B1G championship game kind of backfired this year?

[Texas-Gopher]

Isn't the CG suppose to give the B1G one more chance, if necessary, to impress the committee and get a team into the playoffs? I don't see any real upside to OSU even playing this year. At best, they win another conference title. Big deal. At worst they lose or get some critical players injured. No upside for them.

 

[Bruno22]

I see what you are saying.
Same could be said for the ACC this year. Always two that usually do not mean as much most years I believe.

However, it is another title that Michigan does not have and puts more distance between them and their arch rival in terms out outright big ten championships.
It matters. Bragging rights with rivalries matter.

 

[Panthadad2]

Isn't the CG suppose to give the B1G one more chance, if necessary, to impress the committee and get a team into the playoffs? I don't see any real upside to OSU even playing this year. At best, they win another conference title. Big deal. At worst they lose or get some critical players injured. No upside for them.

The conference championship game is all about extra $$ to the conference now.

 

[fmlizard]

I think the really nice thing about the conference championship games is not that they give a chance to slip a 2nd team into the playoffs, but that they give so many teams and fans hope for longer. 7 different teams have won the ACC Coastal in 7 years. The Big Ten West has given us Gopher fans hope many times. In these leagues that have 1-2 monster programs it gives one more path to topple Goliath.

Without the Big Ten Championship the Axe game would have been much less impactful.

 

[Veritas]

When the national championship series was invented it was easy to predict that a very small number of programs would naturally become even more super powers in the game. Those who made the final four more than once in the first few years would get to recruit ever better and better, more and more, elite players such that they would become more and more likely to make more championship final fours. An endless cycle of fewer than ten teams. OSU is now our team and the rest of us are shut out of that class forever more. How do you recruit against that annual mountain of publicity and accomplishments? Even huge programs like Michigan and Penn State have really all but no chance against such advantages. And every year it is going to get worse.

 

[GVBadger]

Ohio State has an inherent recruiting advantage without the playoff. It is called the State of Ohio. Any 4 or 5 star kid in the State they get and they have more than anyone else in the east or midwest. Urban than got them in the door of anyone they wanted from across the country. This is extremely difficult for most programs to overcome.

 

[DEGopher]

When the national championship series was invented it was easy to predict that a very small number of programs would naturally become even more super powers in the game. Those who made the final four more than once in the first few years would get to recruit ever better and better, more and more, elite players such that they would become more and more likely to make more championship final fours. An endless cycle of fewer than ten teams. OSU is now our team and the rest of us are shut out of that class forever more. How do you recruit against that annual mountain of publicity and accomplishments? Even huge programs like Michigan and Penn State have really all but no chance against such advantages. And every year it is going to get worse.

I agree, the answer is to expand the CFP to 8 teams, then to 16.

I expect 8 (if not 16) to happen within the next 5 years.

3 big factors will lead this.
1) expanded tourney will offer more $ than dying bowl interest
2) constant whining from the 5-6 ranked teams for being left out, especially when your talking about excluding P5 conference representation year after year.
3) high profile players on teams not in the CFP foregoing bowl games to avoid injury prior to NFL.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

If they go to 8 teams in the playoffs, the Conference championship games would become even more important. A win in a Power-5 conf title game would pretty much ensure a spot in the top 8. a loss could knock a team out of the top 8.

That is just one more reason to expand the playoffs to 8 teams.

 

[Dano564]

Some years the BTT should be helpful if there was a way to get two Big Ten teams in, but with the SEC love annually, it seems very unlikely to happen for the Big Ten because the SEC would also have to have 2 in as well.

I think having two from a conference (in a 4 team conference) is generally a mistake.
If you don't win your division, I don't see why we should have you advance.

 

[DEGopher]

I think having two from a conference (in a 4 team conference) is generally a mistake.
If you don't win your division, I don't see why we should have you advance.

While I agree with that, there are a whole host of legitimate arguments against it (like differing SOS).

Either way, once you get to 16 teams playoff, it becomes much more equitable from a recruiting position. All the sudden Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Penn St are included in the playoffs and can make the same pitch to recruits as OhSt.

 

[MplsGopher]

Conferences used to be small enough that each team would play every other team. The team with the best record was then the conference champion.

Eventually conferences expanded such that it wasn't practical or possible for every team to play every other team. But the conferences were only at 10 teams, at most (the Big Ten and the SEC, for many years, the PAC since the late 70's).

Then when the Southwestern Conference (Texas schools + Arkansas) broke up, the SEC agreed to add Arkansas, and to balance things out they also added South Carolina, which had been independent for a while. They were the first conference to go to 12 teams.

They decided the fairest way to crown a conference champion was to split the conference into two divisions of six, have every team in the division play every other division team each year, and then have the two division winners play in an extra game for the championship. They thought that was the best and fairest approximation to a full round-robin.


This was all still before TV dollars really exploded. The SEC champ game started in 1992, after the expansion. It wasn't until some years later that conferences figured out that the champ game could make a nice chunk of extra $$$.

