Playoff Poll

[FishingMN]

Is the goal of college football purely to establish a national champion? Someone please answer this after thinking it through.

Yes

Just as it is in every other single NCAA sport and every other division of NCAA football

 

[RodentRampage]

I hate to keep bringing up UConn, but some of you are not getting how a playoff devalues the regular season. I know it usually doesn't play out this way, but you could lose all of your non-con games, and if you are in a weak division of a conference, go 5-3 and go to the playoff as a 6-7 team. UConn is at a slightly more respectable 8-4, but still have no business playing for the title.

And the system we have now put UConn in a BCS bowl game. The pre-BCS system would also have put UConn in a prestigious bowl game. The hypothetical 6-7 team would be excluded from an 8 team playoffs. Thus the 8 team playoff enhances the value of the regular season.

 

[GopherBeef]

I don't like the +1 idea at all. I don't think it would solve any problems. Look at this year, who would be in the +1 game? With TCU winning it would be the likely opponent of either Auburn or Oregon. If Stanford wins and looks strong in their bowl game, should they be the +1 opponent?
What if TCU had lost and Stanford wins, then who would deserve it more, Wisconsin or Stanford? Or, if Auburn and Oregon have a quadruple overtime thriller for the ages, should the +1 be a re-match?

To me, the ideal system would first determine how many teams could realistically run the playoff table and win the national title. I don't think there are 16 teams in the country that are capable of doing that. Likely, I think there are less than 10 teams in any year that could win 2-3 consectuive games against other top level teams. So, I would favor an 8-team playoff with the first two rounds in the first half of December. The six teams that lose would then be eligible to go to bowl games, and the two that remain would be in the national championship game. It would really not change the bowls from what they are now, other than the bowl schedule would not be filled out until mid-December.

And, if it is limited to only conference champs, it is open to the same controversy we have now. Who would be the Big Ten representative this year? What about next year when we have a Big Ten championship game-let's say the Gophers go 12-0 and are ranked #1 in the country but then lose to Indiana in the championship game (it's my dream damnit!), would the Gophers then be eliminated from playoff consideration?

I am not exactly sure how the selection should work. With the NCAA basketball tourney a selection committee is used, I would favor this approach, but I don't know if I would favor any automatic qualifiers.

 

[RodentRampage]

And, if it is limited to only conference champs, it is open to the same controversy we have now. Who would be the Big Ten representative this year? What about next year when we have a Big Ten championship game-let's say the Gophers go 12-0 and are ranked #1 in the country but then lose to Indiana in the championship game (it's my dream damnit!), would the Gophers then be eliminated from playoff consideration?

There's no controversy, the champion would be determined by the conference's rules. And yes, if the 12-0 Gophers lose in the conference championship game, they should not play for the national title.

 

[mplsbadger]

whats wrong with it? why do people complain about how many bowls there are and such? its not like someone forces you to watch them.

I don have a problem with the games, it is with the timing. My pick 'em league doesn't even include them in the end of season bowl pick 'em because nobody wants someone to win the league because they successfully picked Miami of Ohio when they were wrong on the Orange Bowl.

I don't watch them either. I do watch these types of gams the week before Christmas however.

 

[mplsbadger]

For a playoff to determine the 'pure and true' champion this year it would need to include the whole SEC west. How big would a playoff need to be for that to happen?

 

[FreakyDeke]

AnThe hypothetical 6-7 team would be excluded from an 8 team playoffs. Thus the 8 team playoff enhances the value of the regular season.

Why because a sub-.500 team can't be in a bowl game? Ok, how about a 7-6 team, smart guy? They should have a shot at the title?

 

[FreakyDeke]

For a playoff to determine the 'pure and true' champion this year it would need to include the whole SEC west. How big would a playoff need to be for that to happen?

It's called the regular season, dude.

