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Wild animal with a keyboard
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The key to me will be what the playoff system looks like. The best idea I've heard is to return to the bowl system that we had in the past and have the top 4 teams play in a playoff after the bowl games are finished in January.
If they move to an NFL/FCS style system where there is a 16 team playoff and teams that finished 3rd or 4th in their conference are getting in, I'll be disappointed.
The BCS is a flawed system, but I actually thought it worked reasonably well given its initial purpose. The goal of it was to match the #1 vs. #2 rated teams in the final game, and most years it clearly did just that. Prior to the BCS, it seemed like every other year there were 2 undefeated teams that never got to meet on the field at all, and it was left completely up to the subjective voters to decide who the national champion was.
I'm ok with this idea, but I think the long layover would make the season way too long. You'd play your regular season, then have a month off. Play your bowl games around New Years, then take a week or two off to sort things out. And then play the playoff games. You'd be getting close to February before it's all set and done. It works just fine for the NFL because there is no layover.
3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers..
As I understand it:
Bowl money is split between participants.
Money from BCS games is split between BCS schools.
Money from an NCAA football playoff would split between all 300+ D I schools.
And I would think the SEC teams would virtually refuse to travel to a northern school and play outdoors in December.
Who says the NCAA gets to run the playoff?
Also, BCS money is shared between conference members. I would assume that the money generated from the TV contracts would be split in a similar way.
1. I hate bowls. They're mostly pointless. I can't remember who won last year's Fiesta, Orange, etc. I sure as heck can tell you who has won the last 10 national championships though. I rarely watch a bowl game not involving the Gophers and our rivals. If a playoff further erodes the bowl structure, that would be a good thing in my mind.
2. I hate when people bring up that an 8 or 16-team playoff would ruin the integrity of the regular season. B. F'in. S. Last time I checked Alabama played at home against LSU and the outcome of that game had NO barring on the national championship game. If the regular season truly mattered then Alabama had no right to play in that game. Since the BCS game is determined in paper, the regular season does NOT matter. It would matter if the winner of the BT, ACC, B12, PAC-10, etc got invited to the tournament. Since they aren't invited, it is a meaningless regular season to me. The thing about the regular season that matters to the vast majority of football fans is rivalries. Those don't go away with a playoff. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? You don't. Fans will still show up for the boring non-conference games and in fact, a playoff might actually encourage teams to schedule tougher opponents. No way Wisconsin would have gotten an at-large bid if they didn't win the BT with their baby butt-soft schedule this year. Just like in CB, SOS would become even more important. Finally on the regular season crappy argument: virtually every regular season game does matter in a playoff system...for seeding and the fact that you might not make the field of 8 or 16. OSU's loss to Iowa St in this format means they likely face a road game at Alabama in the semis if they make it that far. Beat Iowa St - you get home field up until the championship game. Mich St's loss to Wisconsin in the BT championship game: Wisconsin joins the dance while Mich St plays in some pointless remaining bowl game. That's powerful.
3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers.
Those are the arguments I hate: What I would love:
8 team playoff (5 AQ's - sorry Big East) and 3 at large teams determined by a selection committee similar to CB. The committee also seeds the teams 1 thru 8. 1 players 8, 2 plays 7, etc. The first and second rounds are played at the home stadium of the higher ranked seed. Championship game rotates across the country - not just in Miami, NO, Glendale, and Pasadena. We're talking about Ford Field, Lucas Oil, Jerry's Palace, Georgia Dome, etc. 1st round is the week of Dec 10th. 2nd round is the week after Christmas. Championship game is right after new year's day. Can still have your crappy bowls if you want them. Just won't include any team that makes it to the semi's (excludes 4 teams). The wonder known as the Insight or Beef O'Brady's Bowls can still exist.
I disagree completely with pretty much all of this. It's easy in hindsight to find the one game during the regular season that didn't "count." If CFB moves to the type of playoff that you suggest, lots of games that previously had national title implications will now only be about who gets the higher seed. I'm not interesting in watching CFB degenerate into an NFL style system. I could give a rat's a$$ about watching Michigan/Ohio St. to see who winds up with the #4 seed and who gets #8 only for them to play again in 2 weeks. And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
I disagree completely with pretty much all of this. It's easy in hindsight to find the one game during the regular season that didn't "count." If CFB moves to the type of playoff that you suggest, lots of games that previously had national title implications will now only be about who gets the higher seed. I'm not interesting in watching CFB degenerate into an NFL style system. I could give a rat's a$$ about watching Michigan/Ohio St. to see who winds up with the #4 seed and who gets #8 only for them to play again in 2 weeks. And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
And the idea that the rivalries can never be diminished is also garbage. Let's ask the Gopher fans on here who remember the glory days of the 50s and 60s when they were "the" team in Minnesota if this can change over time.
1. I hate bowls. They're mostly pointless. I can't remember who won last year's Fiesta, Orange, etc. I sure as heck can tell you who has won the last 10 national championships though. I rarely watch a bowl game not involving the Gophers and our rivals. If a playoff further erodes the bowl structure, that would be a good thing in my mind.
