The future of championship games is in jeopardy - Yahoo Sports

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Panthadad2

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“How can it be a detriment for someone to play in a conference championship game?” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. “If you want to kill the conference championship games, have somebody who is within the top 12 play for a championship and have them fall out and be leapfrogged.”
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Now that divisions are gone, I don't see a scenario where the conference game participants in the BG10 and SEC would ever miss the CFP. The same can't be said of the other conferences. I couldn't care less what team wins the BG10 game this year but I'll be watching that ACC game.

 


The landscape now seems to be:

If you're a brand name team you don't have to try in your conference championship game because you can feel safe in your seeding.

If you're not a brand name team .... you better try hard.

It is absurd.
 

I think they are going to need to determine conference champions some other way. Tie breakers. It would suck some years but as it currently stands, you get these situations where some teams are playing an extra game for the right to get a bye, which doesn't make much sense. The playoff is going to continue to rise in stature and teams are going to focus on getting into that. Climbing the mountain to get in the 12 team field, only to have to play an extra game just feels weird.
 

Will be interesting to see how it shakes out but I agree that playing in a conference championship should only be able to help you regardless if you win or lose.

No way a team that is currently in the playoff picture should end up missing it because they lost in their conference championship game. Especially when the team replacing them would be one that didn't even qualify for their own conference championship game.

edit - although it does get tricky in the case of the weaker power conferences (Big 12, ACC). Would mean you would basically have to guarantee each power conference 2 spots in the final 12 which would then mean every year 9 of the playoff spots are locked (8 power 4, 1 Group of 5).
 
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I'm just glad to see this is becoming just as much, if not more, of a mess than the system they replaced.

As a fan of the old system, I hope the chaos reigns supreme every year while they figure nothing out and people just get tired of it and stop watching.
 

Schnauzer said:
I think they are going to need to determine conference champions some other way. Tie breakers. It would suck some years but as it currently stands, you get these situations where some teams are playing an extra game for the right to get a bye, which doesn't make much sense. The playoff is going to continue to rise in stature and teams are going to focus on getting into that. Climbing the mountain to get in the 12 team field, only to have to play an extra game just feels weird.
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This makes sense. I mean, the selection process used to pick teams to play in the championship game is already somewhat arbitrary and uses multiple levels of tie breakers. It's just another game.

Oregon is undefeated in conference but they still have to play Penn State which gets selected over Indiana by tie breakers.

Texas has the best record in conference but they still have to play Georgia which gets selected over Tennessee by tie breakers.

The Big 12 is a gigantic jumbled mess of tie breakers just to play in the conference championship.

The list goes on.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I'm just glad to see this is becoming just as much, if not more, of a mess than the system they replaced.

As a fan of the old system, I hope the chaos reigns supreme every year while they figure nothing out and people just get tired of it and stop watching.
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Not sure we ever really hit a point where people stop watching but the system being a mess was a guarantee from day one. Said in another post, no matter how many teams you put in the playoff someone is going to feel like they got screwed.
 





It would help if the conferences were of manageable size, and the conference members played relatively the same schedule. Less ties, no need for championship games, just normal tiebreakers.

Of course most of this has to do with TV money and ratings, rather than finding out who the real champion is.
 


I think in near future it’s inevitable that B1G and SEC expand creating super conferences. Each conference has a playoff and the champion of each conference will go to the national championship. Big 12, ACC, etc would all be left out
 




GopherFanatic19 said:
I think in near future it’s inevitable that B1G and SEC expand creating super conferences. Each conference has a playoff and the champion of each conference will go to the national championship. Big 12, ACC, etc would all be left out
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I don’t think they’d do that

I do think it’s inevitable that there is more expansion. But I don’t think there would be a big ten playoff and SEC playoff with winners playing each other. They want more region vs region matchups for playoffs for better tv ratings

I don’t think they will completely leave out the other conferences as it would open them up to anti-competitive litigation

It would not surprise me to see a 24 team big ten and a 20-24 team SEC with a 16 team playoff where both leagues have 6+ autobids though. Maybe even 7 autobids where the other conferences have to go through multiple play in rounds to make final tournament
 

Sparlimb said:
They should pick the field the week before the championship games and then the seeds the week after.
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agreed. pick the field based on merit and lock the top 12 (to be honest, we don't need to see who seeds 13 and higher are as it is completely irrelvant), which you are ranking purely based on resume (however you so choose) to that point. If you're a higher seed, know you could get bounced by one of the 5 highest conference champions should a team not in the field win their CC (ie UNLV wins now, it bounces whoever the lowest rated non conference winner is. Protects you from your conference title game loss while ensuring you were in before this truly based on "merit" however you so determine it.
 


It seems like most people everywhere is over thinking this. It should be each conference can determine their own champion and that team is an auto-bid to the playoffs. Then the committee fills in the rest of the teams with predetermined ranking rules so everyone knows the criteria.

To me, the most important question is which conferences are included in the auto-bid.
 


I don't think they will fully go away, but will be part of the playoffs instead.

Say the B1G Ten and SEC get 4 spots in the playoffs each. Maybe the 1-3 get in and the 4-5 have to play for the 4th spot.

