another G5 team, or at-large teams from P5 conferences (I like the stipulation that no more than 1 at-large from any one conference).

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Baylor and Utah get in but no Alabama?

Good stuff otherwise.

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I'm just going by how the CFP rankings went. They had Alabama 13th.

EDIT: This might actually be fair, though. Here are Alabama's wins:

Duke
New Mexico St.
South Carolina
Southern Miss
Texas A&M
Tennessee
Arkansas
Mississippi St.
Western Carolina

Nobody in that group went better than 7-5. Baylor had better wins, as did Penn State. Utah would be the only team they have a clear argument over, and the Utes actually reached their conference championship game.

16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

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Yet somehow the FCS teams manage it.

I could see something like going to 6 teams. Conferences champions for the top 4 conferences and 2 at large. Let the committee pick the top 4 conferences and seed the 6 teams with the top 2 getting first round byes.

And while we are making changes let's have all P5 conferences play the same number of conference games and not play FCS teams.

I prefer 16 teams - two each from the P-5 conferences (champion & runner up) and six at large.

But, that isn't going to happen any time soon. The best we'll get is an eight team playoff. The five P-5 conference champions & three at large invites.

At least winning your conference will actually mean something. (If ND thinks that is too unfair, they can join whatever conference who'll have them).

sycasey said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

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Yet somehow the FCS teams manage it.

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Every Division in college football, (including D1 FCS & the NAIA), except D1 FBS have either eight team or 16 team playoffs. I guess the NCAA doesn't care at all for the academic stress this puts on all these hundreds of college football players. To say nothing of all the college basketball players who play in the NCAA & NIT season ending tournaments.

What will compell the NCAA to change to eight teams from four? Two factors: (1) The SEC & Big-10 demanding the change so they can each get a second team in the playoffs, and (2) The sheer, insane, unbelievable amount of additional money that networks will pay to televise the extra games. We're talking in the billion dollar range.

As we learned in the 1970's, follow the money if you want to see what's really going on.

tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

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Eliminate OOC games, or relegate it to one game.

OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

GBear4Life said:

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OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

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That's kind of why I like the 16-team tournament. It basically forces you to play several difficult OOC games to win the title.

GBear4Life said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

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Eliminate OOC games, or relegate it to one game.

OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

---

Every team loses 3 games of revenue so 16 teams play in a playoff? Doesn't seem especially likely / practical.

tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

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Actually 17 games for those in CCG's.

tequila4kapp said:

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GBear4Life said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

---

Eliminate OOC games, or relegate it to one game.

OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

---

Every team loses 3 games of revenue so 16 teams play in a playoff? Doesn't seem especially likely / practical.

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To expand your point, for the powerhouses, that's about 250,000 tickets at an average of $50 per, or $12.5 million, not even counting concessions, etc. Are Alabama, Oklahoma, etc. going to give that up so they can be in an expanded playoff?

tequila4kapp said:

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GBear4Life said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

---

Eliminate OOC games, or relegate it to one game.

OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

---

Every team loses 3 games of revenue so 16 teams play in a playoff? Doesn't seem especially likely / practical.

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You don't need to remove any games. FCS teams have a long playoff after the regular season and they are fine. Only two teams would actually have to play the full 17, and I think they'd be happy to do it.

UrsaMajor said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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GBear4Life said:

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tequila4kapp said:

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16 teams means 4 extra games and 16 games in one season for the teams that make it to the finals. That is never happening.

---

Eliminate OOC games, or relegate it to one game.

OOC games are a joke. Much more incentive to schedule automatic Ws than schedule tough games in hopes that winning it will win you points with the committee.

---

Every team loses 3 games of revenue so 16 teams play in a playoff? Doesn't seem especially likely / practical.

---

To expand your point, for the powerhouses, that's about 250,000 tickets at an average of $50 per, or $12.5 million, not even counting concessions, etc. Are Alabama, Oklahoma, etc. going to give that up so they can be in an expanded playoff?

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Then play the games. I don't care. I just want a legit playoff more than eliminating OOC games