College Football Playoff System

agw0038 · May 30, 2012

Okay, so im reading an aritcle on ESPN(http://espn.go.com/b...ur-team-playoff) about how all the SEC coaches are in agreement that, in a four-team playoff format, the teams selected should not have to be conference champions. Of course they would say that, but anyways, it got me thinking. How would I set-up the college football playoffs?

So here are my two realities, if you will

In an ultra-fair reality that will never happen in real life:

You take the top 8 conference champions and the seed them 1-8 based on there rankings, or SOS, or wins or whatever. Then you invite the 8 highest ranked teams who didnt win there conferenc title. they would be seeded 9-16 based on rank, or SOS, or wins or whatever. All of the conference champions, regardless of rank, size of school, or whatever will get a home-game in the first round. Then it would just go on from there.

In an semi-fair reality which could actully happen:

You take the champions of the top 4 conferences (SEC,Big 12, Big 10, Pac 12). Seed them 1-4 based on rank. Then you take the 4 highest ranked teams who didnt win their conference title and seed them 5-8 based on rank. Top 4 teams get a home game in the first round. Higher seeded team always gets a home game.

What do you guys think? what are the flaws in my scenarios? how would you do it differently?

Hopefully this will give us something to talk about...

GMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited May 30, 2012 by agw0038

golfingomez · May 30, 2012

right now there 11 conferences... soon to be 10

agw0038 · May 30, 2012

right now there 11 conferences... soon to be 10

good point... i meant to say the top* 8 conference champions.... my b.... hopefully it makes a little more sense

golfingomez · May 30, 2012

good point... i meant to say the top* 8 conference champions.... my b.... hopefully it makes a little more sense

how would you determine the top 8 champions?

gksmith · May 30, 2012

To make it a true championship, 11 (or 10) conference champions, at-large bids to fill out the rest of a 16 team field, seed them 1-16, play at neutral sites...basically like a smaller version of the basketball tournament.

For now it will be "top 4 teams" (not necessarily "best 4"). Cought the last part of a piece on ESPNU about the playoff. The example they used is one of the top 4 teams has one loss while the #5 team is undefeated. When you are talking the top teams in the nation how can you say Team A is deserving even with 1 loss while team B is not deserving?

TIgreen01 · May 30, 2012

In an semi-fair reality which could actully happen:

You take the champions of the top 4 conferences (SEC,Big 12, Big 10, Pac 12). Seed them 1-4 based on rank. Then you take the 4 highest ranked teams who didnt win their conference title and seed them 5-8 based on rank. Top 4 teams get a home game in the first round. Higher seeded team always gets a home game.

What do you guys think? what are the flaws in my scenarios? how would you do it differently?

So, an interesting tidbit left off is what happens to the existing bowl system. I don't know what to think of the bowl system anymore, to be honest. I think that in the world that we live in today, it is widely held that it gives opportunities to programs that might not normally get those opportunities. But when you get right down to it, the bowls (no matter the level) are always going to want to select teams that make them the most money. A top 25 North Texas team was shut out of the bowl system in the 70s, and I think without the conferences negotiating contracts with these bowls that smaller market draws would always be passed over for teams with higher drawing power. Maybe that's not all that unfair---but I think that for a playoff system to work, you've got to wipe out the bowls. Entirely.

By keeping the Rose/Orange/Fiesta/etc bowl committees in the loop, that means that you are bringing them to the negotiating table for setting up a playoff system when they really have no place at it---if this is a true playoff system. The bowl committees will always only ever care about maximizing profit margins for themselves. That means always having teams with large traveling fan bases participating in their games. As long as the bowl system is in place, you can bank on the selection process always being rigged to ensure teams from the Big 6 conferences have the most participation. And when you think about it, why would the Big 6 move to abolish the bowl system and their committees when they know that they have an ally that will work to make sure they have the best opportunities??

If you can somehow eliminate the bowls, then I really don't care how you pick the teams....but I imagine that you'd see the number of teams participating gradually increase over time, just as has been the case with the NCAA run basketball and baseball tournaments. Rather than guaranteeing participation through contracts with individual bowls, the Big 6 will move to expand the field so that they have more opportunity to make money from the playoff system.

If you limit the bids to conference champions, then you'd probably see another round of major realignment occur so that teams could give themselves the best chance to win a conference bid. I don't think most school presidents around the country would view this option positively considering the negative light the past year's realignments have cast on college athletics. If you limit it to Top 8/16/32 ranking, then you'll see teams schedule their way into a bid. There will always be some kind of gaming of the system, but to get it right, you need to eliminate the profit mongers who are leaching off of everyone---the bowl committees.