 

[gold82]

Read Death to the BCS

Everyone interested in College Football should read Death to the BCS http://www.amazon.com/Death-BCS-Definitive-Against-Championship/dp/1592405703/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294032400&sr=1-1

Its a quick but well researched book about the Fraud of Bowl Games and how schools are fleeced by Bowl Committees to buy ticket Guarantees and big salaries for Bowl committee members. The Bowl Games end up costing a school money. Case in Point according to Financial Records Big Bad Florida ended up netting just over $2million on a $17 million payout to play in a BCS championship. Most the lower bowl teams lost money going to a Bowl Game.


A 16 or 12 Team Playoff would Gross about $860 Milllion to all who participate. Schools and conferences will be able to keep their playoff money because the conference winners play at home and sell out stadiums and keep parking concessions without having to give it to Stupid Bowl committees that only enrich themselves. The BCS needs to be ended soon.

 

[Rosemountian]

A 12 team tourney.


NCAA selection committee is formed (like they have for all other sports).
NCAA selection committee ranks the teams based on RPI, quality wins, strength of schedule, bad losses (like they do for all other sports)

Conference Champions in the top 20 get automatic bids (up to 11 bids).
All other spots are filled by rank until a 12 team field has been selected.
Seeding is done by rank, so at larges can be ranked higher than automatic bids.

Top 4 seeds receive byes.
Round of 12 games are played at higher seeds home stadium.
Round of 8 games are played at higher seeds home stadium.
Round of 4 and championship games played at rotating neutral sites.

Bye week maintains the importance of finishing top 4 regular season.
All Conference Champions in the top 20 getting in maintains importance of regular season.
No team gets more than 1 home playoff game.
No unbeaten team could be left out of this playoff (unless there are somehow 2 unbeaten teams in the same conference or an unbeaten team is not in the top 20 of the country)
11 games makes more money than the 3 of the +1 or the 7 of the 8 team playoff.
A 16 team playoff would have seen teams like Missouri get in (who are simply not good) or a 3 loss Alabama team (who although they may be the best team in the country, I don't think a 3 loss team deserves a shot when there are 16 teams with 2 or fewer losses in the country.
The system is not biased towards certain conferences automatically getting bids every year. And it doesn't limit other conferences to having only 2 bids or 1 bid.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

and give a fair nod to both non AQ schools as well as BCS schools bold enough to schedule (and lose) a very early season game against other powers.

And what would be the point of those early season games between BCS powers???? You win and stay undefeated. Good. You lose, who cares - you're still a top 16 team. The whole reason that college football is 100x more exciting than the NFL is that each week matters. If the #1 team is losing to someone in week 9, you can bet the whole nation is on the edge of their seat watching the outcome. With a 16-team playoff, no one would care. They'd just say the team had an "off-day" but since one loss won't drop them from the top 16, it really didn't matter. That is NOT what I want to see.

All or most other bowl games could continue as usual.

In other words, the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl, etc would be like the NIT tourney in BB, huh? Yeah, great idea.

The real issue is this: if you introduce playoffs then the entire goal of the regular season shifts from trying to win each game to simply trying to get into the playoffs. You'll see the same junk like you do in the NFL, where teams already admitted will bench their stars, vanilla up the game plan so as not to reveal anything to potential playoff opponents, etc.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

I have thought about it. If it is done correctly, it enhances the regular season. What is needed are no at large spots in the tournament: win your conference or stay home.

How? There is no longer the motivation to win each week. Once you know you're in the playoffs then you can rest guys, etc.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

The ONLY detraction I could see would be a late season game by a team that had already locked up the conference championship would be somewhat meaningless.

