Discussion: Why are the CFP spots decided via a committee vs. average of polls (i.e. BCS rankings)?
It is something I think of every season as I see the inconsistencies in the CFP committee's criteria and ranking logic.
I remember the old Bowl Championship Series (BCS) system from 1998-2013, and everyone's gripe with how at the end of the day the system only allowed for two teams to compete for the National Championship. So birthed, the College Football Playoff system...
However, it never made sense to me why the BCS ranking system of taking a conglomerate of computer-driven and human-drive polls was abandoned. It seemed to average out the opinions of multiple sources, and at the end of the day spit out a pretty agreeable top-4 teams.
Was there actually a legitimate argument against using the BCS rankings to determine the playoff teams?
November 10th, 2021 at 10:40 AM ^
Why? $$$
(Keep in mind this committee is not only choosing who is in the CFP, but also who goes to which bowls. The ultimate purpose is to choose whomever they can rationally justify - and a "black box" process helps - to maximize revenue in the aggregate.)
November 10th, 2021 at 11:50 AM ^
This! But also $$$ in a slightly different way. You can't sell a TV program on a computer algorithm or ask it questions about why one school was chosen over another.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:59 AM ^
Yes, the "black box" is the gift that keeps on giving.
I vividly recall when the move to a 4-team model was announced (by the BCS mouthpiece Hannock that had been decrying the need for a playoff for years). It was painfully obvious then that this was simply an intermediate measure intended to generate fan interest/controversy to eventually move to something larger... why else have it 4 when 5 "Power" conferences exist (plus ND and the occasional G5 darling)?
November 10th, 2021 at 2:28 PM ^
ND should definitively be told to fuck itself w/r/t special treatment in the new order. Their conference/no conference/sort-of conference bullshit needs to end.
November 10th, 2021 at 4:58 PM ^
Bingo.
There is way too much money involved here to allow some sort of objective, viewpoint-neutral methodology determine the rankings when the rankings determine matchups and the matchups determine entertainment value (and therefore revenue).
The whole point right now is to inflate big names and incite controversy.
November 10th, 2021 at 10:44 AM ^
Look back at how the BCS worked out most years and you have your answer? It was a garbage system as well. Turns out trying to limit it to 2 or 4 teams isn't going to make most people happy. This will not change no matter how it's done.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:00 AM ^
The more teams you add to the playoffs, the more teams will nearly miss out. That is, with 2 teams there are probably around 5 teams every year that could make a legitimate case to be included. If the field goes to 16, then there will probably be 25 teams that could make a legitimate case for inclusion.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:33 AM ^
Another way to look at this is that the teams that are getting screwed are going to be worse as the playoffs expand.
A two team playoff system potentially screws the best or second-best team. How you define best here isn't all that important.
A four team playoff system makes it much less likely that the top two teams are left out. The teams more likely to be screwed are the third and fourth best teams.
An eight team playoff means the teams that are getting screwed are most likely to be the fifth through eighth best teams.
A sixteen team playoff means that the teams getting screwed are in the bottom half of the top twenty.
So sure, there will be more complaints as the playoffs expand, but from lesser teams. I can live with that.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:47 AM ^
Yeah although I'm already prepared to be nauseated at "why 8-4 Alabama deserves their playoff spot" arguments
November 10th, 2021 at 12:06 PM ^
My only question is...When is Bama going 8-4? Sounds like a fun season.
November 10th, 2021 at 12:15 PM ^
2027 - mark it down now. Saban's-brain-in-a-jar-coached Bama goes to Columbus and loses. Lincoln Riley beats them 65-62. 1st year Texas coach Tom Herman Mark II gets their yearly "Texas is back" big win. And LSU, coached by Mel Tucker, parlays his big win into an NFL job. (Orgeron takes over as interim.)
November 10th, 2021 at 3:43 PM ^
I'm all for seeing Phillip J. Fry sprinkling fish food into Saban's head-in-a-jar. Would make for a good episode of Futurama. President Nixon's head wants to replace the Spiro Agnew robot with Saban's head, but the Planet Express crew mistakenly drops the head off at MomCorp, and Mom schemes to transplant Saban's head onto her idiot son and buys the local Blernsball team to install him as coach.