Edited May 30, 2012 by TIgreen01

glick1980 · May 30, 2012

I would take all the conference champions and then the 6 highest rated teams after that. The conference champions are seeded 1-10 and the at-large teams are seeded 11-16.

golfingomez · May 30, 2012

Top 4 teams... not necessarily conference champions... cut it off at that... otherwise you cut into the greatness that is the regular season

agw0038 · May 30, 2012

how would you determine the top 8 champions?

through the polls... this would require the AP and coaches to rank all the teams in FBS.. they probably wont like that...but it would be more fair. Or wins... Or... SOS...

Edited May 30, 2012 by agw0038

UNTflyer · May 30, 2012

I think the NFL playoffs should only include 5 division champs and two at-large. The NFC West hasn't been competitive in years and the AFC South just plain sucks.

UNTLifer · May 31, 2012

Top 4 teams... not necessarily conference champions... cut it off at that... otherwise you cut into the greatness that is the regular season

You mean kind of like the NCAA Basketball Tournament takes away from the greatness that is the regular season and conference tournaments, or the NFL playoffs take away from the greatness of their regular season?

UNTflyer · May 31, 2012

You mean kind of like the NCAA Basketball Tournament takes away from the greatness that is the regular season and conference tournaments, or the NFL playoffs take away from the greatness of their regular season?

I think one of the greatest things about college football is the demand to have a great regular season. If you let a non-conference champion into the playoffs, then I think it lessens the season.

And hey, if you can't win your conference, can you really claim to be one of the 4 best teams in college football? I don't think so, but the voters disagreed this past season.

greenminer · May 31, 2012

Clearly the best team in the land, Alabama - by some people's opinions - should not have been afforded a spot in the title game because they did not win the SEC.

One of sports greatest debates, exemplified last season.

shaft · May 31, 2012

I don't like any playoff system, I li,e bowl games. So what if college football is different than the NFL.

Even in a magical world where all conference champs are guaranteed a spot in a 64 team playoff, I think it would suck for a team like Troy to end their season at Wisconsin in December.

agw0038 · May 31, 2012

I don't like any playoff system, I li,e bowl games. So what if college football is different than the NFL.
Even in a magical world where all conference champs are guaranteed a spot in a 64 team playoff, I think it would suck for a team like Troy to end their season at Wisconsin in December.

My question is why is college football different in the first place? They have some type of playoff system at every other level of football except College Football. This is ridiculous. They need to have a playoff system.

I wonder if theres a way to have bowl games and a playoff system. Maybe the teams who dont make the tourney go to bowl games???

Mark Gommesen · May 31, 2012

You take the top 8 conference champions and the seed them 1-8 based on there rankings, or SOS, or wins or whatever. Then you invite the 8 highest ranked teams who didnt win there conferenc title. they would be seeded 9-16 based on rank, or SOS, or wins or whatever. All of the conference champions, regardless of rank, size of school, or whatever will get a home-game in the first round. Then it would just go on from there.

I would just include the top 8 conference champions, period. The conference championship will act has the first round of the playoffs. If you did not win your conference you are eliminated. By allowing the top 8 conference champions would level the playing field. If a C-USA or MWC champion has a chance at national title, the schools in these conferences would be able to compete with other conferences in terms of recruiting and media. If the independents wish to be included, they need to join a conference. It is important to remember that rankings are not an absolute measurement. If team wins their regular season conference championship, they are representative of the best that conference has to offer. Obviously, the top ranked team will be included by selecting the top 8 conference champions. Which means in the first round the lowest ranked conference champion will play against the number 1 team in the country perhaps the SEC champion. If that team prevails, and defeats the next highest ranked team in the second round perhaps the BIG 12 champion. And finally in the championship game defeats the remaining conference champion perhaps the PAC 12 champion...can anyone argue that such a team is not deserving of a national championship? Does it even matter what other teams were not included?

UNTLifer · May 31, 2012

I think one of the greatest things about college football is the demand to have a great regular season. If you let a non-conference champion into the playoffs, then I think it lessens the season.

And hey, if you can't win your conference, can you really claim to be one of the 4 best teams in college football? I don't think so, but the voters disagreed this past season.

I don't understand this argument. I don't see how this lessens the importance of the regular season. The regular season is not lessened any with NCAA basketball and a number of non-conference champions make the tournament every year.

golfingomez · May 31, 2012

You mean kind of like the NCAA Basketball Tournament takes away from the greatness that is the regular season and conference tournaments, or the NFL playoffs take away from the greatness of their regular season?

actually... yes, that's exactly what I mean...

golfingomez · May 31, 2012

I don't understand this argument. I don't see how this lessens the importance of the regular season. The regular season is not lessened any with NCAA basketball and a number of non-conference champions make the tournament every year.

