This year NCAA division I football will have a four team playoff to determine the national champion. I feel that this is a good system to determine which team is actually the best team. it seems that several sports writers are in favor of an 8 or even 16 team playoff. I think four teams is best because in some years, their is not a clear distinction between #2 and #3, and a three team playoff would be impractical. Most years, however, their is a noticeable difference between the #8 team and the #1 team. This year, for example, UCLA at #8 appears not to be as good a team as #1 Alabama. Expanding the playoffs to include 8 or even 16 teams would only give the worse teams a chance to win the championship. I think that this would defeat the purpose of determining which team is actually the best, as any given game a superior team could loose to an inferior team, the way OSU lost to Virginia Tech this year. A larger number of teams in the playoffs would increase the likelihood of the team that wins it all not actually being the best. What say you fellow dopers? If you could design a system to determine the NCAA division I football championship, what system would you use? I think the current 4 team system is good as is.
The number one problem I have with playoffs is tying them to the bowl games. I believe even two games are hard enough on the fans.
Let’s say you’re an Ohio State fan. The first round will be in the Rose Bowl. So you have to pony up for air, hotel, car, food, and game tickets to Pasadena.
Then next week, you have to again pay for air, hotel, car, food, and game tickets to Dallas. All during the holidays!
Now give that Buckeye fan another game during an 8-team playoff. Remember to fill 80,000-seat stadiums. I suppose you could a home game* for the first round, which puts one team at a significant disadvantage. Say your team scores the upset, now you’ll have to scramble for the next round.
- On the other hand, I would love to see teams from the SEC and Florida play a December game in Columbus or Lincoln.
Although I think that pretty much every other sport lets too many teams into the playoff, college football is the exception. The season is so short, and there are so many teams, and so few games matching top teams from different conferences, that I think it is very difficult to accurately identify who the best teams are.
A 4 team playoff is especially problematic because there are 5 generally recognized power conferences, so at least one major conference champion will be left on the outside every year, to the outraged howls of its supporters.
I would go with an 8 team playoff. My concern about a 16 team system isn’t so much about watering down the competition (after all, if the #16 team during the regular season beat #1, #8, #4 and #2 in consecutive weeks, they would certainly move up to #1) as about not wanting to extend the season too much due to the physically demanding and dangerous nature of the game and in deference to those players who, unlike Ohio State’s new QB, actually aspire to learn some stuff during their college careers. 8 teams allows for all the conference champions to qualify, and leaves three wild card spots for other deserving teams.
I would make room for this extra game by doing away with the conference championship games and simply having every conference send its best team based on regular season results. I believe that these championship games will fade away anyway under a playoff system, as they only create the chance that a conference’s “champion” will clearly not actually be its best team (see: Alabama vs. Missouri this year), thus hurting that conference’s chances of being represented in the playoff. So, first round just after the regular season ends, second round on New Years Day, final a week later.
I favor a 16 team playoff. What you have in CFB is a caste system, there are untouchables that can’t get in at 13-0. Your MAC, MW, Sun Belt, fit in that group. Then there are those that have to be unbeaten to be considered- your power 5 conference teams that don’t have the big name- teams like Virginia or Northwestern or Kentucky. Then there are teams that can get in with 1 loss, most of your power 5 teams except the Chosen Ones. The Chosen Ones can get in with 2 losses, teams like Alabama, Ohio State, USC, Oklahoma. I say screw all that, let every FBS conference (there are 10 of them) plus 6 at large teams among the runners up and independents. Play the first round at the home field of teams 1-8 in mid December. Play the second round around Christmas, the semis and finals as we do now. So once in a generation, #16 knocks off #1. So be it.
I’d say there isn’t really enough talent in CFB to support all of the FBS teams being ‘equal’ in terms of playoff opportunities. The teams outside the power conferences just aren’t as good, and it’s not all that close.
I’d go with 8 teams, broken up as follows. 5 power conference champions, 1 non-power conf. champ (i.e. the top 6 conference champs), and 2 at-large. First two games are home games based on overall ranking. Championship is a Bowl game.
If you take all the conf champs, many of the first round games are going to be uncompetitive stinkers.
The main reason people call for an 8-team playoff is not that the #8 team is necessarily competitive, but because the #5 team usually is. You could have a 6-team tournament, like the NCAA does in men’s water polo, but a team having a bye week might be too much of an advantage.
