College Playoff

[BayBuck]

Let me get this straight: The system is 'great' because we argue every year about its non-sensical arbitrary process? By the same token, if we all agree on something, then it must suck, right?

The system is great because it keeps us interested and talking about it all year long, and then for years and decades afterward. In no other sport can you look back 25 years and legitimately argue that this team or that was really the best and the deserving champion. The long tradition of these "arbitrary processes" of college football's postseason is integral to the passion and emotional involvement of its fans (IMO of course). The BCS crowns deserving champions, draws huge audiences, and makes a ton of money that is being spread further around every year: the system is great.

 

[OH10]

The system is great because it keeps us interested and talking about it all year long, and then for years and decades afterward. In no other sport can you look back 25 years and legitimately argue that this team or that was really the best and the deserving champion.

Wow. I have to simply disagree as vehemently as I can with that assessment. There is absolutely no way I would ever see that as a "great" thing about college football.

I think its a poor roundabout excuse to avoid progress.

 

[jlb1705]

It is funny. I understand it isnt professional or anything but in every other majorly watched sport if you say "hey who won the title in ___?" you would get straight answers for each sport. But in CFB you say the answer most times with a " it was _______ but this team shoulda been involved or won it." Never really thought about it until just now.

Yeah, you never get in any other sport with a playoff.

"Villanova won it, but Georgetown was better." OOPS.

Don't tell me that kind of talk becomes any more bullshit than when it's done in college football. A team that goes undefeated in the regular season and loses to a three-loss team in a national semifinal is going to pull that same shit.

Such as matching up TCU vs. Boise State. If TCU or Boise State were to trounce Ga Tech or Iowa it continues to illigitimize the current system. Especially coming on the heels of Utah smacking Alabama around last year. By making them play, the BCS protectors and fans can say, neither team beat anyone elite. The winner of that match-up, beat a mid-major. Nothing to really hang your hat on. Assuming Cincinnati loses to UF, everyone is content with the Bama - Texas winner.

Well played BCS!!

OK, if you have a playoff and the first round matchup is TCU vs. Boise State, does that de-legitimize the playoff?

These programs (especially Boise State) have been saying they are Goliaths and not Davids for a while now - only to seemingly change their tune when they get matched up against another non-AQ "Goliath". Which is it?

Overall, adding a playoff to college football would be like putting ketchup on a steak - unsatisfying and unnecessary. ESPN is going to keep clamoring for it though because they want to broadcast it and they also have this weird fetish for putting everything into a bracket: Who's Now: Determine the Ultimate Sports Star - ESPN Page 2

 

[FCollinsBuckeye]

Overall, adding a playoff to college football would be like putting ketchup on a steak - unsatisfying and unnecessary.

 

[sepia5]

OK, if you have a playoff and the first round matchup is TCU vs. Boise State, does that de-legitimize the playoff?

No, because the winner gets to keep playing until they either lose to a big boy or beat the big boy, at which point we have a non-arbitrary resolution. That's the point.

 

[jlb1705]

No, because the winner gets to keep playing until they either lose to a big boy or beat the big boy, at which point we have a non-arbitrary resolution. That's the point.

Non-arbitrary? How can that be? Any means for determining who gets into a playoff is going to be just as arbitrary as the means for determining who plays for a championship in the current system. Furthermore, the resolution in a playoff becomes even more arbitrary the moment a team that had the seventh-best regular season lifts a trophy.

 

[sepia5]

Non-arbitrary? How can that be? Any means for determining who gets into a playoff is going to be just as arbitrary as the means for determining who plays for a championship in the current system. Furthermore, the resolution in a playoff becomes even more arbitrary the moment a team that had the seventh-best regular season lifts a trophy.

Sure, there's always going to be a degree of abitrariness in any system, but the point is that a playoff would result in a less arbitrary process. I've made this point before in similar discussions with BKB, but, IMO, there's just no question that this is the case.

