College Playoff

[Jaxbuck]

Based on your question whether we want to have a vote on who had the best regular season or, alternatively, whether want to have a tournament champion, I raised the comparison of NCAA men's basketball that arguably takes the second option to its logical conclusion and, in so doing, guts the regular season. That comparison has been made many times in this thread, where I have placed my answer after being shamed by Oh8ch.

ahhh gotcha

I would just say that is the obvious danger in taking it too far. We don't want to see a nearly meaningless regular season obviously.

regular season vote system evolved into 2 team playoff which has expanded to 4 now. I'd be willing to see what 8 does but probably no more than that.

 

[zincfinger]

ahhh gotcha

I would just say that is the obvious danger in taking it too far. We don't want to see a nearly meaningless regular season obviously.

regular season vote system evolved into 2 team playoff which has expanded to 4 now. I'd be willing to see what 8 does but probably no more than that.

Probably no more than 8? What the hell do you think happens at 16?

 

[buckeyemania11]

The problem with expanding is that once you expand once it seems inevitable that you will expand again

The FCS started at 4 and is now at 24, which yea makes the regular season not very meaningful when a handful of 4 or 5 loss teams are making it in, Take the FBS this year for example if we had a 24 team playoff (with the top 24 in the CFP rankings making it) there would be SEVEN 4 loss teams having a shot to win the national title.

I dont think on most years there are 8 teams you can say are worthy of being the best team in the country. Obviously you could make the case for a 8 team playoff based on this season alone, but most years you probably wont be able to say the same.

 

[Oh8ch]

16 teams aren't nearly enough. Pitt beat both Clemson and PSU and would not make a field of 16.


And yet 4 teams is too many.

Washington is not the best team in the country. They are not. Period.

They might win the playoff, and therein lies the problem. Because they are simply not the best team in the country.


That said, playoffs are grand spectacle. Bring it on. But getting a true NC out of a playoff is pure chance*.


* Of the 20 or so rematches that have occurred among top 20 teams the losing team in the first game won the rematch half the time. A mathematician would argue this data point indicates the result of games among highly rated teams are purely random.

 

[ochre]

That said, playoffs are grand spectacle. Bring it on. But getting a true NC out of a playoff is pure chance*.


* Of the 20 or so rematches that have occurred among top 20 teams the losing team in the first game won the rematch half the time. A mathematician would argue this data point indicates the result of games among highly rated teams are purely random.

Is it really random if the team that wins the first game ends up winning 75% of the time? If I read that correctly it means they win 100% of the first games and then 50% of the second?

 

[Oh8ch]

Is it really random if the team that wins the first game ends up winning 75% of the time? If I read that correctly it means they win 100% of the first games and then 50% of the second?

No, I am not saying the higher rated team won the first game and I don't know what the stats were on that first game in that regard. The point is that two ranked teams played and supposedly "proved on the field" who was better.

Then, when the same two teams played again the original winner lost half the time. That is coin toss probability and suggests that absolutely nothing was "proven".

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

As someone who was very.. and I do mean very much against the playoffs, I have to agree with Jax that, at 4 teams anyway, my fears about the playoffs have not come to fruition.

I could go to six teams (first round byes for 1 and 2) but I don't like 8 and cannot fathom 16.

Oh, and I've pretty much had it with Danny Kannell and his idiocy regarding conference champs being left out. I really wish someone would be able to say to him, give Wiscy and Ped losses in each of their OOC games. You'd have 7-5 Wiscy going against 8-4 Ped for the B1G title. Would you still be beating the conference champ drum? I mean, the question is - does a conference championship mean anything... and the answer is yes, it does. But it doesn't mean EVERYTHING. The inescapable fact is, Ped lost 2 games. Ohio State lost 1.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Probably no more than 8? What the hell do you think happens at 16?

Hopefully we never find out but I thought 4 would be too much at one point as well and imo it has proven to be just fine so I'm thinking 6 or 8 max. 6-8 and you have OSU with it's 12 NFL draft picks in last year. You have Penn State in this year (all cult bullshit aside, I think they should be in). Both of those things make me at least entertain the idea of expanding it.

Another way I look at it is that the P5 + ND constitutes 65 teams so even if you went to the top 10 and played it off you are looking at only 15% of the P5 getting into the playoff. At 6 you are talking about less than 10% of teams getting into a playoff. That is a much smaller pool than any professional league and less than the NCAA basketball tournament's 18%.