I watch about every football weekend in College Football... I pick up the NFL around the end of November(also consider how teams who are the top seeds start resting their starters at the end of the year), when you realize who is in or out of it already... and I pick up NCAA basketball(outside of UNT/Sun Belt) around February (where the majority of the teams DON'T have to win their conference tourney's to get into the NCAA) and around the same time as the NBA (who also rest their starters)... so yeah, I think College Football's regular season means a lot more to me...

I think having college football be different i great...it's not the exact same format as everything else... because otherwise, having everyone do the same thing would be communism... and I love America too much to support communism...

GL2Greatness · May 31, 2012

My question is why is college football different in the first place? They have some type of playoff system at every other level of football except College Football. This is ridiculous. They need to have a playoff system.

I wonder if theres a way to have bowl games and a playoff system. Maybe the teams who dont make the tourney go to bowl games???

it is a thing called history that people over the age of 30 or so might have a bit of a clue about if they have any clue at all

you see there was a time when it cost a great deal of money to move 80+ people all around the country to play a sport on a single day of each week for 10 or 11 weeks of the season......hell believe it or not there was a time when college football was played that commercial airline travel was non-existent and even when it did exist it was expensive, not that frequent, and only served a few destinations.......many college bowl games existed long before airline travel became a common thing with $79 dollar bags fly free to just about any place with 250K people much less charter flights and the like

and you see the bowls and such existed for so long before that period when it was easy for players, much less fans, to travel all over the place for a game that those games became something called history and tradition.....you know the thing that everyone bitches about with conference realignment

and even when air travel was more frequent college athletics budgets were much smaller so teams still played in conferences that had a small geographic footprint so that travel was cheap and fans could make the games

and believe it or not there was a time when there were only three TV channels in the entire country and they were all broadcast over the air instead of 400 channels on fiber with ESPN - ESPN The Ocho.....see some people even over the age of 30 might still not know about this time period because while other teams and universities were busy investing in their program, facilities, and building the sport into what it is today those other teams and their fans were busy riding the pine, or playing in DII, or they did not even have a team much less investing in it and helping build bowl games into the tradition, history, and financial giants that they are today

so of course when you don't know about any of that history or tradition, when you have done nothing to build any of it, and when all you have done is show up decades later with a begging bowl it is easy to think "why can't I get in on that" or "why won't they just hand me some of that for all the nothing that I have done in the past to contribute to the success of it"

and when you don't understand there was a time when pro sports was a pretty terrible job that did not pay all that much, there were fewer teams, and most college athletes were actually there for the degrees (and most pro athletes had other jobs as well) it is easy to look at college sports today and ignore how things came about and wonder why something can't just magically morph into what the pros are today

if it was not for the teams accused of being greedy and selfish building things up then all the begging bowl teams would still be what they were back then....nothing....because there would be nothing to gain by holding out the begging bowl or trying to get in on something that there was little long term effort made by them to build

nobody is going to suddenly start caring about, paying to watch, and show up to see a team in the playoffs or national championships when that team can't even get a small % of their own students and local alumni to do that

pro football has 32 teams in the largest markets in the USA......college sports had several hundred programs at all levels and 120+ at the highest level......just one level down (where many of that 120+ played just a short time back in history) has a difficult time filling stadiums for their championships that are much smaller than the on campus stadiums of many of the "greedy" D1-A teams much less some of the major bowl venues so thinking that begging bowl teams will suddenly bring the fans, support, and dollars because they were this years cinderella story is just a joke

and even if there is big money in college sports it is still amateur sports which means it is more difficult to push an injured player to play because it is an important game (see the lawsuits facing the pros now) and it means that you can't just play players game after game for extremely long seasons as long or longer than the prop seasons.....and with hundreds of college programs feeding into 32 pro teams every year it means there is much more athletic parity in the pros and that means with the exception of a few key positions it is difficult for a single player or even two players to make a massive difference if they are or are not on the field.....not so much on college ball

so while it might be exciting to see sucksnuts state play LSU or Alabama in the first round of some crappy playoff format all it will take to turn that game and the next game into crap, id for a single player to go down in a game because some player from sucknuts took a cheap shot or because of just an injury.....that is what makes baseball, basketball, and other college sports different.....players can get injured in any sport, but in football it is much more common and the injuries usually take much longer to heal and even small injuries require time to heal because you are going back into 100% physical contact every single play

