FSU, ACC pushing for 8 team playoff
Keep going.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/25156475
"I think the perceived bias of the ACC in general, [with] Florida State falling to No. 4 in the rankings and still being undefeated and being [No.] 3 at the end of the season … a one-loss ACC team or two-loss ACC team is going to have a hard time breaking that top four," Gruters said. "I think the top ACC team over the next four or five years, we're going to be in that [No.] 5 to 8 category. And we're going to be on the outside looking in."
Gruters then urged Wilcox to encourage the ACC to push for an expansion of the new playoff system - from four to eight teams. He said that was the only way, "to guarantee an ACC team will have a shot at winning the national championship each year."
and an at-large bid. Top two get first round byes.
Also, undefeated FSU was not very good. I did not think they should have been in last season.
It would have been kinda hard to justify them not getting in, considering they were defending national champs and undefeated.
Am I the only one that thinks "defending national champs" is annoying/grating? It's not boxing, FSU wasn't defending anything.
Not really directed at you, it's all over the place in every sport.
Well yeah, it doesn't really work that well for team sports which are different teams every year. I still kinda like the idea of it because going back-to-back is pretty tough to do in any sport.
April 22nd, 2015 at 10:00 AM ^
I think most felt FSU was clearly the worst of the 4 teams that made it into the playoff last year. Of course, this brings into question the same debate we faced in the BCS system and the bowl system before that: how do you balance the eye test and a team's record?
FSU was undefeated, plain and simple - no other team could make that claim. Yet they clearly appeared to be worse than the other three teams and possibly Baylor/TCU as well (I actually thought TCU would have won the playoff had they made it, though that was before I saw OSU's performance).
Expanding the playoff helps to solve some of these questions, yet it raises others, like how long should a college season be, and how much should we diminish the importance of the regular season? I am unsure myself. 4 is certainly better than 2, and I think 8 is probably more ideal from the standpoint of allowing all P5 champions in, yet we have to recognize these are still supposed to be student-athletes, and football is a physically draining and potentially harmful sport - can we (and should we) really ask student-athletes to commit to such a plan?
Not a fan of the top two teams getting byes. Look at Alabama last year. FSU? Nope.
As Herm Edwards said - you play to win the game... and FSU won evrey game they played in the regular season. In this day and age when we cry about teams scheduling a bunch of cream puffs in the non-conference, FSU played Oklahoma St, Notre Dame, Florida and Citadel. Now, those teams didn't have the greatest of years but that's not FSU's fault. I'm guessing we could probably count on one hand the number of teams that play 8 conference games and schedule 3 of the 4 teams in the ooc from Power 5 conferences.
April 21st, 2015 at 10:37 PM ^
And how do you determine the two seriously advantaged teams that will receive the byes? Rankings? Please. We saw how reliable those were last year. Go to 8.
But it will be interesting to see how it affects the bowl games.
There will be 40 bowl games in 2015. The new one added this year is the 
played at the Citrus Bowl. Three bowl games in the same stadium.
At this point, just give everyone a bowl bid.
There still are proposed bowl games that could happen like ones in Austin, Tucson and Little Rock making the total 43. Making the number of bowl teams 86. That's ludicrous.
5-7 is going to be bowl eligible at this rate. It's a joke.
a while back and took a lot of crap for it, but I agree.
If there were 40 bowl games this past season, some 5-7 teams would have been invited, as there weren't enough 6-6 teams (which also shouldn't be playing in bowl games) to fill 80 slots.
So Michigan would have been playing some crap team in the who gives a shit bowl sometime last December. Probably with DeBord coaching the team.
What I meant was (I should have been more clear), it redefines how the bowl games are chosen. I guess this is already happening beginning this past season. So the Rose Bowl is no longer B1G vs PAC-12, etc., and now the games are arranged so the matchups are appropriate.
April 22nd, 2015 at 10:05 AM ^
I think Georgia Tech was allowed 1-2 years ago to be selected for a bowl despite a losing record, and for some reason I feel like there was another team last year from a G5 conference that may have been selected with a losing record.
At what point does a lack of people in the stands override the potential TV ratings. Further, what kind of ratings is a team with a losing record receiving, exactly? I mean, you look at all the costs to not only the college teams but also the sponsors of the game, and I have to wonder how they are meeting/exceeding their bottom line.
April 22nd, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
Michigan will go 40-0 in bowl games in 2015
I understand the appeal of 6 but BYEs are bullshit. Just make it 8 and tee it up.