There's a reason I never caught on as a writer for The Simpsons...
November 10th, 2021 at 8:15 PM ^
Ah…a man of culture, I see.
November 10th, 2021 at 12:37 PM ^
That's what I've always said. People will always complain about being left out of the field for a playoff, no matter the sport or how many teams make it in. But compare the outrage of teams being left out by the BCS to teams left out of the NCAA March Madness tournament. It's big deal when a 1 loss conference champ who only lost a close game on the road is left out, versus a 13-13 (or whatever record) team from the 7th best conference in basketball doesn't make the tournament.
It's all about the sweet spot, and figuring out how to get ALL the deserving teams (not just the 2 best, because as the NY Giants have shown, the best team doesn't always win a playoff scenario).
November 10th, 2021 at 3:20 PM ^
There may be more teams that have a case, but I'm not sure how legitimate it would be. A 3-4 loss team arguing for the right to be champion holds far less merit, with me at least, than an undefeated team that's won its conference no matter how weak the conference is.
ESPN will give airtime to anyone who wants to argue about it. I don't care about that. I just want a system that finds the true champion and expansion increases the odds of that to me.
November 10th, 2021 at 4:38 PM ^
Doesn’t mathematically make sense because if there were more spots in the playoff then literally more teams wouldn’t be left out and more teams would have a chance. Complaining is just part of being a fan, but would be nice to a have a true tournament where you have to win more than 2 in a row and teams that had 2-3 couple bumps in the regular season would still get a shot
November 10th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
Going off the final regular season rankings prior to the bowl games, the top-4 playoff-bound teams would have been from the 2006-2013 seasons would have been:
- 2013-2014
- #1 Florida State vs. #4 Michigan State
- #2 Auburn vs. #3 Alabama
- 2012-2013
- #1 Notre Dame vs. #4 Florida
- #2 Alabama vs. #3 Ohio State
- 2011-2012
- #1 LSU vs. #4 Stanford
- #2 Alabama vs. #3 Oklahoma State
- 2010-2011
- #1 Auburn vs. #4 Wisconsin
- #2 Oregon vs. #3 TCU
- 2009-2010
- #1 Alabama cs. #4 Cincinnati
- #2 Texas vs. #3 TCU
- 2008-2009
- #1 Florida vs. #4 Alabama
- #2 Oklahoma vs. #3 Texas
- 2007-2008
- #1 Ohio State vs. #4 Georgia
- #2 LSU vs. #3 Oklahoma
- 2006-2007
- #1 Ohio State vs. #4 LSU
- #2 Florida vs. #3 Michigan
November 10th, 2021 at 10:51 AM ^
The voters of the AP and Coaches' polls are for the most part, first and foremost, partisan followers of specific teams. In addition to their pathological biases they pretty much don't know a damn thing about the actual game-nor do they understand interscholastic sports in general. It doesn't matter if you take the average of 2 or 20 sets of bad information-the result is still woefully incorrect. The idea of the committee is to have a group of people who both know the game and have, at least, controlled biases. There will be disagreements among even informed sources. But here, the average of 13 valid opinions beats the hell out of unmitigated partisan ignorance.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:25 AM ^
This.
AP and CP are terrible ways to evaluate the top teams in CFB. They start polls pre-season when you have absolutely no data other than reputation and it greatly affects how the teams are rated for the rest of the season. I don't know why anyone would want these stone-age relics to determine who gets into playoffs. The current system may not be perfect, but it is certainly better than AP/CP.
November 10th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
Those preseason biases, even if not formally reflected by CFP rankings before the season, are very clearly showing up. No other way that a Bama team with one half decent win and a bunch of meh would otherwise be the #2 team
November 10th, 2021 at 1:49 PM ^
Also why do we need some strictly logical based, if-then ranking system. It’s college football where you have 130 teams playing 12 games each. There is pretty much no objective way to determine a ranking for every team. This isn’t baseball where you have 162 games, or even NFL where you play your whole division home and away. Schedules are wildly unbalanced. There’s going to be some “eye test” involved.