I think auto bids is the way to go.

Have to go to 14-16 likely.

4 B1G
4 SEC
3 ACC/Notre Dame
3 B12
2 G5
 
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MaxyJR1 said:
I don't think they will fully go away, but will be part of the playoffs instead.

Say the B1G Ten and SEC get 4 spots in the playoffs each. Maybe the 1-3 get in and the 4-5 have to play for the 4th spot.

I think auto bids is the way to go.

Have to go to 14-16 likely.

4 B1G
4 SEC
3 ACC/Notre Dame
3 B12
2 G5
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I think you are on to something.

There really shouldn't be any controversy. The only reason there currently is controversy is because you have humans using their opinions to make up the field.
 

Panthadad2 said:
“How can it be a detriment for someone to play in a conference championship game?” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said. “If you want to kill the conference championship games, have somebody who is within the top 12 play for a championship and have them fall out and be leapfrogged.”
____________________________________________

Now that divisions are gone, I don't see a scenario where the conference game participants in the BG10 and SEC would ever miss the CFP. The same can't be said of the other conferences. I couldn't care less what team wins the BG10 game this year but I'll be watching that ACC game.
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He’s looking at this all wrong. SMU needs the win against Clemson to make the playoff, and Clemson needs it too. This is a play-in game.

Neither team has impressive enough wins to justify inclusion without a CCG win.
 

GopherFanatic19 said:
I think in near future it’s inevitable that B1G and SEC expand creating super conferences. Each conference has a playoff and the champion of each conference will go to the national championship. Big 12, ACC, etc would all be left out
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I think the whole framework will radically change in the next five years. What that looks like is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if conference championship games were on the chopping block. They don't make much sense with the expanded playoffs.
 

Goldmember said:
He’s looking at this all wrong. SMU needs the win against Clemson to make the playoff, and Clemson needs it too. This is a play-in game.

Neither team has impressive enough wins to justify inclusion without a CCG win.
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No, the issue is there are too many at large bids subject to human subjectivity and not enough auto bids.

The big ten should play Illinois vs Iowa for the big ten title this weekend. If Illinois won the big ten would get 5 teams and if Iowa won the big ten would still get 4 (although they might get 5 if UNLV beat Boise)


The issue is there are too many bids based on vibes and not enough bids based on concrete criteria
 

GopherTheJugular said:
I'm just glad to see this is becoming just as much, if not more, of a mess than the system they replaced.

As a fan of the old system, I hope the chaos reigns supreme every year while they figure nothing out and people just get tired of it and stop watching.
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Doesn't chaos draw more eyeballs?
 

Some guy said:
No, the issue is there are too many at large bids subject to human subjectivity and not enough auto bids.

The big ten should play Illinois vs Iowa for the big ten title this weekend. If Illinois won the big ten would get 5 teams and if Iowa won the big ten would still get 4 (although they might get 5 if UNLV beat Boise)


The issue is there are too many bids based on vibes and not enough bids based on concrete criteria
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I'd rather watch Alabama play at Penn State in a first round game than AAC auto bid Tulane or MAC auto bid Miami of Ohio. The group of 5 champ and Big 12 champ are enough Cinderellas in my opinion.
 

MilosRevenge said:
I'd rather watch Alabama play at Penn State in a first round game than AAC auto bid Tulane or MAC auto bid Miami of Ohio. The group of 5 champ and Big 12 champ are enough Cinderellas in my opinion.
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Yeah and that’s fine. But that doesn’t solve the objective vs subjective problem.

A good way of doing it might be to have a coefficient rating of leagues on a 5 rotation that gives each league autobid numbers that could change each year…sort of like the champions league criteria in European leagues.

Perhaps a 16 team playoff it might look like:
SEC -5
Big 10-4
Big 12-2
ACC-2

Higher ranked team between these leagues
Mountain West-1
AAC-1
3rd big 12
3rd ACC

Other 3 in a play in 8 team bracket for final two spots along with
Conf USA champ
Mac champ
Sun belt champ
For final 2 spots
SEC 6
Big ten 5

Only thing committee does is seed
 

I think we just need to keep expanding. Let's make it 128 teams. That way they can play until March 1st then that can roll right into the 256 team basketball tournament! Also with this expanded field we will have auto bids in the final 8 for Bama OSU UGA ND, it's not their fault if they lose, they just need to be in no matter what!

I hate this all, it's such a gross money grab. I am fully aware it was kind of always somewhat about money and things were happening under the table, but now it's just so overt. The haves pay for a roster, the playoff committees guarantee them a spot regardless of their record and they keep devaluing everything else. It's the ultimate encapsulation of the world today. If those with the money don't get what they want, they pay someone off and make sure they all get a participation trophy to feel good about themselves.
 

GopherFanatic19 said:
I think in near future it’s inevitable that B1G and SEC expand creating super conferences. Each conference has a playoff and the champion of each conference will go to the national championship. Big 12, ACC, etc would all be left out
Click to expand...
That could have anti-trust and restraint of trade implications.
 

NateDawgUM said:
Oh no, how would we ever sell any Dr Pepper without championship games
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A lot of students are going to miss out on scholarships for chucking footballs into holes at halftime.
 

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