and with the pros having bounty gate it would only be a matter of time until something similar happened at the college level (not that it can't now) but it will be much more likely to happen when each and every season you have some team from the sorryass conference going against the big boys in a game they should and probably will get blown out in...and if that injury or that on purpose cheap shot happens to a particular player then it ruins that game and probably ruins the next game as well when an over matched team or a team with a top player advances to the next game and then gets blown out while everyone knows the outcome could have been different and should have been different

pros are pros......they are paid to play...they are paid to play a bit hurt, they get money for playoff wins, and they have more parity.....in the college game an injury can happen like Colt McCoy in 2009, but that is part of the breaks and how it goes, but if you start having crap like that in first round playoff games with top teams going against garbage people will quickly tune out and even more so if the injury was because of a questionable hit (the Colt McCoy injury was not questionable at all it was a freak stinger) but still having garbage games for 2-3 weeks so a team that most everyone knows is a top team can let sucknuts state have "their big chance" that they "earned" by winning the crapfest conference just sucks and it sucks worse for amateur athletes because those top teams don't owe some sorry team another "shot" at anything when that top team has gone out and taken care of business week in and week out

there is never going to be a way to have "parity" with 120+ teams, there will never be a way to have "parity" with 120 teams in 10 or so conferences, and the idea of crapping things up with forced regional conferences with "parity" in them is just worse because it is a great way to kill the regular season (like a stupid all Texas conference filled with 12 teams from the #1 budget in college sports to some of the lowest budgets in college sports) because that is just a way for 4-6 teams to suck in the regular season and suck forever while killing the chance for top teams to earn money and do what they want to do and play who they want to play and for people to see games they want to see

if you are not happy with the setup they take your ball, your fans, your TV viewers, and all that comes with it and break away and start the parity division and you can be just like D1-AA with no revenues from much of anything, but at least you will have "parity" of nothingness and an equal shot at something that most people in the world will ignore....that or earn your "big chance" in the regular season by scheduling and beating top teams and then taking care of business in the crapfest conference and try having a few fans to show up to watch the games as well while you are at it

UNTFan23 · May 31, 2012

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I see the words you are posting but in my mind I hear:

forevereagle · May 31, 2012

I would just include the top 8 conference champions, period.

How do you determine the top 8 conferences?

It is important to remember that rankings are not an absolute measurement.

So...

UNTflyer · June 1, 2012

Make the bowl games part of the playoffs:

Saturday, Week 0 - Conference Championship Games

Selection Sunday - All 10 (WAC is dead) conference champions receive an automatic bid. A committee selects the other 6.

Week 1 Bowl Playoffs

East Regional

1. #16 vs. #1 - Chick-Fil-A Bowl

2. #9 vs. #8 - Champs Sports Bowl

3. #13 vs. #4 - Capital One Bowl

4. #12 vs. #5 - Liberty Bowl

West Regional

5. #15 vs. #2 - Alamo Bowl

6. #10 vs. #7 - Sun Bowl

7. #11 vs. #6 - Poinsettia Bowl

8. #14 vs. #3 - Insight Bowl

Week 2 Playoffs

East Region SemiFinals

9. Game 1 Winner vs. Game 2 Winner - Gator Bowl

10. Game 3 Winner vs. Game 4 Winner - Sugar Bowl

West Region SemiFinals

11. Game 11 Winner vs. Game 12 Winner - Cotton Bowl

12. Game 7 Winner vs. Game 8 Winner - Fiesta Bowl

Week 3 Playoffs

East Region Finals

13. Game 9 Winner vs. Game 10 Winner - Orange Bowl

West Region Finals

14. Game 11 Winner vs. Game 12 Winner - Rose Bowl

Week 4 Playoffs

National Championship Game

15. East Region Champion vs. West Region Champion - Cowboys Stadium, Arlington, TX

Edited June 1, 2012 by UNTflyer

eulessismore · June 1, 2012

it's a thing called history a long thing.

There, fixed it for ya.

shaft · June 1, 2012

A two tiered post season (bowls + playoffs) devalues the lower level of the playoffs. Just look at the revenue and ratings for the NCAA BB tourney vs. NIT, bowls vs fcs playoffs.

A 4 team playoff or a plus one system might be small enough to upset the system, but an 8 or more starts to risk under ing the second tier as we've seen with the BCS bowls.

Unless the NCAA is going to redistribute football revenue evenly, there is no good reason to add to the gulf between haves and have nots.