 

[Oh8ch]

There is a problem with scenarios that automatically included conference champs.

Alcorn St at 5-5 almost beat Grambling this weekend for their conference championship. Four of the conference championship games this past weekend included teams with 3 or more losses going in. It is mathematically possible for the B1G champ to finish with a record of 4-9.

Let an 8-4 team win their conference championship over a previously undefeated team (let's say Florida over Alabama). Add in an 11-1 Notre Dame (it could happen). Four more conference champs make six. No room for that Bama team in a six team playoff, let alone this years OSU and Michigan.

Even if you go to 8 teams you are short already without considering a team from the group or 5 (or whatever they call it).

Conference Championship should never be an automatic qualifier.

 

[Jake]

As someone who was very.. and I do mean very much against the playoffs, I have to agree with Jax that, at 4 teams anyway, my fears about the playoffs have not come to fruition.

I could go to six teams (first round byes for 1 and 2) but I don't like 8 and cannot fathom 16.

I'm not interested in byes. It's one thing to have a committee picking participants. It's another to have them awarding wins to 2 of them before the playoff begins.

I'm not in favor of making it larger than 8, but with five "power" conferences and 128 teams I don't see an 8 team CFP making the regular season irrelevant at all.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

This Thread doesn't have enough Fuck *ichigan.

 

[UpNorth_Buckeye]

I had designs on 8 team playoffs after the past 2 years where there was legitimate gripe after the top 4 (obviously with osu being on the outside last year). But the more I thought about it, 4 really is prefect. You get a balance of not keeping out a great team that had one slip up (see osu in 2014 and maybe osu/Washington thus year), while also not completely taking away from the regular season (The game this year would have been irrelevant with the loser still getting in; the ending was amplified with not only beating them, but locking up a playoff spot).

I don't like 6 because arguably it could hurt the 1/2 seed with added rust and the teams who played being more fresh. The one scenario that in theory could work would be 8 teams with the top 4 seeds being home. If that's the case, using THE Game as the example the winner would have gotten home field, loser goes on the road. Still not as exciting as winner in, loser out, but better than both winner and loser in facing an opponent on a neutral field in the round of 8.

 

[Jake]

I don't like 6 because arguably it could hurt the 1/2 seed with added rust and the teams who played being more fresh. The one scenario that in theory could work would be 8 teams with the top 4 seeds being home. If that's the case, using THE Game as the example the winner would have gotten home field, loser goes on the road. Still not as exciting as winner in, loser out, but better than both winner and loser in facing an opponent on a neutral field in the round of 8.

I favor an 8 team playoff for reasons stated earlier and I really like the idea of the first round being played at home sites. Seeding becomes important - let's see a Florida team come to Columbus around Xmas and try to win a road game. Then the final four can be played as they are now.

 

[Jaxbuck]

The game this year would have been irrelevant with the loser still getting in; the ending was amplified with not only beating them, but locking up a playoff spot

OTOH, as fans we could have seen both teams left out, if opinions had gone that way, because there are only 4 spots.

Trying to be as agnostic as possible, I think a playoff this year would be better with tsun and PSU in it. I know not every year can have 6 or 8 teams that are legit contenders but last year OSU being left out meant the CFP did not have all the best teams in it and here again you have a couple that I would like to see in it as a fan.

I can see both sides. I can live with it staying at four but expansion doesn't scare me as much as it used to.

 

[Oh8ch]

OTOH, as fans we could have seen both teams left out, if opinions had gone that way, because there are only 4 spots.

Trying to be as agnostic as possible, I think a playoff this year would be better with tsun and PSU in it. I know not every year can have 6 or 8 teams that are legit contenders but last year OSU being left out meant the CFP did not have all the best teams in it and here again you have a couple that I would like to see in it as a fan.

I can see both sides. I can live with it staying at four but expansion doesn't scare me as much as it used to.

We weren't in two years ago because we - in the words of the great Jabrill Peppers - didn't take care of business . Same for PSU and Michigan this year . You lose one game and you put yourself in the hands of the committee . That makes the regular season part of the playoffs instead of doing what baseball does by playing a 162 game exhibition season .

What can you hope for out of a playoff that you didn't get from the OSU - Michigan game this year? A rematch ?