If you look at the conference championship games as the defacto round 1 then with 8 teams that include the 5 conference champs then that is really a 16-team tournament, just with 3 teams getting added in at-large after round 1.
No byes in the playoffs!
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Why not name it the Mechanic Bowl?
/s
Anything more than six is a bad idea to me. I have no interest in seeing two loss teams in the playoff. If you look at the last 15 years that would have happened quite a few times.
While I agree that the weakest teams in an 8 team playoff won't deserve to be in the playoff, I heard that one year a two loss team even won the national championship. Should that championship just have automatically gone to the one loss BCS team at the end of the season? The absolute number of losses isn't necessarily a good gauge; it's a function of how well teams are playing that particular season.
(2007 season, 2008 championship game LSU over OSU for the record).
I am fine with 4 or 6 teams. I hate the idea of 8 teams. Unlike many people on this board, I would rather exclude some unworthy teams rather than include every possible team. Every top 8 team stands a chance in a given game, even if it's less than 10%. The regular season should count for a lot and some teams don't deserve to make the cut. If they don't want to whine, they shouldn't lose so much during the regular season.
we're headed for 8 (or more), but i will pull from the archives and agree with MGoUser CRex, who looked back on the BCS era to assess how many teams could make a claim to the tital following a given regular season. in january 2012 he concluded:
I walk away from this really feeling like we're in a situation where we can move forward logically. If you simply average the numbers for each year, you come up with a 4 team playoff working just fine.
However that ignores the fact that in recent years we had some seasons where 5 and 6 team playoffs were needed. On the other hand, the BCS conferences raiding the MWC and WAC may have put an end to that trend.
As it stands I would consider the logical action to be pushing for a 4 team system to be ready to go when the BCS expires. Install that system for a time period and then watch to if programs arise out of the MWC, WAC, and C-USA. If they do, when the 4 team expires, consider moving to a 6 team system.
Whatever happened to CRex?
April 22nd, 2015 at 10:08 AM ^
TCU was the best team prior to the playoffs. They really had to choke against Baylor in the 4th quarter to blow it, otherwise they are undefeated. In addition, that loss was clearly the best loss anyone had that was under consideration for the playoffs.
I think the P5 conferences will wait to see how often this occurs, however, probably until the end of the current bowl contracts. If you have 1-2 years out of every decade where there was maybe a 5th/6th team that could make a claim, is that sufficient to change the whole system?
I've been saying for years that I would LOVE a six team playoff that features:
1. BYEs for the top two teams
2. HFA for the higher seeded teams in each of the first two rounds before playing the title game at a neutral site
3. Reseeding after the first round (ie if #6 upsets #3, they play the #1 team instead of #2.) Compare to the NFL.
This is the best playoff system for placing maximum value on the regular season (with byes and home field games on the line, the higher seeds are going to critical,) making it hard for a lower seeded team to win a title (which plays back into emphasizing the regular season,) and including all the major conference winners, which... doesn't matter as much to me but is going to be important to a lot of people - namely conference commisioners.
Will they ever adopt this system? Of course not. They'll surely go to eight teams, and play all the games at bowl sites, because college football. But this is what should happen.
Is the only small potential positive to creating quarterfinals, but yes, you are right: college football.
I pretty much hate every management decision ever made with this fine sport.
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As much fun as an 8-team playoff would be having to play a conference championship, and then three more games for the top teams that make the playoffs is an awful lot of football. And yes it's just one more game, but you need to draw a line somewhere.
Plus, the 7th and 8th best teams are going to be crap anyways. A top 6 is good enough. 5 Conf champs plus a wildcard.
April 21st, 2015 at 11:22 PM ^
I'd say last years one-loss OSU team "shot for" a 1 or 2 ranking pretty hard wouldn't you? Ended up with a 4-seed and kicked the shit out of the one-seed. But you would have given that one-seed a bye? Rankiings are subjective. Selection committees are subjective. And they frequently get it wrong. 7 and 8 will always suck? Take away cupcakes and replace with challenge and see how quickly you want to toss 7 and 8.
So 3 weeks of football following the conf. championships is a bad thing, but in your proposal, four teams must do just that, Your two bye teams' seasons are also extended, they're still practicing. So you're saving 2 teams from this bad situation you're already subjecting 6 to - this rationale makes no sense. Make it 8 and all you control freaks just stop it already.
