# College Football Playoff Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 29, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069 "2017-11-29T17:39:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/21 "2017-11-30T03:24:46Z")
Here’s my idea: 1. Expand the playoff to 8 teams (drop a non-conf game if necessary) 2. The committee meets to pick the playoff teams… 3. From the following pool **exclusively** : a. The 5 Power 5 Conference Champions b. The 5 Group of 5 Conference Champions c. The major Independents (Notre Dame, etc) d. The 5 Power 5 Conference Runners-Up (losers of the Conf. Champ game) That’s it. Nobody else is even eligible. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/22 "2017-11-30T03:57:38Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Here’s my idea: > > 1. Expand the playoff to 8 teams (drop a non-conf game if necessary) > 2. The committee meets to pick the playoff teams… > 3. From the following pool **exclusively** : > a. The 5 Power 5 Conference Champions > b. The 5 Group of 5 Conference Champions > c. The major Independents (Notre Dame, etc) > d. The 5 Power 5 Conference Runners-Up (losers of the Conf. Champ game) > > That’s it. Nobody else is even eligible. Or… 1. Auburn 2. Alabama 3. Georgia 4. LSU ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/23 "2017-11-30T04:03:19Z")
With no Troy LSU is sure to win it all ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/24 "2017-11-30T04:06:34Z")
> [@treis](#): > > With no Troy LSU is sure to win it all LOL! Yeah, for sure. Don’t forget Miss St ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/25 "2017-11-30T04:24:04Z")
The only Tide worth a shit is a laundry detergent. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/26 "2017-11-30T17:07:55Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Honestly, the eye test tells me Alabama is a top 4 team this year. Eh, I don’t know. They steamrolled a bunch of bad teams, almost got beat by Miss St. and were soundly beaten by Auburn. Even the eye test results are questionable. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/27 "2017-11-30T18:51:07Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Eh, I don’t know. They steamrolled a bunch of bad teams, almost got beat by Miss St. and were soundly beaten by Auburn. Even the eye test results are questionable. They also accumulated a number of key injuries, some of whom would presumably be healthy before January. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/28 "2017-11-30T20:54:55Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > See, I know the Committee has things they are supposed to take into consideration such as Conference Championship or Head-to-head match-ups. But their mission is to pick the Four BEST Teams and if they think Alabama is one of those four, then let them in. So would you be OK if in the NFL, the AFC West champion were left out to allow a “better” team into the playoffs? Note that “better” does not mean a better record necessarily. It means that given a dozen people, which team is the one they like the best for whatever reason. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/29 "2017-11-30T21:03:02Z")
I will just mention that according to some of the logic in this thread, if Philiadelphia loses to the New York Giants on the 17th the Eagles should be out of the playoffs. But to make up for it, other logic in this thread would have them in if they didn’t qualify as long as they look good losing and have a history of winning. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/30 "2017-11-30T21:20:57Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I will just mention that according to some of the logic in this thread, if Philiadelphia loses to the New York Giants on the 17th the Eagles should be out of the playoffs. > But to make up for it, other logic in this thread would have them in if they didn’t qualify as long as they look good losing and have a history of winning. I don’t see where you’re getting that logic. For all intents and purposes, the conference championship games are more equivalent to the wildcard weekend. The regular season ended last Sunday, and division champions are now competing for conference championships. The vast majority of teams are sitting at home while a chosen few continue to play - the playoffs already started. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/31 "2017-11-30T22:13:21Z")
Of course, there is one huge difference between the NFL playoffs and the college playoffs that makes for an unfair comparison. In the NFL, 6 teams will make the playoffs just from the NFC. In all of college football only 4 teams make the playoff. You can’t talk about NCAA playoff logic applying to the Eagles. To be honest, there is no possible way to select college football playoff teams without applying some kind of pretzel logic, especially when you start weighing the brief history of playoff selections. Well, conference championships matter…until they don’t. Head to head is a big factor, except it’s usually not. Wait, it’s all about the eye test, except what the hell even is that? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/32 "2017-11-30T23:40:51Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So would you be OK if in the NFL, the AFC West champion were left out to allow a “better” team into the playoffs? Note that “better” does not mean a better record necessarily. It means that given a dozen people, which team is the one they like the best for whatever reason. If that’s the system that the NFL devised to determine who made the Playoffs, then sure why not? But they don’t because they don’t have any controversy over which teams qualify and which don’t every year. I honestly don’t know much about the NFL or their Playoffs, but I just looked it up and 12 of the 32 teams make the Playoffs which is 37.5%. In CFP 4 of the 129 teams make the Playoffs which is 3.1%. Even if you narrow that to the 65 Power 5+Notre Dame teams who have a realistic shot, that’s still only 6.1%. So the two leagues are not in any way similar enough to make such comparison. In the NFL the teams play more games (16 vs 12/13) against enough similar opponents that you can conceivably use division and conference records as the primary way to determine who gets into the Playoffs. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/33 "2017-12-01T12:22:35Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Eh, I don’t know. They steamrolled a bunch of bad teams, almost got beat by Miss St. and were soundly beaten by Auburn. Even the eye test results are questionable. I really don’t know what happened with Mississippi State this year. They had one week where they were just steamrolled by Georgia, but aside from that embarrassment, they were actually a pretty good team until their loss to Alabama. It just seems like the wheels came off after that game and I’m wondering if Dan Mullen’s attention didn’t shift toward Florida at that point. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/34 "2017-12-01T12:33:28Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So would you be OK if in the NFL, the AFC West champion were left out to allow a “better” team into the playoffs? Note that “better” does not mean a better record necessarily. It means that given a dozen people, which team is the one they like the best for whatever reason. It’s not valid to compare the current 4-team system to the NFL, which is a much smaller league with a much more structured scheduling and post-season system. Like the Catholic Church, we’re lucky that the NCAA has allowed the sport to make this much progress. I’m in agreement that it could be better and would be better if we expanded it to an 8-team playoff, but let’s deal with here and now. Unfortunately, with only 4 teams, it’s entirely possible that a top 4 team could play in a loaded conference and division and get blocked out of its conference championship game with a single loss. Simultaneously, it’s possible for a relatively weak conference champion to emerge in another conference. Since it’s rare that good teams play each other in inter-conference match-ups during the year, the committee has to resort to eye tests. One solution I’ve thought of is that the committee could count not winning a conference championship (by virtue of not playing in it) as a ‘loss’. So for instance, in the case of Alabama, instead of their actual 1-loss, the committee could look at their loss to Auburn as 2 losses. Now if Auburn loses again, then Alabama goes ahead of Auburn. They’d still be behind Georgia, the conference champion. Thus, they’d need another team to lose, like Wisconsin or Oklahoma. But let’s say Ohio State drops Wisconsin - then the committee could legitimately say that the Tide, despite not playing in its conference title game, had a better year than Ohio State. This type of weight system also could have kept Ohio State out of last year’s CFP and moved Penn State in their place, which would have been the right move. This kind of system doesn’t automatically eliminate a 1-loss team that fails to win its conference championship, but it does make it more difficult. I think that would be the right balance - with the imperfect system we have now, that is. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/35 "2017-12-01T18:38:53Z")
Fundamentaly the issue is too many teams with too few games. How about 6 or 7 games and then a 6 round tournament (top 64) Brian (not really serious) ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/36 "2017-12-01T19:50:47Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Wait, it’s all about the eye test, except what the hell even is that? That’s easy, it’s all about looks. Which teams look to bring the most eyeballs and ratings, and thus money? > [@N9IWP](#): > > Fundamentaly the issue is too many teams with too few games. How about 6 or 7 games and then a 6 round tournament (top 64) > > Brian > (not really serious) I would have no problem arguing 16 teams in the playoffs, though it definitely plays havoc with the players. It might work if you don’t tie all the playoffs into the bowl season - most teams have close to a month between their last game and when bowl games start. Throw in a bye week for those that make the playoffs, then run 'em back to back to back until you’re down to four, then those go into bowl games, conveniently timed with the rest of the bowl season. > [@USCDiver](#): > > In the NFL the teams play more games (16 vs 12/13) against enough similar opponents that you can conceivably use division and conference records as the primary way to determine who gets into the Playoffs. Everyone in a division plays the same 14 games, with only two games being different between the teams (6 divisional games, 4 each against an intra-conference division and an inter-conference division, then different games against the teams that finished with the same division ranking in the other two intra-conference divisions). That’s obviously not going to happen with such a large number of entrants, even if you do cut it down to the P5 conferences. Subjective decisions will always have room for favoritism and controversy. Using set standards and numbers removes that. How is the NCAA the only league that doesn’t use objective standards for determining the best? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/37 "2017-12-01T20:07:21Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > It’s just another complaint I have against the NCAA. No other league picks who gets into the postseason. Between the CFB playoffs and March Madness, there’s always some fluky stuff that just gets hand-waved away by “it’s the committee’s selection process”, ignoring the obvious favoritism and hypocrisy. The NCAA has nothing to do with the football tournament, other than occasionally telling a school like Ole Miss that it can’t be in it next year - and (a) that’s part of the problem, and (b) the Power 5 conferences like it this way, as it knows from looking at the men’s basketball tournament what the NCAA would do with the money. Over the past ten years, an average of six men’s teams (in all sports combined) have been dropped at Division I schools - what I want to know is, how many of them are from Power 5 conferences, where they seem to have a lot of money to go around? How many NCAA tournaments don’t automatically invite every conference champion? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/38 "2017-12-04T18:50:32Z")
And the matchups are in #1 Clemson vs #4 Alabama #2 Oklahoma vs #3 Georgia ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/39 "2017-12-04T19:40:24Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > And the matchups are in > #1 Clemson vs #4 Alabama > #2 Oklahoma vs #3 Georgia Hoping for an all-SEC championship game! ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069/40 "2017-12-04T19:54:15Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Hoping for an all-SEC championship game! Why do you hate America? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-playoff-thread/803069.md?page=3)