FSU, ACC pushing for 8 team playoff
Keep going.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/25156475
"I think the perceived bias of the ACC in general, [with] Florida State falling to No. 4 in the rankings and still being undefeated and being [No.] 3 at the end of the season … a one-loss ACC team or two-loss ACC team is going to have a hard time breaking that top four," Gruters said. "I think the top ACC team over the next four or five years, we're going to be in that [No.] 5 to 8 category. And we're going to be on the outside looking in."
Gruters then urged Wilcox to encourage the ACC to push for an expansion of the new playoff system - from four to eight teams. He said that was the only way, "to guarantee an ACC team will have a shot at winning the national championship each year."
Until every major conference champion is guaranteed a playoff berth, the "National Championship" is a joke. I would make it eight teams with champions only. Let the five major champions in and take the other three teams from a pool of lesser conference champions and the "indie champion."
I detest ND, but either they or BYU would sue if there wasn't a way for them to get in.
Why do they have to be guaranteed? Some years, a conference just isn't that good.
Nobody really knows which conferences are 'good' or 'bad' until they go best-on-best. In today's climate, that very rarely happens, and if it does, it happens at the beginning of a season when teams can be vastly different than later. I mean, the #4 seed from the inaugaural playoff won the whole thing, and almost didn't even make it in due largely to the perception people have/had about the strength of the B1G. Meanwhile, the SEC fared quite poorly in bowl season.
I think it's a great idea to do a 6-8 team playoff with a guaranteed berth for conference champs from P5. That still leaves 1-3 spots for other 'deserving' teams who played in tougher conferences, are independents, or mid-majors.
there is so much bullshit about X conferece being great and Y conferece being weak but no one really knows anything. It's all just talking out their ass until the teams actually play on the field.
Last year no one gave Ohio State any chance at all to beat Alabama, yet look what happened? And Ohio State almost didn't even get into the playoff at all--they could have easily been left out for TCU or Baylor. And TCU and Baylor both had very legitimate complaints about being left out. Heck TCU might have been the best team in the country, we don't really know.
All of the subjective crap is pretty much handled by automatically taking the champ of each conference. Let it be decided on the field, not by which conferece (cough SEC cough) is able to propagandize themselves the most.
Remember when the rest of the country was laughing at the Big Ten for being a joke of a conference during the regular reason? OSU helds its own, and their only loss was early in the season.
With the advent of conference title games, we have situations where teams with 3-4 losses can win league titles, like Wisconsin did a couple years back. Did they deserve to play for the national title? I certainly don't think so.
If you have eight teams in the playoff, any deserving team will get in. You don't need to make it automatic for the odd 8-4 straggler that pulled the upset in the conference title game. (I think conference title games should be abolished anyway and that weekend used for the opening week of the playoffs, but that's another issue.)
Brian did an excellent job of proving that a couple of years back when he was pushing his own 6 team playoff idea. He went through recent history and it was very clear. And I totally agree. Unless you are ok with two loss teams having a shot at the title (and I am categorically not) an 8 team playoff will always be unfair. The beautiful thing about college football is how critical the regular season is to your chances, and two loss teams SHOULD be out of it. And I'd say that for a 10-2 M team too. I really detest this constant push for greater number of playoff teams in every sport. Enough already.
I agree completely. I'm fine with the playoff staying at four, actually.
The argument that we need eight teams in and need to guarantee spots for all conference champions (no matter how mediocre) doesn't make sense to me.
April 22nd, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
Played in the Pac12 title game a couple years back at 6-6 because USC was ineligible, but got beaten like a drum by Oregon.
UCLA did make it to the Rose Bowl in 1982 with a 6-4-1 record - and beat the living daylights out of a 10-1 Illinois team.
If you want to discourage teams from playing cupcakes, and I hope that's all of us, do not punish them for a tough OOC loss. The perfect-season-or-bust mentality is a holdover from the BCS era, that encourages the scheduling of cupcake games. Anything that does that sucks, and is not healthy for CFB. The "quality/integrity/sanctity of the regular season" argument is just so lame, and from a post-season hopes standpoint, only applied to the dwindling handful of teams that managed to stay undefeated as the season played out. Where was the "importance" of the remaining regular season for teams that lost twice early (and for many, once, given the unfair preseason rankings)?
In an auto-P5-8-team-PO, the 3 at-large teams should be those rewared for a tough OOC schedule. This should encourage teams to schedule accordingly. A 1-2 loss OOC team can still win their championship. That's a heck of a lot more teams continuing the season where "every game counts", and more quality football was played.
There's been just one playoff and already there were two teams that have a right to bitch about the cut. This will be the case every year, and it just might be UM at no. 5 some year(s). There will always be controversy involving those teams on the bubble, but that's an argument in favor of 8 teams, not 4. And I don't understand the logic of 6 teams. DO NOT start subjectively awarding the 2 "best" teams with a huge advantage, while carving out a third week for the PO, and not taking advantage of it with an 8 team field.