November 10th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
I think the UM-MSU rankings show that it's not as logic-based as it's sometimes made out to be. UM is clearly the better team to almost every person watching outside of East Lansing. However, it also leads to things like Texas A&M being ranked #11 after losing to 2 unranked teams (even though they beat Alabama and Auburn).
November 10th, 2021 at 5:29 PM ^
Yeah that’s my point. People are acting like there’s only one thing that should matter: head to head. And some here want computers to rank everything. I’m saying I don’t think that’s realistic in this sport.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
Completely agree.
Phil Fulmer had UM #4 after the 1997 season. The polls suck for determining anything of importance. They are best thought of as only for entertainment.
Some of those computer polls had wacky results too. They are better now, but they keep tinkering with the formulas because no one really knows what's the best way to do them.
November 10th, 2021 at 4:55 PM ^
You're right and it's a good example, but one of our fanbase's problems is hanging our collective hats on things that happened a quarter-century ago.
November 10th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
I think that the answer, in reality, is because many people find change exciting. And also because that system was sort of tried and the same people who don't like this system (people who aren't fans of the same six teams that are best at cheating and get in year after year) also didn't like that system.
In the span of my college football fandom, from about the mid-70s to now, the most fun system was in the way-back: There was one bowl for the Big 10. We played round-robin and the champion was decided by those NINE games, not one stupid money-grab game. That champion when to the Rose Bowl on New Years day and everyone else sat home and watched.
All the bowl games meant something back then. There were no 5-7 teams playing in them. The pre-season games were chosen to best prepare the teams for the conference games and those pre-season games didn't mean diddly about whether the team went to a bowl game, except for how they prepared the team for the rest of the season. So we didn't schedule a bunch of NIUs or Incarnate Word and you didn't see Ohio State or Alabama playing what amounts to intramural teams in the middle of the season, either.
Sure, there were debates about who the 'best' team was at the end of the season. And no, those debates were never really settled. And that hasn't changed now. If it had there wouldn't be people arguing for a bigger 'playoff' at the end of the season. Those debates among fans are an integral part of college football and so they won't ever go away. It's borderline psychotic to believe we want an end to the thing we spend so much energy doing for nearly half of every year.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:03 AM ^
You having much luck keeping folks off your lawn?
November 10th, 2021 at 11:12 AM ^
you didn't see Ohio State or Alabama playing what amounts to intramural teams in the middle of the season, either
With respect to Alabama, this isn't the case.
In 2000, Alabama played UCF in late October. UCF was in its 5th season in D-IA.
In 2006, Alabama played Louisiana-Monroe in September and FIU in late October.
In 2007, Alabama played Louisiana-Monroe in late October.
In 2008, Alabama played Arkansas State in early November.
And to top it off, in Alabama's NC season in 2009, they played FCS program Chattanooga in late November, the week before the Iron Bowl with Auburn.
And to top it even more off, in 2010 Alabama played FCS program Georgia State in mid-November. That was Georgia State's first year in existence. It was also the week before the Iron Bowl.
And to top it even more off than that, in Alabama's NC season in 2011, they played FCS program Georgia Southern the week before the Iron Bowl.
It continues—in Alabama's NC season of 2012, they played FCS program Western Carolina in mid-November, a week before the Iron Bowl.
In 2013, Alabama played FCS program Chattanooga in late November, the week before the Iron Bowl.
All of this was in the BCS era.
November 10th, 2021 at 4:57 PM ^
And if the BCS had started one year earlier, Michigan would have played Nebraska to determine the definitive 1997 national champion.
November 10th, 2021 at 10:59 AM ^
Institute an 8-team playoff comprised of the champs of the P5 Conferences plus three at large teams.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:09 AM ^
Incorporate p5 conf championship games (loser out of playoffs) and have 6 at large teams that play 3 games conf championship weekend and you can have 16 team playoff with only 3 more games than the model you suggest.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:25 AM ^
Not a fan of autobids tied to specific conferences in an 8-team format. Maybe "top 5" conference champs would be ok.