How about this for a detraction: early in the 2008 season I flip on the TV on a Thursday night and I notice Oregon State is giving an early beating to USC. I am instantly attracted to watch the game since Oregon State isn't even ranked, meaning that if they beat USC it will virtually eliminate USC from the National Title hunt. That places a ton of importance on the game. With any sort of playoff system at all, this game I am watching becomes meaningless. The first thing that would enter my mind is that Oregon State sure as heck isn't going to win the Pac-10 (they didn't) and so USC will still be the front-runner for the Pac-10 champion. In other words, the loss would be "swept under the rug". That is NOT how I want to see college football games.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

College football would gain from David vs. Goliath kind of games.

College football is LOADED with "David vs. Goliath kind of games" - have you checked the regular season schedules? Our beloved Gophers played in multiple ones themselves, ala USC and Ohio State for instance. Now, Goliath wins more often than not, BUT when David wins it actually MEANS SOMETHING. Add a playoff to college football and then all of the David versus Goliath games in the regular season are worthless.

Answer me this, since you imply that you'd like to see "David" in the playoffs: why in the world does David deserve a shot at the national championship???? If he did, he'd be Goliath.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

Yep. March Madness great idea but it's killed the public's interest in the regular season.

EXACTLY! Does anyone care about us beating North Carolina back in November? North Carolina will still make the tourny, and so will we, so what difference does it make who won? And if it doesn't matter who wins, then the only purpose of the game is ????

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

Don't see how that devalues the regular season in anyway when a team has to go 10-2 to make the playoffs if they don't win their conference.

It devalues the 2 losses. Right now, the only way to play for a national championship with 2 losses is for every other BCS conference team to ALSO have 2 losses, which is EXTREMELY rare. So if you have 2 losses and there are other teams with only one loss, you have ZERO business at a shot at the title. YOUR REGULAR SEASON WAS YOUR SHOT AT THE TITLE! You screwed it up by losing 2 games! End of story.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

My point was about it devaluing the regular season, if a team has to win their conference to get in the playoffs the season is obviously going to have a lot of value.

The season? Yes. Each game? NO. College football isn't great because the season itself has value, it's great because each game has value.

 

[RodentRampage]

Why because a sub-.500 team can't be in a bowl game? Ok, how about a 7-6 team, smart guy? They should have a shot at the title?

They shouldn't, and they wouldn't have a shot at the national title. In an 8 team playoff, with the top 8 conference champions participating, three conference champions would be excluded. The 6-7 team, or the 7-6 team would be one of those champions that was excluded.

 

[MNfootballfan]

College football is LOADED with "David vs. Goliath kind of games" - have you checked the regular season schedules? Our beloved Gophers played in multiple ones themselves, ala USC and Ohio State for instance. Now, Goliath wins more often than not, BUT when David wins it actually MEANS SOMETHING. Add a playoff to college football and then all of the David versus Goliath games in the regular season are worthless.

Answer me this, since you imply that you'd like to see "David" in the playoffs: why in the world does David deserve a shot at the national championship???? If he did, he'd be Goliath.

Remember a few years ago when USC was stacked and Stanford wasn't very good. Stanford beat USC and USC still played in the Rose Bowl. Or a couple of years ago when USC lost to Oregon State and still played in the Rose Bowl?

In college football (and pro football to a lesser extent) the regular season will always matter because there are less games. Each game is that much more magnified. College basketball the regular season doesn't matter as much because if you lose you still have over 30 games left.

 

[FreakyDeke]

They shouldn't, and they wouldn't have a shot at the national title. In an 8 team playoff, with the top 8 conference champions participating, three conference champions would be excluded. The 6-7 team, or the 7-6 team would be one of those champions that was excluded.

You're wrong, it would never happen that way. The BCS conferences make all the money and will never give up an automatic bid. The Big East sucks, but having the Sun Belt, C-USA, or MAC champion get an automatic bid over UConn is just as silly.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

Remember a few years ago when USC was stacked and Stanford wasn't very good. Stanford beat USC and USC still played in the Rose Bowl. Or a couple of years ago when USC lost to Oregon State and still played in the Rose Bowl?

