NCAA Football will crown a true champion

Matt from A700 · December 14, 2015

Eight teams will suffice for me. If Alabama ever gets left out, the field will expand.

Ben Gooding · December 14, 2015

Eight teams will suffice for me. If Alabama ever gets left out, the field will expand.

Yep. There's something fishy going on over there. Too bad we'll never find out because of the spineless NCAA. Teams simply don't win 10 games for 8 straight years because of good ethical recruiting. I was reading an amatuer article a few days ago that during this 8 year run they are top 10 in rushing attempts and have had the least amount of holding calls in the nation. That is something else a bit strange. 23/25 recruits were top 300 players in their last signing class. I guess 25/25 is too suspicious, but 23/25 is OK.

MeanGreenTexan · December 14, 2015

Yep. There's something fishy going on over there. Too bad we'll never find out because of the spineless NCAA. Teams simply don't win 10 games for 8 straight years because of good ethical recruiting. I was reading an amatuer article a few days ago that during this 8 year run they are top 10 in rushing attempts and have had the least amount of holding calls in the nation. That is something else a bit strange. 23/25 recruits were top 300 players in their last signing class. I guess 25/25 is too suspicious, but 23/25 is OK.

OR...
Really good players WANT to play for Alabama because they know Saban will get them to the NFL and they'll be competing for National Championships year after year. No conspiracy.

Quoner · December 14, 2015

Yep. There's something fishy going on over there. Too bad we'll never find out because of the spineless NCAA. Teams simply don't win 10 games for 8 straight years because of good ethical recruiting. I was reading an amatuer article a few days ago that during this 8 year run they are top 10 in rushing attempts and have had the least amount of holding calls in the nation. That is something else a bit strange. 23/25 recruits were top 300 players in their last signing class. I guess 25/25 is too suspicious, but 23/25 is OK.

Keep pulling the sweater. Eventually the whole thing will unravel.

UNTLifer · December 14, 2015

Yep. There's something fishy going on over there. Too bad we'll never find out because of the spineless NCAA. Teams simply don't win 10 games for 8 straight years because of good ethical recruiting. I was reading an amatuer article a few days ago that during this 8 year run they are top 10 in rushing attempts and have had the least amount of holding calls in the nation. That is something else a bit strange. 23/25 recruits were top 300 players in their last signing class. I guess 25/25 is too suspicious, but 23/25 is OK.

Or players just like playing for a winner.

Ben Gooding · December 14, 2015

Or players just like playing for a winner.

Sure. That's the easy assumption to make. I'm not trying to fit for a tinfoil hat, but I'm not buying that right off the bat. There have been dynasties through CFB all throughout its history, but in modern football nothing like this has been witnessed. This trumps what USC did in the early 2000's two fold. USC was cheating. This tops what Bama did in the late 90's, easily. They too were cheating. The only difference between now and then is the amount of money at stake. For no one to raise an eyebrow at this is absolutely crazy. Their starting lineup up front on both sides is unparalleled, but their depth is literally something never before seen. There's something there and the NCAA is eyes wide shut.

untjim1995 · December 14, 2015

If you want conference champs to be auto bids for the CFB playoffs then we already have that. They play it every Sunday and it's called the NFL. Just look at the mess that it has become since they split each conference into 4 divisions. Who the hell wants Florida resting its starters against their biggest rivals in Florida State, just so they can save them for Bama. Because after all, that conference championship would matter 20x's more than a loss to another ranked team in a different conference.
How about Southern Cal? What if they upset Stanford and went into the CFB playoff with 4 losses over 1 loss teams like Iowa, Ohio State, or a 2 loss Notre Dame or TCU?

If you wanna expand the playoff to 8 teams I'm all ears, but don't include conference champs as an auto bid. That waters down the regular season too much. That's what I love about college football more than all the others: every game matters so much more than any almost any other sport.

This is tough. I do think there are about 5 schools every year in the G5 that can whip a lot of P5 teams, but the P5s have the $$$ and prestige, as well as the political and media pull. Is UH better than many of the Big 12's bottom half, including Texas, this year? No question, but they don't have a program that year-in and year-out that you can say that about. At some point, the question becomes how do you build this up to give the premise of everyone having a fair chance, while balancing out the realities of the cash cows of the P5s? To me, the best way is to make a playoff system of 8 teams, one of which is the G5 team that can meet these qualifications, like UH has done this season--conference champion and ranked in the top 20. The other 7 are available to the P5s or even another G5 if certain things played out--i.e., Boise State was awesome again at the same time UH is.

That said, I'd get the best teams in the playoffs--no matter what conference they are in, but they cannot have more than 2 teams per league in the playoff. This year, that would've looked like this: Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Iowa, Stanford, Notre Dame, and Houston.

Clemson versus Houston in the Peach Bowl (Game 1)

Alabama versus Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl (Game 2)

Michigan State versus Stanford in the Rose Bowl (Game 3)

Oklahoma versus Iowa in the Fiesta Bowl (Game 4)

Game 1 winner versus Game 4 winner (Orange Bowl)

Game 2 winner versus Game 3 winner (Cotton Bowl)

Championship Game

This would alleviate a lot of problems with a system like this. But that said, UH getting in leaves Ohio State, Florida State, North Carolina, TCU, Ole Miss, Northwestern, Michigan, Oregon, Okie State, and Baylor as P5 teams that don't get invites because of the G5 rule. Its one thing to give them a chair at the family table to play one of the others in a bowl game that means nothing in the playoff picture. Its a whole other thing, though, to give them a chair at the playoff table while some of the teams mentioned get left behind. That doesn't seem realistic, to me. And in reality, more media and college fans by a huge majority, would rather see Ohio State or Florida State playing in a playoff than Houston or any other G5 team.