I vote we boycott all the bowl games altogether. Including the Championship game. I think this system we have now is utterly unfair and ridiculous. Maybe if the morons at the top see empty seats at their precious bowl games that MEAN NOTHING, then they will realize what the public wants.
Any comments?
I want a championship game, but if I could get to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl I’d be there in a flash.
Most people want to see their team play.
No, I don’t want a playoff. In fact, I think that most of the demand for a playoff comes from sports talk radio hosts who need something to talk about. It is kinda like the 'War on Christmas" that conservative radio drags out every year.
I don’t like the current system which drags out each of the bowl games night after night. After Jan 1, I’m out of the holiday mood and I"m back to work. I’ve been too tired to see an entire weeknight bowl game over the past couple of years. I’m far more interested in seeing good matchups than in listening to endless discussion of what team got screwed this year.
A playoff wouldn’t work at all. You need to sell tickets to a 70,000 seat stadium. Some teams that would be in the playoffs simply don’t have a fan base that is going to travel to neutral site games, especially for early round games.
Moving thread from IMHO to The Game Room.
If you were talking about sixty-four teams like March Madness I could see your point, but most proposals I’ve heard talk about eight teams. As long as you put the games in major markets I’m sure the NCAA could sell out eight games with ease.
Wouldn’t that make 7 games? 4 first round games, 2 second round games and 1 final = 7 total.
I"m not sure the first round would sell out if you’re on neutral fields.
#1 Oklahoma vs #8 Penn State
#2 Florida vs #7 Texas Tech
#3 Texas vs #6 Utah
#4 Alabama vs #5 USC.
If you’re going to play at a neutral site, you’re not going to get many Utah or Texas Tech fans. Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma have strong fan bases, but you don’t want to get Florida/Alabama too far out of the South or Oklahoma too far away from Big 12 country or they’ll have the same problem. Penn State, USC, and Texas are the only schools in the 8 team playoff who have a national fan base with alumuni fairly well scattered throughout the country.
Assuming all the top ranked teams then the next week you’ll have
#1 Oklahoma vs #4 Alabama
#2 Florida vs #3 Texas
Then, the final week you’d have #1 Oklahoma vs #2 Florida if the higher ranked team always win.
That’s an awful lot of traveling for both the team and the fans.
One alternative would be to play the first round at the home field of the higher ranked team. But, that is a lot of travel for each visiting team in the above match ups.
Butterflies will fly out of my ass before that happens. Games on, people will watch. The system actually worked this year. Florida/Oklahoma is the most logical choice. SEC Champ vs Big 12 Champ. Sucks to be Texas, but they’re in a conference that uses odd rules to choose who plays in the conference championship. Penn State and USC play in weak conferences. They want in the big show, they pretty much need to be undefeated. Boise State and Utah just aren’t BCS Championship caliber programs, and everybody other than their fans know that.
One, they’d have traveled to a bowl game anyway. Two, if it were to go to a multi-round playoff, consider dropping the season back to 12 games. That would make it 15 games. Less than the NFL regular season. Our state high schools go 16 games for the state championships. Only one more game than they play now.
But there are tons of large markets in the US and all of them love football. I can’t see any playoff game played in NYC, Chicago, or anywhere in Texas not selling out.
Less than some college basketball teams often face throughout the regular season.
Would even the most vocal critics of the BCS agree that the #8 team shouldn’t be ranked #1? If the BCS rankings are accurate to within +/- 3 rankings, then the only teams that belong in any kind of playoff are the top 4 and maybe the top 5.
And other national media types, who are more attached to the national championship race, instead of the conference races that are more important to the fans of any given team.
A playoff would be a disaster for college football.
I could. Florida vs Texas Tech might sell 20,000 seats at Giants Stadium or Soldier Field. In Texas, you’d get good attendance for a game with an SEC/Big 12 team. But, if the college football playoff sent some Big East/Pac Ten/Big ten/ACC teams in a matchup, I think you’d stuggle to sell tickets. An Oregon State or Va. Tech team in there won’t bring many fans to a first round playoff game 2000 miles away in the weeks before Christmas.
Yup. There is a reason the Sugar Bowl could take Hawaii last year and Utah this year. They knew that Georgia and Alabama would sell all the tickets. The Fiesta Bowl loves to take Ohio State since there are thousands of transplanted Ohioans in Arizona/California as well plenty of diehard Buckeye fans who will take a warm weather trip every year.
I do think it is sports talk radio along with ESPN commentators who are mainly stirring the college football playoff/BCS sucks pot. Most college football fans fall into one of two categories.
Sure, the NCAA basketball tournament is big. It would be a lot less big if it wasn’t for office pools and other gambling. March happens to be a very sports starved month since you’re two months after the Super Bowl and a month before MLB opening day.