OSU, Big Ten Championship, Great Team, Exceptional Team, True Warrior.
That sounds very tricky; injuries would be a huge and undesirable random factor.
Let's keep it at four and continue to respect the regular season.
for FCS, D2 and D3 level where they have 16 team playoff.
April 22nd, 2015 at 11:53 AM ^
P5 conference non-champions.
Don't complain - just win your conference.
April 22nd, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
National parity > having NFL guys on your bench
I like how Florida State specifically - and ostensibly on behalf of the ACC - is going to grumble about this because it is probably the only school in the conference right now that has a realistic opportunity to worry about it given recent performance, not to mention their slight dissatisfaction with the pace at which a conference network is getting off the ground. The Rivals article at least gets Swofford on record as saying that he senses little support for expansion "at the presidential level" for the time being, so while FSU might not like that answer, they seem less peeved about their predicament than they were just a few years ago.
I'm like the Barry Sanders of MGoBlog. I get a lot of negs, but I get a lot of upvotes as well.
April 22nd, 2015 at 12:34 PM ^
for the next 11 years. Sure someone could come along with a new proposal, but it would take the agreement of a lot of conferences, schools, and bowls, any one of whom could see a strong incentive to hold out.
8 is the best number for multiple reasons.
6 should not happen. There is no way any team based on opinion polls alone deserves a bye.
But on the other hand, it's kind of comical that FSU is so worried about being on the outside looking in when the rest of the world felt the same way in reverse about them during the BCS years. Despite that "tough" ACC schedule, they were picked for the title game one year by not even playing the final weekend, another year they were picked for the title game over a Miami team who had the same record but BEAT them head to head. And for years, many of us felt like a 1 loss Big Ten team would not be ranked as high as a 2 loss Florida State team because of St. Bobby Bowden.
Ironic. I'm sure they miss the BCS.
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You get a bye for being 1 and 2, you get a home game for being 3 and 4. That makes the regular season exciting while also encouraging more tough nonconference games.
If it went to 8 teams you're going to get a couple teams in with 2 losses. No team with 2 losses should have an opportunity for the national championship.
At some point, a team with two losses is going to make it to the semis. LSU won it all with two losses a few years back when only two slots were available.
April 21st, 2015 at 11:43 PM ^
How about a 2-loss team with some scheduling cajones that loses two close OOC games to very good teams and wins their conference? I'd have absolutely no problem with them in the playoff. They're not worthy of facing Cupcake Slayer U. in the playoff?
Consider the hypothetical that CFB was run like the NFL, and every team had 3 OOC games against other P5 teams. 2 loss teams would be routine. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be worthy of being there. This notion that there aren't 8 deserving teams out there is ludicrous.
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Top teams should get byes. Tournament berths and seeds should be rewards for season accomplishments, not a committee's best guess and who's better regardless of record.
Make the whole season the tournament. Every conference has to have a round robin, only champions get berths. This will shrink the conference back down to where they ought to be, plus give a handy head-to-head tiebreaker. Independents join a conference or become irrelevent.
Here is my dream scenario applied to last year previously posted in a front page thread:
Remember - don't pay the kids, even if they play 15 games.
are too many. I don't want to see 2 loss teams playing. The college football regular season is unique to sports and I'd never want to see the last couple weeks turn into mainly playing for seedings.
Six would be ideal. See any of several main page posts about this from a few years back. Four is better than eight, but college football wouldn't be ruined by an eight team playoff. Still I am adamantly opposed. If they go to eight, the precedent would be set to go to 16 which would ruin college football for at least the following reasons (and probably others):
- The best team would quite often not win the championship. E.g., 90% of hockey tournaments and 60% of basketall tournaments.
- The bowl structure would be undermined. "Welcome to the Rose Bowl where once in a while we can get a top-20 team!" It's now the Gator Bowl-Pasadena Campus.
- By far most importantly, the regular season would be completely undermined. My God, Alabama would have almost nothing to play for starting in September. Late season top ten matchups would go from de facto playoffs to mildly-interesting quazi-exhibitions
An eight team playoff moves in all of these directions, but a sixteen team playoff would pass the tipping point. Expansion must be resisted at all costs. Aux armes, citoyens, etc.
P.S. the ACC used an example about Florida State being treated unfairly and 100 posts in we don't have a Jameis Rose Bowl fall gif yet? I am dissapoint, mgoblog.