Example. Suppose we have an 8-team playoff. You're saying it's arbitrary to leave out the 9th team and include the 8th team, and I agree that there is going to be some degree of arbitrariness there. But currently we're talking about leaving out the 3rd, 4th, and 5th teams. Those teams may, in any given year, have gone undefeated, perhaps even in a BCS conference. My point is that a 3rd place, undefeated BCS conference team has a MUCH more persuasive argument to make that they should have been given a shot at the championship than a team that finishes the season 9th in the BCS standings. I just don't think that's even open for debate.

I also understand that, on any given day, any team can beat any other team. But a championship system should, by its very nature, be designed to do the best job possible in determining who is likely the best team in college football. You've got to draw the line somewhere, and wherever that line is drawn there will be arbitrariness. But if that line is drawn so as to include all the undefeateds (particularly from BCS conferences), it is clearly, IMO, less arbitrary than one that simply takes the top two according to the BCS standings at the end of the regular season, everything else be damned.

And don't get me wrong. I do think the law of diminishing returns is at play here. By being overly inclusive, I think you invite arbitrariness into the process. That's why I think talk of further expanding the NCAA basketball field, for instance, is ridiculous. If you make a team win 9 games in a row to secure a championship, who here thinks that system is really going to be better at identifying the best team in college basketball than the 65 team field currently in place? Not me. It's asking a lot to make a team win 9 games in a row. I think 8 is a good number for college football. Just enough to guarantee that the conference champions and undefeated teams get a shot, but not so many that the regular season is basically ignored. Sixteen? Fourteen? Twelve? I dunno. Am I being arbitrary in throwing out the number 8? Sure. But not so arbitrary, IMO, as the system that currently selects our championship game.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Sepia - in any given year you might only have 1 undefeated team. Or two.. I think your playoff argument makes more sense in a year like this one, in terms of "inclusion" but a typical season does not include this many undefeated teams (and I'm not even getting in to the mid major discount - if I had, we'd be talking about 2 teams, Bama and Texas and there might be some minor gnashing of teeth about Cinci).

I haven't looked, but it is my thought that a typical CFB season includes very few undefeated teams... and seldom enough to support 8 teams with "legitimate" shots.

 

[sepia5]

Sepia - in any given year you might only have 1 undefeated team. Or two.. I think your playoff argument makes more sense in a year like this one, in terms of "inclusion" but a typical season does not include this many undefeated teams (and I'm not even getting in to the mid major discount - if I had, we'd be talking about 2 teams, Bama and Texas and there might be some minor gnashing of teeth about Cinci).

I haven't looked, but it is my thought that a typical CFB season includes very few undefeated teams... and seldom enough to support 8 teams with "legitimate" shots.

That's definitely true, and I wouldn't be opposed to a 4-team playoff I guess. But I think even that would be more arbitrary than an 8-team playoff because questions like these would invariably pop up: Should we take the undefeated non-BCS conference team, or the 1-loss BCS conference team at spot #4? Which 1-loss/2-loss BCS conference team should we take at spot #4? Do we decide by SOS or conference affiliation? How accurate is SOS? (I've often been skeptical of SOS rankings as doing anything more than providing a broad understanding of how difficult a team's schedule is. IMO, too much of it is based upon perceived conference power, when one considers how rare it is for good BCS conference teams to play one another out-of-conference these days.) I know these questions would still plague an 8-team playoff to a certain extent, but, again, team #9's claim of unfairness will not be as legitimate as team #5's.

Again, you've got to draw the line somewhere, and we're really getting into semantics here: how does one define "arbitrary" in this situation? I just think the best, least arbitrary solution is to give all the BCS conference champions a go at a playoff, and fill in the rest according to the BCS standings. I'd get rid of conference championship games in lieu of an inner-conference round-robin approach (I know there won't be enough Saturdays to do a complete round robin in the Big-12 and SEC, but try to get as many inner-conference matchups as possible). I would also love to see some sort of requirements put into place as far as out-of-conference scheduling goes. Make teams do what tOSU does and schedule one other non-conference BCS team per season, and prohibit the I-AA nonsense. Frankly, taking a measure like that may do more to erradicate arbitrariness than even a playoff, but I'd like to see the two work in concert.

