ESPN: TCU's Gary Patterson wants playoff to expand to six

[BleedGopher]

per ESPN:

Even though TCU was left out of the inaugural College Football Playoff this season, Gary Patterson isn’t one of those people clamoring to see it go from four teams to eight teams.

Nope, he’d like to see it go to six teams.

In doing so, Patterson said the top two teams would get byes, and if the other leagues agreed to do away with their conference championship games, the current playoff schedule could stay intact, and there would be a representative from all Power 5 conferences, along with a true at-large team.

“To me, it makes no sense to have four playoff spots and then have five conferences,” Patterson told ESPN.com. “This way gives everybody a chance to have their champion or their best team be a part of the playoff, and a sixth team that could be from any conference, and then you get down to that final four pretty quickly and still not change the way we do things.

“I don’t want the bowl games to go away. I think that would be a loss to college football if we ever allowed that to happen. But doing it this way might make everybody happier.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/big12/post/...six?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Go Gophers!!

 

[MNGoldenGophers1]

Retroactively I'm sure.

 

[upnorthkid]

I don't disagree that the system inherently makes no sense when you always are talking about power 5 and only have 4 championship spots. I wouldn't mind seeing 6 or 8 but don't give CC an autobid in. There's not going to be a team deserving from every power 5 every year. It's just the nature of the beast. But keeping a first round bye for the top 2 teams makes every regular season game continue to matter instead of just the conference season. As the system stands right now, I don't see any way a little guy ever gets into the NC discussion and that, to me, is wrong.

 

[station19]

8 teams. When you're dealing with that few numbers and that high level; byes and play-in games make no sense. I'd rather have an extra team or two than leave out a true contender.

5 conference champs are auto. Means every team from the power 5 have their chance to win it(entry to the play-off) on the field.

Maybe require one of the 'at large' teams to come from a mid major or independent.

 

[Lakeville Goldy]

I don't disagree that the system inherently makes no sense when you always are talking about power 5 and only have 4 championship spots. I wouldn't mind seeing 6 or 8 but don't give CC an autobid in. There's not going to be a team deserving from every power 5 every year. It's just the nature of the beast. But keeping a first round bye for the top 2 teams makes every regular season game continue to matter instead of just the conference season. As the system stands right now, I don't see any way a little guy ever gets into the NC discussion and that, to me, is wrong.

I have thought an 8 team playoff with an automatic berth for each major conference champ, an automatic berth for the highest ranked non major conference champ and 2 at large spots would be a good idea. The problem that may happen is you may get conferences splitting then it becomes how many spots do you need? I do like the idea of giving the conference champs auto bids myself, I guess.

 

[highwayman]

Go to 6 and 3-6 will complain they were ripped and off on the byes. It's become clear (to me anyway) that an 8 team tournament would have to include an on-campus first round. It's not like basketball where you can expect fans to travel 3 times in a few weeks. In basketball, you need only a few thousand to do that. In football, you may be talking tens of thousands that would have to do it to make attendance and costs work. Maybe advertising revenues would be enough to have 3 neutral rounds...

 

[dpodoll68]

Keep using the CFP poll, go to 6, all Power 5 conference champs get in (assuming they're top 15 in the CFP poll), and the at-larges are filled with enough schools (whether Power 5 non-champs or smaller conference champs) straight down the line according to the CFP poll so that the field of 6 is filled. Simple.

 

[Fuzzy Rumpton]

Keep using the CFP poll, go to 6, all Power 5 conference champs get in (assuming they're top 15 in the CFP poll), and the at-larges are filled with enough schools (whether Power 5 non-champs or smaller conference champs) straight down the line according to the CFP poll so that the field of 6 is filled. Simple.

Obviously that's the best option, but we already know the SEC would be in disagreement with it. They already had an issue with non-conference champs not making it into the final four when looking at a four team playoff.

 

[bottlebass]

Obviously that's the best option, but we already know the SEC would be in disagreement with it. They already had an issue with non-conference champs not making it into the final four when looking at a four team playoff.

