There Is No Right Answer
On Monday I posted my blogpoll draft ballot and, I guess, in it is contained my opinion on who should play for the national championship: the SEC champion and either Oklahoma or Texas. This is not controversial. My exact ordering of the teams, however, may be:
MGoBrian's got his draft ballot up and he decided on Oklahoma ahead of Texas, for the reasons we've discussed multiple times here already. Though he mistakenly replaces on Texas' schedule Kansas with Kansas State, I'm certain getting that right wouldn't make a lick of difference based on his ballot and published reasoning.
No, what makes Brian's ballot a frontrunner for the wack ballot watch this week is not OU at #1, but Texas at... #4?
You read that right. Brian offers the standard TCU-Cincinnati bit, decides to toss out head-to-heads and common opponents, and rolls with OU at #1. Fine. I dislike the analysis (and find it comically thin considering its publication immediately following a highly nuanced ND 2007 vs Michigan 2008 analysis), but have acknowledged repeatedly that the adopted line of argument clears the lowest bar: Not Irrational. Where Brian really falls off a cliff is in sandwiching Florida and Alabama between the Sooners and Longhorns.
That's Burnt Orange Nation, and they're a little cheesed off. Obviously.
My first thought: "who cares? It will all work itself out this weekend." I was a little taken aback by the stridency of the response to a ballot that's just a draft (and, yes, admittedly a little thin on the justifications), especially when it would be moot a week from now.
Then I remembered the reason Oklahoma was going to the Big 12 Championship game. No wonder Texas fans are a little punchy about polls.
My ballot was apparently the last straw for Peter's faith in the rationality of humanity. The title of the post: "The Day That Common Sense Died." At he throws his hands up in the air, defeated. Um… sorry about that?
Meanwhile, Matt Hinton, AKA Dr. Saturday, provides a dossier of the BCS complainers from years past:
Thus a meme is born, the kind that will live on forever in Longhorn and Red River lore; if Texas fails to slide into one of the top two spots next Tuesday, opinion is unanimous and vociferous enough around UT that 2008 will always be "The Year Texas Got Screwed," joining the illustrious company of Ohio State (1998), Miami (2000), Oregon (2001), USC (2003), Auburn (2004), Michigan (2006) and, if you ask them, Georgia (2007) on the wrong end of the BCS' annual stick. It could have just as easily -- and just as maddeningly -- been Oklahoma's turn this time around, given the Sooners' exceptional resumé and dominant stretch run, but their time will come. Everybody gets their turn at outrage.
Every one of those teams outside Georgia has a valid bitch, making it 6 times in 11 years the BCS has either totally failed (picking Nebraska over Oregon, leaving #1 USC out) or run across an intractable problem (three undefeated teams, six indistinguishable one-loss ones).
Every year there is some complaint and the BCS goes about fixing the problem that came before, then announcing a new Pax Idiotica in which there will be no problems forever. Wrong. As long as college football is settled on the world's dumbest playoff system, this will continue to happen.
So, I say this to Peter and Texas fans everywhere: I don't know. I don't know if you are a better team or had a better season than Oklahoma. I don't know if Florida or Alabama did. I don't know if USC or Penn State did. Since the devolution of college football scheduling has deprived us of more than a half dozen meaningful comparison points between one conference and another, I am guessing. Totally. And in this case attempting to pick between Texas and Oklahoma is impossible. I read Texas supporters' justifications and think they're totally reasonable.
This is only okay because the BlogPoll does not count. I wouldn't participate in a poll that contributed to the current BCS rankings, because the BCS is an abomination. It is the worst of all possible worlds.
You cannot oppose a playoff and be in favor of the BCS in any form: the BCS is a playoff. It is a two-team playoff in a field of 119 teams. Those teams play 12 or 13 games and have schedules so segregated it's impossible to distinguish between one-loss teams in difference conferences. It is the worst playoff that has ever been conceived. It sanctions the idea that there is a real national championship to pursue, then awards it in the worst way possible. I would prefer anything to it.