 

[jlb1705]

First off, I apologize if I'm accidentally ripping off somebody else's playoff idea. I don't have the patience to read every columnist's asinine playoff proposal when I think the BCS system does a better job.

The only scenario I could think of where I'd be in support of a playoff is as follows: An eleven-team playoff consisting of only conference champions. It's a clear place to draw the line. It takes "arbitrary" out of the picture - you either win your conference or you don't. It eliminates the stupid conference wars bull[censored] - send your best and let them prove it on the field. It keeps teams that don't take care of their business in their conference from having a shot at the national title. It maintains the importance of the regular season - because teams are fighting right down to the last week for berths or seeding. You wouldn't have a power-conference team resting its starters in a conference championship game because they know they'd make the field anyway as an at-large team. It gives everybody a place at the table, right down to the MAC and Sun Belt. Notre Dame - hitch your wagon to somebody if you want in. No institutionalized advantages. Have a BCS-style system for seeding purposes. The top five conference champions in those standings get a first-round bye, while the other six teams play for the right to face one of them. Reseed the teams that move on from the first round. Conferences that have "co-champions" will have to use a tiebreaker to determine their representative. Would it be stupid to give a 7-5 Sun Belt team a spot in a championship playoff? Not any more so than giving a 9-3 or 10-3 conference runner-up a spot in my opinion. I think you should at least be the best team in your conference to get a shot at claiming you have the best team in the entire country.

 

[sepia5]

First off, I apologize if I'm accidentally ripping off somebody else's playoff idea. I don't have the patience to read every columnist's asinine playoff proposal when I think the BCS system does a better job.

The only scenario I could think of where I'd be in support of a playoff is as follows: An eleven-team playoff consisting of only conference champions. It's a clear place to draw the line. It takes "arbitrary" out of the picture - you either win your conference or you don't. It eliminates the stupid conference wars bull[censored] - send your best and let them prove it on the field. It keeps teams that don't take care of their business in their conference from having a shot at the national title. It maintains the importance of the regular season - because teams are fighting right down to the last week for berths or seeding. You wouldn't have a power-conference team resting its starters in a conference championship game because they know they'd make the field anyway as an at-large team. It gives everybody a place at the table, right down to the MAC and Sun Belt. Notre Dame - hitch your wagon to somebody if you want in. No institutionalized advantages. Have a BCS-style system for seeding purposes. The top five conference champions in those standings get a first-round bye, while the other six teams play for the right to face one of them. Reseed the teams that move on from the first round. Conferences that have "co-champions" will have to use a tiebreaker to determine their representative. Would it be stupid to give a 7-5 Sun Belt team a spot in a championship playoff? Not any more so than giving a 9-3 or 10-3 conference runner-up a spot in my opinion. I think you should at least be the best team in your conference to get a shot at claiming you have the best team in the entire country.

I agree with any scheme that includes this idea. In all seriousness, I would wholly support this type of playoff, I think . . . .

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

jlb - certainly that approach is the most "fair" way to do it. However, doing that completely undercuts things like JXC's "exciting" argument as it creates games like Troy v. Alabama in the first round. Like I've said before, that's a snoozer in September, and it's a snoozer in December.

Again, I agree with your thinking as far as fairness goes, it is - however - quite a bit unlike what Playoff proponents truly want. The Basketball tourney can get away with inviting shit conference champs because the number of at large bids means the tourney provides the illusion of fairness without actually being "fair" A 15 seed might win a game from time to time, but they're not winning 6.

Sepia - as far as scheduling requirements - anything they can do to make all teams play a reasonably close "strength" of games, I'd be all for. It's ridiculous that a team can play a schedule in the bottom quarter of the nation and get a "shot"

Edit: I should say "It would be ridiculous if..." As it is, the current system tends to prevent such an occurrence.