And they lost their right to complain about it next year since they got killed this year.

 

[mplsbadger]

We're essentially already at eight with the conference championships.

 

[minibeaver]

Interesting that he wouldn't mind doing away with CC games, considering his is the only major conference not to have one. Dont mind the 6 team idea, but I wouldn't want to get rid of the CC games.

 

[MNVCGUY]

Interesting that he wouldn't mind doing away with CC games, considering his is the only major conference not to have one. Dont mind the 6 team idea, but I wouldn't want to get rid of the CC games.

Yeah there is no way the other conferences would ditch their CC games because those are massive money makers for the conferences. The thing about the playoff is that no matter how many teams you make it someone is going to complain or feel left out. In my opinion if you are going to expand it you have to go to 8 though because the idea of giving 2 teams byes just opens all kinds of potential problems.

 

[station19]

Yeah there is no way the other conferences would ditch their CC games because those are massive money makers for the conferences. The thing about the playoff is that no matter how many teams you make it someone is going to complain or feel left out. In my opinion if you are going to expand it you have to go to 8 though because the idea of giving 2 teams byes just opens all kinds of potential problems.

Totally agree.

Also: If you have auto qualifiers, makes the CC games that much more important.

Not sure how I stand on neutral site vs home site for early round games.

 

[mplsbadger]

I kind of think that if the Big 12 gets left out two years in a row it will dissolve. Frankly, I'm kind of rooting for it. I sorted a list of the teams by attendance last fall and it was startling that of the top 64, about five were 'non power five' and they were in the fifties/sixties in ranking. Similarly only a handful of the power five schools were below 64 and they were 65-70. I think if you got to four 16 team conferences with championship games you could have a system that would be stable for a long time. At that point it would make sense for everyone else to be FCS. Of course it would not be as simple as reassigning the Big 12. There would need to be shifts elsewhere to make sense of it all.

 

[Goldmember]

In my opinion if you are going to expand it you have to go to 8 though because the idea of giving 2 teams byes just opens all kinds of potential problems.

I can't think of any problems with byes.

On the contrary, most years not having byes will be a problem. Especially if the system expands to more than 4, it has to offer something to the most elite one or two teams (that are likely undefeated conference champions) to retain the integrity of regular season play.

Is it really a big issue that a 13-0 team get a bye over a 8-5 team?

 

[Great Plains Gopher]

A conference champion is not necessarily a great team. There might be two teams in one conference deserving of the Final Four. This year the committee's final four were the same as that from a merging of the two regular polls - same result. Stick to four and let the bowls do their thing - and don't use regular bowls for playoff games; they can create their own venues.

 

[MNVCGUY]

I can't think of any problems with byes.

On the contrary, most years not having byes will be a problem. Especially if the system expands to more than 4, it has to offer something to the most elite one or two teams (that are likely undefeated conference champions) to retain the integrity of regular season play.

Is it really a big issue that a 13-0 team get a bye over a 8-5 team?

You would have to expand to way more then 8 to get a 8-5 team in the mix. Looking at last season's final poll the worst of the top 8 was Georgia Tech at 11-3. Look at the playoff teams from this year, how do you give any of those teams byes over the others? Alabama, Oregon, and OSU all had one loss, heck the only team that would have had a strong case for a bye would have been the weakest of the bunch, undefeated Florida State. Throw Baylor and TCU in the mix and you would have had 5 teams with 1 loss.

So while you are totally correct in saying that an undefeated champion would deserve a bye over an 8-5 team I don't see that scenario ever being in play as far as the college football playoff would be concerned.

 

[upnorthkid]

You would have to expand to way more then 8 to get a 8-5 team in the mix. Looking at last season's final poll the worst of the top 8 was Georgia Tech at 11-3. Look at the playoff teams from this year, how do you give any of those teams byes over the others? Alabama, Oregon, and OSU all had one loss, heck the only team that would have had a strong case for a bye would have been the weakest of the bunch, undefeated Florida State. Throw Baylor and TCU in the mix and you would have had 5 teams with 1 loss.

