College Playoff picture

[switched]

How come college doesn't have a playoff?

If you were in charge, how many teams would get to be in a playoff? I'd probably go with 8.

[New at pd]

I'd go with a combination bowl/playoff system. Take the winners of all of the major conferences (Big 10, Big 12, Big East, SEC, ACC, WAC, Pac-10) and add 5 at-large bids, for 12 teams. Then, do it like the NCAA hockey tournament. The top 4 get first round byes. Teams that neither automatically qualified nor were invited at large are then selected for bowl games.

[Ray Finkle]

I'd go with an 8 team playoff. The winners of the 6 major conferences (Big XII, Big X, SEC, Pac-10, ACC, Big East) get automatic berths. Then let the BCS rankings determine who the two at-large teams are. The bowl games should be incorporated in the playoff. New Years Day could be the first round of the playoffs or possibly the second round. I've always liked the idea of the National Championship game being played in the week off before the Super Bowl. There's no week off this year, but if there always was, that would be a great time to have the title game (although that does extend the season quite a bit).

[Actuary321]

PA: you don't consider the Mountain West a major conference?

And why should the Conference champ get an automatic bid? Just pick the top 8, 12 or 16 from the BCS and go for it.

I see no reason LSU should be playing in a BCS bowl this year.

[Anonymous]

8 teams just doesn't cut it. No way.

If you can have an undefeated team (BYU or whoever), and they wouldn't make the playoff, then you have to expand the number of teams that qualify. And I don't care if they get whooped by 40 to Miami, they deserve to be there.

16 is the least number of teams to have this system. I'm not a real big fan of the bye and having 12 teams.

[switched]

The only problem I see with more than 8 teams is a long, drawn-out playoff system like the NFL, where no one watches anymore because it takes like 2 months, and way too many mediocre teams get in, and a random injury can spoil a whole season.

[Ultimate Anyone?]

Actually, every level of college but Div I already has a playoff system, and it seems to work.

Does anyone know how the teams are chosen for the other divisions?

On a side note, I must be in the minority, but I really liked the bowl system the way it was before the BCS got a hold of it. The Rose Bowl will be very strange to me this year. I personally would rather have the debates over who's #1 than a playoff who can tell you who was "the best" for the last 3 or 4 weeks of the season.

Then again, I'm still naive to believe that the college game is different that the pros (and should be), so take what I say with a grain of salt....

[New at pd]

I forgot about Mountain West. Fine, then have 8 automatics and 4 at-large.

[Ray Finkle]

I don't like the idea of a 16-team playoff. I don't want the regular season diminished too much. The rivalries are what make college football great. I want those games (Tenn-Fla, Neb-Okl, Mich-OSU) to determine who goes to the playoffs and who doesn't. I think you could take 8 teams and feel pretty comfortable that you aren't leaving out any deserving teams.

The interesting thing about the current system is that the BCS is supposed to be a mostly non-biased method for determining who should play for the title. But if the formula does not result in the #1 and #2 teams from the AP and coaches polls, then there's controversy. So basically, we want a formula that's not biased, but gives biased results. Obviousy, the formula didn't work out too well this year, in that you have a team playing for the national championship that didn't win its conference. But if situations like that can be avoided (i.e. winning conference a requirement to be eligible), I think the formula works ok.

[egg]

The following comes from here (http://collegebcs.com/canThisBeFixed.html). It is the best explanation I have seen for why we don't have a playoff.

There are several problems involved with creating a Division I-A football playoff. The biggest hurdles are the political ones, though
there are logistical ones too. First and foremost, for whatever reason you choose to believe, the powers that be do not want one.
Whether you choose to believe it is because the six major conferences want to keep as much money for themselves as possible, or
that they like the tradition of the bowl system, or that they like the fact that so many of their teams can play postseason football this
way, or whatever, that's the way it is. I do not know how you force the BCS commissioners to want a playoff. Fans and media can
scream from their soapboxes all they want, but it is not going to persuade anybody that matters. If public outcry was important, we
would have had a playoff years ago. In fact, I would bet that the Pac 10, the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl pull out of the BCS and go
back to their old ways before any of those groups join a full playoff system. The NCAA is in no position to force one because the 63
schools that make up the BCS are a majority of Division I-A, so they can pretty much dictate NCAA policy as well.

Before I go on, let me address some of the things I think would happen if the fantasy of a full playoff system ever becomes reality.
First of all, if there is a playoff, it would have to include at least eight teams because there is no way you get the six major
conferences to agree to one unless all their champions get invited. It is even more likely that you would have to have sixteen teams
so as to include all conference champions, but I am not sure what the membership will look like after (and if) the new membership
rules go into effect.