 

[Piney]

jlb - certainly that approach is the most "fair" way to do it. However, doing that completely undercuts things like JXC's "exciting" argument as it creates games like Troy v. Alabama in the first round. Like I've said before, that's a snoozer in September, and it's a snoozer in December.

Again, I agree with your thinking as far as fairness goes, it is - however - quite a bit unlike what Playoff proponents truly want. The Basketball tourney can get away with inviting shit conference champs because the number of at large bids means the tourney provides the illusion of fairness without actually being "fair" A 15 seed might win a game from time to time, but they're not winning 6.

You missed where the Top 5 teams earn byes. So Alabama v Troy won't happen (Unless Troy wins in the 1st round)

To get a better look at this idea here is what the matchups look like.

1st Round:

Oregon v Troy
Ohio State v East Carolina
Georgia Tech v Central Michigan.

While Oregon, Ohio State and Georgia Tech should win each game, people would watch if anything just to see if the 'little guy' can win.

Also, these games SHOULD be held at the higher seed's home field to make traveling easier and to make sure the stadiums are filled as if any of these games were held at a neutral site no one would travel to them.

But this is a type of playoff system I prefer maybe adding a 12th team to even up the field and to allow Notre Dame in. While I would love to force Notre Dame into a conference, but it would never be agreed upon without some provision to allow Notre Dame in. So this allows an undefeated Notre Dame in, or in cases like the Big 10 where 2 teams could finish undefeated not playing each other. (throw in the Texas v Oklahoma argument last year too)

While I agree it gives an illusion of fairness to the little schools it does two things. First off those small schools might not be small for much longer under such a plan. You see schools like Utah, Boise and now TCU grow into much bigger football schools. They can recruit better with the exposure and in turn can become better. Basically recruits might choose a Troy instead of going to Mississippi St since Troy has a better chance to reach the playoffs. Or those Ohio recruits that go to Wisconsin, Michigan St and Minnesota might stay in-state and go to Ohio, Toledo or Central Michigan. Ok, that was the Ohio alum in me talking, but the point is valid.

The 2nd point is as follows. The fact that there is no extended break in a 3-4 week playoff. No sitting around for a month hearing how great you are and getting fat off the banquet circuit. No time for that, you keep playing and staying focus on beating the team ahead of you. This allows for better end games and truer champions.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Piney - I must have missed the byes, but that said the first round you outlined doesn't have me salivating.

You bring up an interesting point about how the "little guys" don't stay little forever. I'll have to consider that point some more, but I'm also in favor of a "higher level" of play, so if that's a consequence of this system, it's a tick mark in favor of it.

 

[sepia5]

But this is a type of playoff system I prefer maybe adding a 12th team to even up the field and to allow Notre Dame in. While I would love to force Notre Dame into a conference, but it would never be agreed upon without some provision to allow Notre Dame in. So this allows an undefeated Notre Dame in, or in cases like the Big 10 where 2 teams could finish undefeated not playing each other. (throw in the Texas v Oklahoma argument last year too)

What happens to that 12th spot when, as is the case most seasons, Notre Dame sucks it hard? And I really don't want to see a situation where there are two undefeateds from a single conference. The appeal of the system outlined by jib is that there's a season-long playoff in-conference each year, followed by a national playoff.

While I agree it gives an illusion of fairness to the little schools it does two things. First off those small schools might not be small for much longer under such a plan. You see schools like Utah, Boise and now TCU grow into much bigger football schools. They can recruit better with the exposure and in turn can become better. Basically recruits might choose a Troy instead of going to Mississippi St since Troy has a better chance to reach the playoffs. Or those Ohio recruits that go to Wisconsin, Michigan St and Minnesota might stay in-state and go to Ohio, Toledo or Central Michigan. Ok, that was the Ohio alum in me talking, but the point is valid.

And this may be a very valid reason for the BCS conferences to oppose any change. I think you're absolutely right. Why go to Purdue and get stomped every season when you can go to Central Michigan and compete for a spot in the playoffs? This kind of system could really hurt the BCS conferences.