2. I hate when people bring up that an 8 or 16-team playoff would ruin the integrity of the regular season. B. F'in. S. Last time I checked Alabama played at home against LSU and the outcome of that game had NO barring on the national championship game. If the regular season truly mattered then Alabama had no right to play in that game. Since the BCS game is determined in paper, the regular season does NOT matter. It would matter if the winner of the BT, ACC, B12, PAC-10, etc got invited to the tournament. Since they aren't invited, it is a meaningless regular season to me. The thing about the regular season that matters to the vast majority of football fans is rivalries. Those don't go away with a playoff. How do you diminish OSU vs Michigan? You don't. Fans will still show up for the boring non-conference games and in fact, a playoff might actually encourage teams to schedule tougher opponents. No way Wisconsin would have gotten an at-large bid if they didn't win the BT with their baby butt-soft schedule this year. Just like in CB, SOS would become even more important. Finally on the regular season crappy argument: virtually every regular season game does matter in a playoff system...for seeding and the fact that you might not make the field of 8 or 16. OSU's loss to Iowa St in this format means they likely face a road game at Alabama in the semis if they make it that far. Beat Iowa St - you get home field up until the championship game. Mich St's loss to Wisconsin in the BT championship game: Wisconsin joins the dance while Mich St plays in some pointless remaining bowl game. That's powerful.
3. I hate that some people think a playoff would mean less money for the schools. B. F'in S. The current bowl system is plagued with overhead. The bowls keep so much money for themselves. TV contracts to televise a 8 or 16 team playoff would absolutely blow the current contracts out of the water...and you get to basically cut out the middlemen known at the Bowl organizers.
Those are the arguments I hate: What I would love:
8 team playoff (5 AQ's - sorry Big East) and 3 at large teams determined by a selection committee similar to CB. The committee also seeds the teams 1 thru 8. 1 players 8, 2 plays 7, etc. The first and second rounds are played at the home stadium of the higher ranked seed. Championship game rotates across the country - not just in Miami, NO, Glendale, and Pasadena. We're talking about Ford Field, Lucas Oil, Jerry's Palace, Georgia Dome, etc. 1st round is the week of Dec 10th. 2nd round is the week after Christmas. Championship game is right after new year's day. Can still have your crappy bowls if you want them. Just won't include any team that makes it to the semi's (excludes 4 teams). The wonder known as the Insight or Beef O'Brady's Bowls can still exist.
The more teams you invite, the more you punish the ones who did go undefeated (or 1 loss in CFB).
Then we'll have to agree to disagree because your way of thinking makes absolutely no sense to me. Think back to the conference championship games. I could argue that not a single game that weekend mattered. Not a one. What kind of finish to the regular season is that? If Georgia beat LSU, they probably still play in the NC game. In my model, every single one of those games matter. You win - you're in. You lose, you better hope that you played well enough during the regular season to get an at-large bid. The major flaw with the current model is so many games are meaningless. Any one-loss team (or more) not named Alabama saw their season end with their first loss. Oklahoma St might as well just packed it in. Every remaining game they had on their schedule was pointless. Completely meaningless. In the tourney system, that loss hurts. One more and they're probably out of the 8-team tourney. That loss to ISU cost them seeding, home field in the semis, and completely wiped away their margin for error. However, what it did do was still give meaning to the rest of their games unless they lost one more.
Not to mention the "game of the century" in early November pitting LSU at Bama. What kind of regular season is it when the "game of the century" has ABSOLUTELY NO MEANING whatsoever.
I'd much rather have dozens and dozens of games that matter than just a handful. I'd rather have a regular season that builds to something (Non-conference to conference to conference championship to tourney) than something that ends in week 1 or 2 where there might be 1 game a weekend that matters to the national championship race and that's even debatable.
That right there is why I think it could work. It would still keep the regular season very important. You're an SEC team and don't want to travel north to play in December? Then win more games. If you're an Oregon, would you rather play VA Tech at home or LSU on the road in the 1st round? Huge difference.
If I were King of the World and could change things to how I'd like it, this is what I'd do:
8 team playoff. First and second rounds would be at the higher seeds' home stadium. First round played the week after conference championship, second round one week later. The six teams who lose the first two rounds are automatically put into BCS bowls to be played at their normal times. Championship game played at a neutral site in early January.
To determine the eight playoff teams, conference champions from the six big conferences get in automatically if they finish in the Top 10 of the BCS rankings. The rest of the slots would be taken by the highest ranked teams available. Teams from the same conference cannot face each other in the first round unless the conference has three or more teams in the playoffs. This year the first round match-ups would have looked like this:
#10 Wisconsin at #1 LSU
#7 Boise St. at #2 Alabama
#5 Oregon at #3 Oklahoma St
#6 Arkansas at #4 Stanford
Then reseed after the first round.
1) BCS bowl games are still in place for the BCS conference members to cash in.
2) Six great matchups (four 1st round, two 2nd round) are added to the schedule. I've got to believe that the ratings for these games would be much higher than the current BCS bowls. Imagine the fun of the first round games in one weekend. One game Friday night, three on Saturday. I'm a big NFL fan as well, but that weekend would get me more excited than the Super Bowl by a mile.