Secondly, at least until the semifinals, and probably until the finals, games have to be played at home fields. You can not expect
30-40 thousand fans for each side to make three or four neutral site trips on consecutive weekends, especially during the holidays. If
the games are on weekends, that is. The NFL plays both Saturday and Sunday during late December, so TV schedules may force
them off the weekends.

Finally, you have to find a way to convince university presidents, who are already dead-set against extending the season for a playoff,
that it is OK either to have a playoff during finals at many schools or extend the season into January long enough to finish one.

One more consequence of a playoff is that all the other bowls probably go away. Anybody interested in sponsoring the college
football postseason is going to get in on the playoff action if they can, not even-less-meaningful-than-they-are-now bowls. In fact, I
believe you will not see a playoff happen until the other (non-BCS) bowls start to dry up and go away.

For those of you who have noticed that playoffs are going on in the other divisions, let me remind you that they play a more compact
regular season, usually with fewer games, start their playoffs in mid-November and finish by mid-December. They also do not have to
concern themselves with things like television coverage with regard to scheduling.

That being said, if we somehow overcame those obsticles I would say an 8-team playoff with autoberths for the 6 power conference champions and 2 of the 4 champions from the following conferences: Conference USA (Louisville this year), MAC (Toledo), WAC (Louisiana Tech), and Mtn West (BYU). Or have those same 4 have a play-in game (with MAC vs. C-USA and WAC vs. Mtn. West) for a 10-team playoff.

[M.]

Ultimate Anyone? may be on to something. Why not go back to the old system, but then a week later have a MegaBowl or something between the two teams that most people agree are the most likely candidates for National Champ? Of course, if there were a 3-way split...

[switched]

Hey, anybody seen this website? I just found it, they say a BCS document got leaked:

http://www.angelfire.com/bc3/bcs_realignment/index.html

It says that the BCS is looking at a four team playoff that still preserves the conference ties to the 4 BCS bowls. They do it by adding two bowls. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but it looks interesting.

[Grits N Gravy]

Ah, the classic accidental e-mailing of a confidential document to a friend of a friend leak. Highly credible.

[switched]

Yeah, I guess it could be a fake. It's got some interesting concepts in there, though. Plus, it gets to some kind of playoff, 4 teams at least.

Jeez, at this point, I think I'd rather take ANY of the above playoff scenarios over the #1 vs. a very questionable #2 for the championship. Oregon's getting penalized for not running up the scores with their first stringers? Ridiculous.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

It could easily have been a proposal that was scrapped before being submitted to the BCS committee.
Even if it's not under consideration (i.e., some kind of false back-story), all the ideas are pretty reasonable.
I'd think that some current second-tier bowl cities might want those two "new" bowls.

One problem I see here would be having the national championship on the same weekend (mid-January) and city as an NFL playoff game. Especially on grass like in Tempe.

However, I agree with the whole concept: four-team playoff would only have a problem if five or more teams had identical 0- or 1-loss records. And then it still comes down to computer bias and strength of schedule.

[MountainHawk]

I believe the NFL only plays on Saturdays b/c there is no major college football in late December. If the NCAA had a playoff, the NFL would probably play their games only on Sunday.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

My proposal places a maximum limit on conference size.
Also, it requires conferences to agree to have teams play against other conferences' teams.
First order of business: Re-create the Southwestern Conference from the Texas teams in the Big-12 and the AK/MS/LA schools of the Southeastern.

[Toll Free]

How about this:

- Ditch the conference championship games.
- Require all teams, with the exception of Army vs. Navy, to finish their regular seasons the week before Thanksgiving. The only true "rivalry" that gets displaced at this point is Texas vs. Texas A&M.
- 16 team playoff, starting Thanksgiving weekend. Campus sites. One game Thursday night, 4 on Friday, 3 on Saturday. No overlap. Football heaven.
- Play the quarterfinals and semi-finals the following two weeks. Conference championship games were scheduled this late this year; no complaining about class time lost, finals, NFL, etc. The semi-final sites, and possibly the quarterfinals, can be put out to bid, like the basketball tournament does.
- National Championship: January 1st. Rotating sites.
- Losing teams can still qualify for a reduced slate of bowl games.
- Preference in the 16-team field to conference champions, vs., say, the 4th place team from the SEC.

Anyway, check out the matchups that this may have produced (I allowed for conference teams not to meet until the semi-finals at the earliest), and don't tell me that this wouldn't have kept you home from shopping:

1) Miami vs. 16) Louisville
:cool: Illinois vs. 9) Colorado
4) Oregon vs. 13) BYU
5) Florida vs. 12) Oklahoma

2) Texas (remember, no conf. champ. game) vs. 15) Fresno State
7) Maryland vs. 10) Stanford
3) Tennessee vs. 14) Virginia Tech
6) Nebraska vs. 11) Michigan

At this point, the discussion can turn to the "bubble" teams like LSU, Washington State, and South Carolina, who weren't going to win the national championship anyway, and on seedings, locations, etc.