One problem with an 8-team tournament: do you give the “Power 5” conference champions automatic berths, and if you do, should a sixth automatically go to a non-Power 5 conference champion. in which case, only two “at large” teams get in, and there’s a good chance the #5 and/or #6 teams are left out.
As for the travel, nobody seems to have much problem with the three weeks of travel needed in the men’s basketball tournament, especially in the “pod” system where the first two rounds, the regionals, and the Final Four may be in three completely different parts of the country.
I think that an 8 team playoff would be workable. What I’d do is guarantee any conference champion a playoff spot if they finish in the top 10 of the rankings, and then fill out the field with at large teams based on the rankings. Play the first round of games the 2nd or 3rd week of December at the home fields of seeds 1-4 and the semis and finals the way it’s scheduled now.
So much reasonable discussion and thoughtful ideas in this thread. Am I in the right place? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
I have always been a strong advocate of the 4-team playoff idea. My thinking is that it actually is rare to have more than 4 teams that would truly, legitimately have a claim to be the best in any season. But I am starting to come around to the notion of 8. Sixteen or more, though, should be right out.
I see what you’re saying, but there’s a huge difference between filling basketball arenas and football stadiums. Not only that, but the first couple of weekends of the basketball tournament offer an assortment of attractive games at each site. It’s not the same as traveling to San Diego for a football game one week, then going to Miami the week after that for one game, and then making a trip to the championship game in Dallas the next week. Not too many college football fans could pull that off.
Not only do Basketball arenas have smaller seat capacity, the NCAA B-Ball tournament 1st weekend has 8 teams to fill the arena, and 4 teams in the Regionals, and 4 teams in the Final Four.
I am starting to come around to an idea like this. Here’s an intriguing thought I saw at the Outkick the Coverage site this week: expand to 8, while at the same time eliminating the conference championship games.
The deal for conference championship games is you have to have at least 12 teams split into divisions of at least 6, and division members have to play each other. That really limits the cross-division games. The SEC and B1G have 7-team divisions and 8-game conference schedules - after your six required division games, you have only 2 games left to divide among the other 7 teams. You may not see a certain conference member at your stadium for nearly a decade. Is that really a conference? Or two separate conferences with a loose connection and a final “championship”?
Plus, what does a conference championship game do if you have one clear-cut top team? The only thing you’re doing is setting up that team for an unfortunate loss at the worst possible time. Look at the Big XII - back when they had a championship game, I can think of two or three years where a BCS title-contending team lost the conference championship game.
So, by scrapping the conference championships you free up the conferences to schedule in a more reasonable manner. Perhaps have three “rivalry” opponents that you play every season, then rotate the rest of your schedule through all the remaining conference teams. You end up with a tie? Co-champions, what’s the big deal. Now you can play the quarterfinal round the same week you’re playing conference championships (or the week after, whatever). Let the quarterfinal losers play in a bowl, if one will have them, just like championship game losers can do now.
For your 8 playoff teams, you can go with the Power 5 conference winners plus three at-large. The ACC has a tie for co-champs? Bring them both. A non-power team like Boise State is undefeated and ranked 6th? They’re in. You can adjust your selection criteria, I suppose, but with a more reasonable conference schedule it’s more likely your conference champion is going to have a legitimate claim to a playoff spot. Let’s face it, if Mizzou had to play more of the SEC West teams during the season, do you think they’d be in line for a “win and in” game for the playoff, as they are this year? I mean, they lost to Indiana. In Columbia. Come on.
I have always really enjoyed conference championship games. They’ve been a fun part of college football. But with a playoff system in place, I agree their time is past. This notion I read about really intrigued me, and I would fully support it, myself.
Is it so rare to have more than four teams that someone can reasonably make a case for? And the key point is, nobody really knows, until they face each other.
I wasn’t thinking of the fans. The semi-finals and finals will sell out regardless of which teams are in them. Having the top 4 seeds host the quarter-final games should take care of filling those stadiums as well.
The problem with a “team X qualifies if it is in the top N” is, it’s too easy for the committee to game the system. Expect a lot of conference champions that would normally be 9th or 10th to end up 11th or 12th.
If it was up to me, the only restriction I would have is, a Why Are You Still In FBS (i.e. non-Power 5) conference champion does not get an automatic spot unless either (a) it is ranked higher than two of the five Power Conference champions, or (b) it is ranked higher than one of them, and that Power Conference champion is not in the top 16. In either case, the lowest-ranked Power 5 conference champion does not get an automatic spot. Yes, this system can be gamed as well.