So while you are totally correct in saying that an undefeated champion would deserve a bye over an 8-5 team I don't see that scenario ever being in play as far as the college football playoff would be concerned.

He's saying there may be a year where a conference champ has an extremely poor record but still gets in via an autobid given to the power 5 conferences, which is why I really dislike that idea

 

[dpodoll68]

He's saying there may be a year where a conference champ has an extremely poor record but still gets in via an autobid given to the power 5 conferences, which is why I really dislike that idea

This is why you need to have a provision stating that the conference champ has to be in the top 15 (or whatever) in order to get in. That would eliminate the concern over poor teams getting in.

 

[MNVCGUY]

This is why you need to have a provision stating that the conference champ has to be in the top 15 (or whatever) in order to get in. That would eliminate the concern over poor teams getting in.

I would even lower that to the top 10 just to be sure. I would think most years the conference champ in the power 5 conferences finishes in the top 10 although I have not looked back to see if that is actually the case.

 

[Lakeville Goldy]

This is why you need to have a provision stating that the conference champ has to be in the top 15 (or whatever) in order to get in. That would eliminate the concern over poor teams getting in.

Not saying what you're proposing doesn't make sense, saying it probably makes too much sense: I don't see that there is any way the Power 5 conferences would approve automatic bids with an exception like that. There's too much money at stake to risk losing a spot. If anything they will try to guarantee their team gets in regardless of record.

To some extent that makes sense, in most (all?) other NCAA sports the champions from the conference tournaments get automatic bids. It'd be similar here, just ignores the other 5 conferences...

Though realistically, what you proposed makes more fundamental sense! Everyone wants the best teams...

 

[Some guy]

If you can't win your league I already know you are at best the second best team in the country.

Thus, I am against any playoff plan that increases the chances of an at large team getting in.

 

[upnorthkid]

This is why you need to have a provision stating that the conference champ has to be in the top 15 (or whatever) in order to get in. That would eliminate the concern over poor teams getting in.

That would be fair to add that in. Wonder how many seasons until they add on

 

[Goldmember]

That would be fair to add that in. Wonder how many seasons until they add on

Since the current contract runs through 2025, I don't see any realistic way the playoff changes at all before then.

And we will Very likely see another round of realignment and one of the Power 5 collapse before any change to the playoff happens. And then there will be four anyway.

 

[MaxyJR1]

IMO Best answer will be to get to 4 power conferences.

4 Conferences of 18 or 20 teams. (72 or 80) teams
8 Divisions of 9 or 10 teams.
Round Robin in division with 3-4 non-division games.

Conference Champ games serve as Quarterfinals.

CFP seeds the final four teams.

 

[upnorthkid]

IMO Best answer will be to get to 4 power conferences.

4 Conferences of 18 or 20 teams. (72 or 80) teams
8 Divisions of 9 or 10 teams.
Round Robin in division with 3-4 non-division games.

Conference Champ games serve as Quarterfinals.

CFP seeds the final four teams.

In this model, what's the point of the OOC games? Or are you saying you play rotating sked vs other division? If so that could really stack the deck vs certain teams each year. You'd almost be better set to go to a second tier playoff system and then a relegation system (played like soccer) to keep divisional powers from stagnating

 

[chri1673]

I think he's already scrambling to figure out a way to get TCU in the Playoffs after losing week 1 to the gophs.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

Gary Gary Gary. Your problem is with the Big 12. Not the CFP.

 

[Herd]

To use the word Playoff for this cute little exclusive +1 is a sham. That is no playoff. Until there is a P5 split, there are 10 conferences, not 5, and certainly, not 4. A playoff would warrant an opportunity (no a spot, an opportunity) for all FBS teams that are champions and other deserving teams to have an opportunity to compete for a NC. The fact that TCU was not given that opportunity in 2015 should be greatly alarming. They along with OSU were the dominant team. After the conf champ games, the top 2 G5s should have a playin opportunity also for a spot in a playoff. That would be right and good for balance in college FB.