Generally I think conference championships should be rewarded and considered, but:
- Conferences are arrayed in very uneven ways (one very powerful division, one very weak). Gives a huge advantage to Big 10 West, Pac 12 South, ACC Coastal teams to only have to win one big game at the end.
- With increasing size, conference schedules have high variance. A team might play all the elite powers in their conference, or none of them. "SEC schedule" could mean a *lot* of things. SEC hypemen have used that trick for years as a substitute for actual SOS.
- Non-conference games (thus, big wins or losses) are irrelevant to conference championships
- Conference champs are sometimes decided by arcane tiebreakers that have little to do with quality of the teams involved (e.g. the 3-way scenario we discussed with M/MSU/OSU)
- Conference championship games can muddy the playoff picture as often as they clarify it, particularly if there are upsets. The ACC, Big 10, and Pac-12 have had some 4 or even 5 loss teams win their conference.
What will end up happening at times is 8-5 Wisconsin in the playoff over an 11-1 (but 2nd place in division) M/MSU/etc because there aren't enough at-large bids.
So yeah we should try to reward champs but also have some flexibility for such scenarios. Doing autobids operates on the assumption that conferences are decided fairly and logically.
November 10th, 2021 at 2:02 PM ^
Using 2019 result, if you go straight top 16 (which seems like a reasonable alternative to autobids). You'd have 5 SEC, 5 B1G, 2 big12, 2 pac 10 and 1 Acc + ND.
In 2019, if you let all conference championship game participants in, that would add Virginia. My guess is that it would be pretty usual for a p5 conference to have at least 2 in the top 16 and very likely the two teams in each conference championship game is top 16. Sure there is the possibility that a conference championship participant would not be top 16, but that is only likely at most 1-2 teams each year.
In 2019 an "unworthy" Virginia p5 conference championship participant would push out a the 5th B1g team. Who doesn't, imho, have a strong playoff claim anyway.
Add in the conference championship participants are selected via objective criteria and, to me, the occasional Virginia sneaking in (they were 23rd) is worth making sure each p5 conference has at least 2 cfp participants. Vs subjective selection of 16 teams.
2019 CFP top 25 final rankings
1.LSU13-0
2.Ohio State13-0
3.Clemson13-0
4.Oklahoma12-1
5.Georgia11-2
6.Oregon11-2
7.Baylor11-2
8.Wisconsin10-3
9.Florida10-2
10.Penn State10-2
11.Utah11-2
12.Auburn9-3
13.Alabama10-2
14.Michigan9-3
15.Notre Dame10-2
16.Iowa9-3
November 10th, 2021 at 2:59 PM ^
Yeah, autobids in a 16-team playoff make more sense than in an 8-team playoff, which was the proposal I was debating.
The argument against 16-team playoffs are more that they dilute the regular season, and with the SEC consolidating power, we might see 8-4 type teams arguing for a spot. 5+ SEC teams means a lot of rematches, which makes regular season games sadly redundant. I think 8 is about the right number, but it would help if conferences were structured to resolve themselves better than they currently do.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:04 AM ^
We were all told at the beginning that polls would be a factor in the decision, but certainly not the extent of the decision. How much do they matter? Well, they never specifically said. Do they matter? They must, at least a little bit - that's just an informal observation based on the limited history of this format. As Gary Barta keenly pointed out, roundaboutly and perhaps without meaning to do so, there is a lot to this....like, stuff.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:05 AM ^
Dear Santa,
I would like two things for Christmas:
1. Expanded Playoff
2. Professional College Football Refs
EDIT:
3. Fewer commercials
November 10th, 2021 at 1:35 PM ^
....and
4. Our university allowing players to use the block M AND actually helping our players with NIL endorsements.
UNLEASH THE MICHIGAN MONEY CANNON!!!
November 10th, 2021 at 4:59 PM ^
Is the split-M allowed?