[Mick Fan]

Toll Free -- That was perfect. I was just on the 'net looking for the exact same stuff.

I agree -- ditch all the stupid conference championship games.

The only change that I make would be to have 10 conference championship "automatic qualifiers" and six at-large teams. There are 11 conferences, but the lowest-rated would be left out. You gotta throw the power conferences a bone. This may allow Marshall or Toledo into the hunt.

I also like the idea of adjusting the seedings so that conference members don't meet until the National Seminfinals!

:smile:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mick Fan on 2001-12-27 19:03 ]</font>

[switched]

Toll Free:

Huge problems with your proposal: it'll never happen. You can't get there from here. If those proposals had been implemented from the start, everyone would agree with them, but you can't GET to them from the CURRENT situation.

Any reasonable proposal, that might have any chance of success, has to consider the following facts:

1) Conferences do not wish to be realigned, and the fans of those conferences do not wish to be subject to an involuntary realignment.

2) Conferences wish to choose their conference champion by their own rules. Some wish to have a championship of 1 vs. 2, some wish to have each half-conference champion play each other, while others simply wish to have the best conference record be the champion. CONFERENCES HAVE A LOT OF CLOUT AND CAN'T BE DISCOUNTED FROM ANY EQUATION. Any solution that tries to preempt the conferences' rights on this part are doomed to fail.

3) Although many of the smaller bowls might be willing to give up conference ties to have better matchups, the major historical bowls (BCS, plus probably Cotton and Citrus) are very content with their conference tie-ins, and are very loath to part with this piece of history and will actively campaign against it. BCS BOWLS HAVE A LOT OF CLOUT< TOO. This means that any proposal of the form "6 BCS champs + 2 at large" playing in the BCS bowls, with later playoffs, is doomed to fail. The Rose wants Big 10 and Pac 10. The Sugar wants the SEC, and so on.

4) There is a long history of using the entire season's results, not an extended playoff system like most other sports, to determine the champion. This, combined with the fact that football is a brutal, heavy injury sport which requires a week between games, would almost guarantee that any playoff system with more than 8 teams will not be implemented. This is regardless of the playoff system for lower divisions, it ain't gonna happen in I-A.

5) You need fair warning for the fans to buy tickets.

6) The BCS bowls have a monopoly on the National Championship game. They won't give up that monopoly and become merely a playoff game, the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar won't give it up. (That's the part about that document that I find unreal, even if the "new" bowls are owned by the other 4, would the big 4 drop the NC prestige 1/3 of the time? I don't think so.)


So I guess I have to come up with a system, huh? I liked the idea of the bowls matching with the conferences from that fake or real (or scrapped per DTNF) thing, so I'll use that.

Here goes:

Teams (8) that get picked: Any of the BCS conference champs if they're in the top 12 in the BCS ratings, with the remaining spots getting filled by the top-rated teams. Maybe add a provision for a ND or non-BCS conference champ to get a bid if they're, say, in the top 10, similar to current picks.

Seed these teams 1-8. 1/8, 2/7, 3/6, and 4/5 games are home games for the higher rated teams, played the week before Christmas. This gives 2 weeks off before the next game. Give each of these games a "bowl" name of some sort and a bowl sponsor/management team, nobody would like to have a top 8 team not go to a "bowl". Maybe call 'em the Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze bowls? You'd get credit card sponsors with that one! :wink:

New Year's Day: Winner of 1/8 plays winner of 4/5, and winner of 2/7 plays winner of 3/6. They play in BCS bowls to be determined by the conferences of the highest rated teams, i.e. an 8/4 and 7/3 matchup will try to fit the 3 team to the right bowl first, then the 4, and so on. There are 3 BCS bowls on New Year's Day, so 2 of them get a playoff game.

Also on New Year's Day: the final remaining BCS bowl gets two other at large teams, selected using a similar method as the current one.

National Championship in the rotating BCS bowl, a few weeks after that. I like the weekend thing in the doc, the NC should be on a Saturday or Sunday. I'd probably give them like 3 weeks to prepare, though, so injuries are even less of a factor for the most important game.

[Mick Fan]

Switched, this is just a hypothetical proposed plan. We all agree that this'll never happen; it's just our "dream" scenario. The old rich fogies who run the bowl games will never cave in. The bowl system also takes pressure off the coaches.

These stupid conference championship games are only a few years old, and they exist for $$$$$. I'm sick of hearing about how we can't have a playoff because it will make the season too long. Along with conference championship, there's a troublingly large amount of these "preseason" games the weekend before labor day. Throw in a preseason game, a conference championship game, and a bowl game, and the season is already 14 games long!

The one thing that I do not want to see is a playoff after the New Year's bowl games. Teams get 3-5 weeks off before the New Year's games. There's more than enough time for any kind of playoff during that time.