8 team definitely. Top 6 conference champions by rankings which most years would be Power-5 + 1 mid-major but there may be an occasional year where a P5 team doesn’t make it like one year IIRC where the Pac-10 champ was California at #24. If that happens, TFB - do better with all of your P5 power. Last 2 spots are top-ranked at-large bids but no more than 2 teams per conference. The 16 team playoff is intriguing, kind of a NCAA/NIT format but I think it is too much.
The playoffs utilize the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar and Peach Bowl like they do now. The question is if teams are matched up by rankings or tradition. Like if the Pac-12 and Big-10 champion get in, do they go by ranking or both go to the Rose Bowl. If we go traditional, then the mid-majors and at-larges go to the closest available game like Mountain West would go to the Fiesta or even the Rose Bowl if a Pac-12 or Big-10 team doesn’t make it that year.
For the regular season, each team plays 8 conference games and has 5 non-conference games but many teams like to schedule cupcakes so I would put in a rule that if you are in a P5 Conference you must schedule at least 2 games a season against a mid-major opponent. As for conference championships, I would tend to eliminate them because I think once you start having 14, 15, 16 teams in a conference that are split into 2 divisions you really have two different conferences and so one could argue that a conference like the SEC should be split. Do that enough and the 16-team playoff may make more sense.
Yeah, it’s just my opinion, I know. I think this season, actually, one can make a strong case that more than four teams have a reasonable claim.
I also want to retroactively edit something in my previous long post, so I don’t sound like a complete idiot. Of course Mizzou is not in line for a spot in this year’s playoff, even if they beat Bama on Saturday. What I meant to say is, would a team like Mizzou have a shot at the SEC championship (which would be an auto playoff spot in my hypothetical) had they played more SEC West teams this season?
Hopefully my total idiocy has been debunked, and I can return to only being something of an idiot.
Really, 13 regular season games? Hmm. Could work, sure.
I would also advocate for the quarterfinal round to either be on-campus at the higher seed, or at a regional location like conference championship games are now. Let’s give the fans a fighting chance to actually go see their team play.
The question is not are there more than 4 teams but rather what the 4 teams are. If the current format/committee existed in the past, would these teams have been considered top 4 and made it in the playoffs to prove it on the field?
BYU in the 80’s? Recent Boise State or Utah teams? the one-loss-after-an-emotional-plane-crash Oklahoma State team? Baylor-who-has-a-resume-equal-to-and-beat-TCU this year? Ohio State/FSU/whoever is #5 this year? 2001 Colorado (think about it or look up the Big-12 championship game). 2013 UCF?
The way this committee/BCS/polling has been skewed against mid-majors and teams that lose late in the year and the inconsistent standards that are applied to different teams means that we need to allow that some years at least some of the #5-8 teams deserve a shot at the playoffs.
Personally I would suggest a 24 team bracket. Crazy you say, those kids have classes there is no way that could work. It works great for D2 and looks a little like this . In order to minimize the travel you’d break the country into 4 regions and the first couple of round would be by region with the higher ranked team getting a home game.
Most D2 schools play a 10 game schedule to allow for a longer playoffs. If you take the vaunted Alabama schedule and chop out Florida Atlantic, West Carolina and Southern Miss they would now have plenty of time for a full tournament and over all more competitive games. The final 3 games could be traditional bowl games at a neutral site to eliminate the competitive advantage while still rewarding better teams with the game receipts for the early rounds of the tournament.
It a simple system that is already in place why try and get creative at the D1 level.
I suggest a 6-team playoff with the #1 and #2 teams having a bye. This gives more meaning to the regular season games (having a bye in the playoff would be a huge advantage) while allowing more teams in. I wouldn’t have conference champions automatically included just because I believe the 6 best teams should play regardless of what conference they are in. I think the BCS formula, while not perfect, was good enough in the later years to choose the six teams that would be included.
8 or more teams is too much IMO. Even with my 6-team playoff, I’d prefer to shorten the regular season by one OOC opponent. Conferences could independently decide whether or not to have a championship game, and most would because of the money, but it probably wouldn’t be beneficial to the teams.
This just in. Florida Atlantic, West Carolina and Southern Miss are following UAB’s lead and dropping Football as a sport.
College football is about tradition, rivalries and regionalism. I want the Pac-10 vs. the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl every year on Jan. 1.
I don’t want a playoff at all. If anything, I’d go for a plus-one format – play the bowl season as traditional, and then #1 vs. #2 on January 15 or so.
I also want some games to end in a tie, and, yes, I do dig the wishbone.