November 10th, 2021 at 11:12 AM ^
The current system is a bit of a fart fest. The criteria changes with no advance notice each year. The old BCS system was undeniably a fart fest. The computers sometimes made no sense. The process has always been flawed, whether it's been computer-driven or human-driven. The bowl system was geared towards maximizing payouts to fat cats wearing ugly sports coats rather than crowning a true champion. Every other sport, pro and college, settles things on the field - playoff systems allow teams to peak late (not good for us traditionally).
The only system with integrity would be a playoff system in which spots are earned 100% based on game results. No humans. No computers. For example, 8 or 12 or 16 conferences or divisions. Each conference team plays each other every year. Tiebreakers are head-to-head results. Three-way or four-way tiebreakers could prioritize road wins over home wins. Champions get a tournament bid. Except the championship game itself, playoff games are all played on-campus. I'm OK with humans deciding seeding. Incentivize tougher non-conference scheduling, but never penalize tougher scheduling.
Conference championship games at neutral sites are the worst. If they were gone tomorrow, I would not miss them. I'd much rather see the elite FBS teams play each other on-campus in late-November.
I'd also much rather see rivalry games the Saturday BEFORE Thanksgiving, not after. The Saturday after Thanksgiving should become the premier non-conference weekend. August/early-September results should become quasi-exhibitions. If FBS schools could think just a bit outside the box, they could create a dynamic scheduling system in which the best teams would face each other on-campus after Thanksgiving. Think about it. It's November 27th, and Michigan is hosting LSU. Ohio State is traveling to Tuscaloosa. Wisconsin is hosting Georgia. Penn State is playing in Eugene. Etc.
Rant over.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:14 AM ^
Just FYI, here’s what the rankings would be of the BCS was still around
1: UGA
2: Alabama
3: Cincinnati
4: Oklahoma
5: Ohio State
6: ND
7: Michigan
8: MSU
9: Oregon
10: Oklahoma State
November 10th, 2021 at 11:29 AM ^
Never liked that the South Bend Herald computer rankings took up 40% of the formula
November 10th, 2021 at 12:42 PM ^
It's not perfect by any means, but this is still way better than the CFP committee. And the best part: we can look through the various polls and rankings to see how the BCS picked the teams it did, AND we know that it'll use the exact same criteria every single week, rather than waffling back and forth based on whatever silly reason the CFP decides it wants to favor that week
November 10th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
Why don't they just establish playoff participants as meeting some set criteria (division winners and wild card entries) instead of a voting system like they do in all professional sports? They should work to get the voting system eliminated from the equation.
I agree this is only likely with an expanded playoff, and I'm certainly fine with that instead of taking 120+ teams and trying to pick a measly 4 out of the group by using terms like "passing the eye test", "quality wins", "they played the same team but this team won by more points".
November 10th, 2021 at 1:13 PM ^
There isn't a phrase in sports I hate more than "eye test."
The same pundits who get games wrong every single week -- who tell you that there's no way Texas A&M would beat Alabama -- declare with unshaken confidence what would definitely happen if two hypothetical teams met, because of "the eye test"
November 10th, 2021 at 11:22 AM ^
The coach's poll is a farce and including it in your determination is madness.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:27 AM ^
Because in this country, we like to think all problems can be solved by having a “committee” or “coalition” of “experts”
November 10th, 2021 at 11:44 AM ^
Czars, too. We have a bit of a fetish with czars.
At some point in the 2010s, I recall we had an Asian Carp czar.
November 10th, 2021 at 11:56 AM ^
Ahh yes. Big problem always needs a “Czar” what do they do? Well, czar stuff of course!
November 10th, 2021 at 1:49 PM ^
Sure opened a can of czardines there!
November 10th, 2021 at 12:44 PM ^
Yeah, right? I mean just look at those stupid experts who were in charge of the Apollo program. Bunch of jerks telling us how to build a rocket. And I really hate that those food inspection and safety "experts" who think they can help solve problems. Bunch of fools I tell you!!