A two-loss team is going to have a shot some years. Hell, a two-loss LSU already won the BCS. An 8 team playoff would mean that's true every year and would probably give 3-loss teams a shot now and then.
I'm not disagreeing with you that it would be difficult for a season to produce 8 deserving teams, but you also can't draw a line in the sand and say teams with 2 loses don't get a shot.
The absolute best system is also completely unrealistic, where you determine the number of teams at the end of each system based on what the season dictates. This year would have been a year to be expansive, with maybe 6 teams. Other years there is going to be a clear 1 and 2 when we will have too many teams in the playoffs.
8 teams, 5 champs plus 3 at large. Some years a crappy 3 loss conference champion will go on a monster run and win it all. Who cares? That's fun! Sometimes Peyton's younger brother beats the undefeated Pats, and sports are better for it.
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in the extreme. That doesn't mean it's the best or fairest way of determing a champion.
And limiting the # of teams in a playoff is "rigging" nothing. It's not subjective who the best teams are--it's objective, and proven over the course of the season in college football. if you lose 2 or 3 games, it's actually more subjective to include such a team.
April 22nd, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
is to have rankings mean nothing and have on-field play determine everything. That means P5 conference champions make it in, and P5 non-champions do not.
I don't want to see the National Championship game be a repeat of the conference championship game. Give some other teams a shot.
Don't complain - just win your conference.
If there are years where there are just two clear-cut PO teams, then they'll have no problem embarrassing the field, right? Don't be so sure they'd end up in the championship game.
You can create a lot of hypothetical situations where a 6-8 team playoff may sneak in non-ideal teams. I guess my pushback is that situation is much preferable to a situation where an otherwise deserving team gets left out. The whole point of a playoff is to find the best team. It's better to ensure that you have those teams with the risk of an undeserving team getting in once in a while than the other way around.
This season was a great example. By the end of the season, there was a very real argument that OSU and TCU were the two best teams in the country. We'll never know for sure, because it was guaranteed that one of those two teams would not make it to the playoff. I'd rather both teams made it in at the sacrifice of a lesser team making it in as the sixth.
Plus, there are lots of ways to mitigate this in general, which we already instituted in the BCS era. e.g. you finish in top 12 to be eligible, etc...
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The whole point of a playoff is to find the best team.Actually, no. The point is to crown a champion. Was Duke better than Kentucky in basketball this year? No, but they're the champs.
April 22nd, 2015 at 11:37 AM ^
8-teams:
- Conference champion of each Power 5 conference (ACC, Big 12, B1G, Pac-12, SEC)
- 3 at-large bids, cannot go to Power 5 conference non-champion
Goals:
- Emphasize conference play
- De-emphasize rankings
- Accelerate national parity
- True national champion determined on the field, not by sports writers or committees
See OSU. B1G wasn't a very good conference despite a good showing in the bowl game, but OSU tore through the competition like nobody's business.
BYU should join the Big 12 or Pac 12 at least as an associate member like Notre Dame has with the ACC.
they can join a conference if they want to compete for national titles.
Honestly, I never understood why ND wasn't in the Big 10. They're the closest thing to Michigan in terms of academics and football that there is.
And BYU can learn to play on the same days that everyone else does.
The Big Ten once denied ND entry. Its response now, many decades later, is to be pouty about it.
I think ND realizes they are very similar to Michigan, which is probably why they don't want to join. They need to feel special, bless their hearts
Keep their own bowl money, have their own network contract. If they were leaving a lot of money on the table remaining independent, I suspect that would change in a hurry.
Why are they pushing. Did their water break? Keeep Going! ITs crowning! Oh lordyyy!!! Im weird!
Hope they're successful.
I don't care if there is a team or two that shouldn't be in the tournament. That's better than a team or two NOT being in the tournament.
If the 1 and 2 seeds have to play "walkovers" (lol...we're calling a top 10 team in the country a walkover), then so be it. They get that honor for being #1 and #2.
This also brings even more excitement to the end of the year or to conference championship games.
Easy formula...
5 conference winners IF you're ranked in the top 12 of the final standings...if not, your conference losses the automatic bid and it becomes an at-large.
Seeding is based on ranking only. So just because you won your conference doesn't mean an at-large can't be higher than you in the tournament.
....these 2 are no-brainers, IMO.
The third one is more personal preference. #3, I'd play the quarterfinals at the home site of the top 4 seeds. Give that advantage to the teams who did better. #2 Michigan shouldn't have to travel to the Citrus Bowl to play #7 Florida, #3 OSU shouldn't have to travel to the Peach Bowl to play #6 Georgia. That's bullshit - play the quarters at the home site of the top 4.