The rules at the time, which the SEC had proposed and were adopted, stated that you had to have 12 teams in order to split up and hold a conf champ game. So that's why the Big Ten had to add Nebraska in order to do so. Simultaneously, the PAC added Colorado and Utah to go to 12 themselves. (they were really trying to pull a huge coup and land Texas, and almost did it, but the deal fell apart at the end)


Then in 2014, with the Big XII mostly stable at 10, the Baylor-TCU debacle happened, in which the conference promoted both teams as co-champions instead of giving it solely to Baylor -- which had beat TCU in the regular season, but then lost to WV, both ended at 11-1, and had no conf championship game to play in to impress the CFP committee a final time and both ended up on the outside looking in. Art Briles famously lambasted the comissioner at the time for not declaring Baylor the outright champion.

The rules were then changed to allow conf championship games with less than 12 teams in the conference, so long as the conference required a round-robin schedule and then they would be able to have the #1 vs #2 ranked teams play in a conf champ game, which is what happens now in the Big XII and I believe the American Conf.


I think eventually here, we're going to see the rules scrapped and re-written again, to just allow conferences to get rid of divisions altogether and allow their #1 vs #2 teams to play in the conf championship game.


So, at the end of the day, the conf championship game will be fairly meaningless, and like Panthadad2 said in post#3, it will just be a cash grab.

 

[Veritas]

Oh my goodness. My post was at least meant to suggest that the whole thing is a mistake, not that more teams are needed in the playoff. When are all these new games to be played? Importantly, where are they to be played (talk about putting the cold weather teams at even more of a disadvantage in recruiting!!!)? Why would university presidents agree to a 17 (!!!!!) game schedule?? So we are going to send the band and the cheerleaders to these games? Talk about turning college football into a TV sport having nothing at all with going to school!!

 

[Panthadad2]

In an expanded playoff, the conference championship games would either need to be eliminated or used as a first round of a larger playoff (12+ teams). FBS, FCS and D3 champions usually play 15 games now (assuming FBS plays a conference champ game) and D2 champions play 14 games (assuming a first round bye). It really shouldn't go beyond 15 games for college in my opinion.

 

[MplsGopher]

In an expanded playoff, the conference championship games would either need to be eliminated or used as a first round of a larger playoff (12+ teams). FBS, FCS and D3 champions usually play 15 games now (assuming FBS plays a conference champ game) and D2 champions play 14 games (assuming a first round bye). It really shouldn't go beyond 15 games for college in my opinion.

Then we're stuck with a 4 team playoff. 12 regular season + 1 conf champ + 2 CFP (4 team playoff) gets your 15 ceiling.

A larger playoff (like 6 or 8) will almost certainly give auto-bids to the P5 (well, maybe, but I think so). If you're going to scrap the conf champ game, to keep it at 15 max, how will the conferences *fairly* determine the conf champion if two teams are top rated and haven't played each other??

I think we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, here. The only other possibility is to look at something on the front end of the season. You could look at opening up the weekend before Labor Day weekend (currently Week 0, which is allowed for some teams), and you could also look at just making the first game something like a pre-season exhibition game.

 

[Ope3]

I think there is upside for Ohio St to win by a convincing margin in Indy. Huge advantage to be the #1 seed for the Playoffs and avoid Clemson or LSU in the Semis.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

My preference remains a 16 team tournament with autobids for all (not just P5) conference champs. Seems like winning a conference should get you in the door, eliminates the possibility of an undefeated nonchamp, and if the G5 champs truly dont belong, than a road game at LSU, OSU, or Clemson would feel like effectively a bye, thereby still rewarding the teams who get those top spots.

 

[Panthadad2]

Then we're stuck with a 4 team playoff. 12 regular season + 1 conf champ + 2 CFP (4 team playoff) gets your 15 ceiling.

A larger playoff (like 6 or 8) will almost certainly give auto-bids to the P5 (well, maybe, but I think so). If you're going to scrap the conf champ game, to keep it at 15 max, how will the conferences *fairly* determine the conf champion if two teams are top rated and haven't played each other??

I think we're stuck between a rock and a hard place, here. The only other possibility is to look at something on the front end of the season. You could look at opening up the weekend before Labor Day weekend (currently Week 0, which is allowed for some teams), and you could also look at just making the first game something like a pre-season exhibition game.

You're right. I didn't think it through enough. FCS has a 24-team playoff but teams like NDSU only play 11 regular season games. That would never happen in FBS.

edit add: I wouldn't fret about the bolded. Conferences would have a set of tie-breakers for auto bids like they've always done in the past and in other divisions of football. The conference championship games themselves require a set of tie-breakers just to get in it, so it's not a perfectly "fair" system.

 

[MplsGopher]

You're right. I didn't think it through enough. FCS has a 24-team playoff but teams like NDSU only play 11 regular season games. That would never happen in FBS.

Definitely not now. P5 programs rely on having 7 home games per season, for revenue purposes. That is smoothed out somewhat by all the TV money. So in the Big Ten for example, all the TV boils down to something like a $50M check from the Big Ten to our athletic dept. But that's still only like half of our revenue (maybe less now). Gameday revenues, tickets, etc are still a huge part of it.

If you're going to make an argument that amounts to everyone having to sacrifice a regular season game, so that only a few teams can have an extra post-season game ... that's not going to fly.