Yes, but Rose Bowl does not equal National Championship. Those losses prevented USC from playing for the National Championship, and I think that is a good thing. I actually mentioned that USC/Oregon State game in a previous post. The only reason why that game was worth watching was because it virtually eliminated USC from the national title hunt. Otherwise, if there had been a playoff, everyone would be like, "well, USC had an off-night. So what, they'll still make the playoffs." I don't want games to end up like that.

In college football (and pro football to a lesser extent) the regular season will always matter because there are less games. Each game is that much more magnified. College basketball the regular season doesn't matter as much because if you lose you still have over 30 games left.

The argument isn't about whether or not the "regular season" will matter. The argument IS about whether each game matters. Anytime you introduce a playoff in the post-season then not all regular season games matter. Just look at the NFL - once a team is guaranteed a playoff spot they sometimes bench starters, or significantly "vanilla" the playbook, etc. Does anyone really want that in college football???????? Where a team can go into a game knowing they can lose it and still be guaranteed to play for the national championship?

 

[RodentRampage]

You're wrong, it would never happen that way. The BCS conferences make all the money and will never give up an automatic bid. The Big East sucks, but having the Sun Belt, C-USA, or MAC champion get an automatic bid over UConn is just as silly.

I stated that in a hypothetical 8 team tournament, with only the top 8 conference champions participating, that a 6-7 team would not be one of the top 8 conference champions, and thus would not be selected for the tournament. Perhaps he BCS schools would never agree to such a tournament, but that is a different matter.

 

[MNfootballfan]

The argument isn't about whether or not the "regular season" will matter. The argument IS about whether each game matters. Anytime you introduce a playoff in the post-season then not all regular season games matter. Just look at the NFL - once a team is guaranteed a playoff spot they sometimes bench starters, or significantly "vanilla" the playbook, etc. Does anyone really want that in college football???????? Where a team can go into a game knowing they can lose it and still be guaranteed to play for the national championship?

I agree with you on the USC take. It did cost them the National Championship.

On this point, it really goes down to how the playoffs are setup. If it is a 8 team playoff system and the first round is a home game, no one will ever bench their starters because one loss could knock you out of the top 4. The NFL is different because there are 32 teams and a third of them make the playoffs. It is more watered down. Every game in college will matter because one loss can/will kill you.

So, football in DIII, DII, and DIAA (FCS) the end of the season doesn't matter, because teams don't care if they win or lose because they know they are guarenteed to play for the National Championship?

I don't know if playoffs are the best system for NCAA. It might be, it might not be. I wish we would at least give it a 3-5 year trial. If it fails, the bowls will always be there. Change can sometimes be a better thing, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

 

[BeLikeWisconsin]

I agree with you on the USC take. It did cost them the National Championship.

On this point, it really goes down to how the playoffs are setup. If it is a 8 team playoff system and the first round is a home game, no one will ever bench their starters because one loss could knock you out of the top 4.

You have a point about the home games and the playoffs. But then that opens up a spectacle with who should be ranked #4 versus #5 (obviously no one will think #8 should be #1). But now with a home game on the line, other things (like voters not wanting a northern cold weather team to get a home game) could influence where teams are placed.

Here's my solution. First, let me state what I think the problem is. Once in a while we have a year where there are 3 teams that can make a legitimate claim to deserve the national championship. Notice that I said "once in a while". In some years it is obvious who the 2 best teams are - and this year is one of those years. But, if you look at 2003 there was USC ranked number 1 in both polls, yet Oklahoma and LSU played for it. In 2004 an undefeaed Auburn team was left out so USC and Oklahoma could play for it. So the problem is the occassional exclusion of ONE team. I can NOT recall any year in which 4 teams could make a legit claim to be playing for the title, nevertheless 8 or 16 teams.

So in the years I mentioned above, I would support a 4 team playoff. The addition of the 4th team would simply be to make it a power of 2. But never would I ever, ever, ever want to see the 8th best team being considered for the national championship.