This also saves on travel for your fans.
Once you get to the semifinals...keep everything the same.
P.S. - I'd actually have a fourth one that is personal preference...send the quarterfinal losers to bowl games (since the quarterfinals would have to be played so early - otherwise your New Year's Day bowls suck).
The quarterfinal losers could even play each other for (hopefully) a good game as a 3rd place/consolation game.
I really like this approach. 8 is a great number--one can envision seasons in which the 5th best team could have a plausible claim to be the best team in the land, but it's pretty hard to envision the 9th best team having such a claim.
8 teams, as you say, also lets have all 5 power conference champs plus a few wild cards. And the added wrinkle you propose eliminates the possibility of giving out one of the precious few 8 slots to the champion of a conference that has had really down year.
Keep them out of it. You win your conferece, you're in, period. Keep all of that figure skating judging crap out of football.
The NFL would be ridiculous if they had a "You're in the playoffs if you win you division, unless you're power ranking isn't high enough.". No, you win your division and you're in period. Every once in a while that means a weak team makes the playoffs, and they are summarily destroyed. Same will happen in college football. It isn't a big deal.
You can use the rankings to argue the 3 at-large bids because you have to use something. But auto-bids should be auto bids. Keep the politics out of them.
Sometimes they go to the Conference title game or win one game, which is IMO totally unfair and wrong. Of course, this also fits my view that we let way too many teams in the playoffs--my preference would be that no one with a record worse than 11-5 could even get into the NFL playoffs. That's the only way to ensure a poor team doesn't get hot at the right time and beat better more deserving teams. I think playoffs should only go to elite teams in every sport--and you prove whether you are elite or not in the regular season.
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If 6-6 Iowa beats 12-0 Ohio St. for the B1G championship it should not be in the CFB Playoff. PERIOD.
So take all of your overreaction and think about that for 2 seconds and you'll realize that having conference champions is not the end all-be all.
The NFL doesn't have championship games, so your comparison is stupid.
April 21st, 2015 at 10:24 PM ^
For the once-every-two-decades of such matchups, if 12-0 OSU loses that game, i.e. when it matters, that's an equally strong argument that they don't belong either. Think about that for two seconds.
How about a new rule for conference championship games, where if the winning team had at least 3 losses coming in, gets outplayed (trails in all statistics), but somehow pulls it off, there will be some kind of panel vote to determine if the outcome should be reversed,
Subjectivity has no place. Everybody needs to deprogram their BCS-brainwashed minds that it's all about who's got the best resume. PO teams should earn it on the field, i.e. conference champs.
One thing the playoffs will continue to show is that it's very difficult to consistently pick the best 2 teams out of the field.
Yes, we're all brainwashed by the BCS. It was just such an amazingly popular system.
April 21st, 2015 at 10:27 PM ^
And...my first ever dub-post.
It does give that 6-6 Iowa team, and other teams whose seasons are essentially over, some incentive to play their very best in the Championship game against 12-0 OSU, otherwise, what incentive do they have to "leave it all on ther field" and not just lay down when they get behind?
The only thing I might like to see is for the semi-finals to also be played on campus, but everything else you suggest is spot on, including the requirement that a conference autobid only comes if its champion is in the Top 12 (I could even go with Top 14).
I wouldn't be surprised if this is where college football goes sooner rather than later. Yes, there is in a contract in place that runs through the late 2020s, but CFB isn't going to wait that long because each year, at least one of the five major conferences is going to be left out of the playoff and they'll all want skin in the game.
I don't mind either the 6 or 8 model. If it's 6 you can do P-5 champs + 1 at large with the top 2 receiving byes. If it's 8 then it's the P-5 champs + 3 at large bids, no byes.
I should add that I loathe the idea of a 2 loss team making the playoff though.
I think 8 is the right number. That provides each of the Power 5 conferences a seat at the table plus at-large bids from Mid-majors and Power 5's.
A mid major will never win the thing in football so what's the point of inviting them when they would be taking up a spot of a team that actually has the athletes to compete?
If a mid-major makes it into the top 8 at the end of the season, probably due to being undefeated and an unusually strong schedule, then they absolutely deserve to be invited to the big dance.
It would probably never happen, but they shouldn't be excluded just for not being a P5 school.
8 teams is too few to be giving bids to mid majors. I want a 16 team playoff.
The NCAA DI Playoff is a 20-team field. Sam Houston State would have played 17 games if they beat NDSU in the semifinals last year.
It can be done. 16 is enough to give mid major conference champions autobids and still give out at-large bids to teams that actually have a chance to win it that didn't win their conference.
LOL this couldn't be more accurate.
but people were saying OSU would never beat Alabama, then they put em on the field and the impossible happened. I think it would take a once-in-a-decade kind of mid-major to pull it off, but someone will eventually.