Anything:
- A return to the old bowl system and entirely mythical championships
- A four team playoff
- A six team playoff
- An eight team playoff
- Anything at all, anything, God, anything
My personal playoff plan has been expounded upon on this site already, but a recap:
Six teams. Six is a great number, big enough to include all reasonable contenders, small enough to fit, and lopsided enough to make finishing #1 or #2 really worth it, as they get byes.
Home games in the first two rounds. Reward better teams for their seasons. Value the regular season. Reward loyal fans. Avoid corporate whoredom.
The first round is the week after the conference championship games; the second round is January 1st. The final is the next Saturday at least a week out. First-round losers (and everyone else) are welcome to participate in whatever bowl games they feel like participating in.
No Autobids. Autobids are stupid. Ask the Orange Bowl.
Max two teams per conference.
Final at the Rose Bowl. Obviously. Kickoff at 4:30.
Assuming Florida and Oklahoma wins in the conference games, this year's bracket:
#1 Florida vs #4 Texas/#5 Penn State
#2 Oklahoma vs #3 USC/#6 Alabama
I've futzed the seeds to prevent second round intraconference matchups.
Is this perfect? No. It's hard to leave Utah out.* Does it crown a better champion? Yes. Does it maintain the drama of the regular season? Hell yes. The SEC championship game is the difference between a first round bye and a second round home game and a first round road game if you even make it. Is it 10000% better than what we've got now? Yes.
I'm not a big fan of the eight-team playoff proposal with autobids for all the BCS conferences. Frankly, no one in the Big East or ACC has any business playing for a national title this year, and in previous years that goes for the Pac-10 or Big 12 or Big Ten or SEC, too. But it would be so much better than what we've got now. I no longer care about the tradition of the bowl games. They've sold out for more money and more games and this whole fifth game was a transparent money grab that gives us a slew of awful matchups every January. It's impossible to love something with "Fedex" as part of its name. The bowls can die for all I care, with the exception of the Rose.
*(I've done these the past three years and this is an unusual situation. Most years Utah would get in.)
Those who think otherwise have never been in the position of a 1994 Penn State team. Of course, the greatest injustice of all of our tenure in Your Crappy Conference is that it wasn't Ohio State or Michigan that got screwed out of an MNC by being stuck in the Rose Bowl playing a forgettable Pac Ten team. No, it was the dude who's been arguing for a playoff since Richard Nixon screwed him back in 1969.
But you need to balance that by not labeling undefeated teams as "underdogs" just because they play in a mid major conference.
my playoff would consist of all conference champions starting the week of the conference championship games, those conferences that don't have championship games would play each other this week again Texas and Texas Tech would end being jobbed, but Oklahoma is the Big 12, sorry ND join a conference and maybe you could be in my fictual playoff:
Round 1
Alabama vs Florida
Oklahoma vs Missouri
Ball St. vs Buffalo
Boston College vs Virgina Tech
East Carolina vs Tulsa
USC vs Utah
Penn St. vs Boise St.
Cincinatti vs Troy
Round 2 would be determined by rankings: (assumed winners)
Florida vs Cincinatti
Oklahoma vs Ball St.
USC vs East Carolina
Penn St. vs Virgina Tech
Round 3 again determined by rankings.
Florida vs Penn St.
Oklahoma vs USC
Finals
Florida vs USC
that way there is no whining win your conference or else.
Not a totally horrible idea, but your system has Florida playing its toughest game first. That makes no sense. Ball State has a much better chance than Alabama does to advance. Just sayin.
when I read that Texas fans are almost suicidal about Oklahoma getting the Big 12 nod.
The only thing that could possibly make it better would be if Oklahoma makes it to the BCS title game and gets blown out.....again. I would literally laugh out loud.
Domers and Longhorns can forever cry in their beer over getting the royal BCS screw job. HAHAHAHAHA!
Those Who Stay Will Be Champions
Can we please just forget about any playoff that doesn't include the conference champions? Hasn't the nature of football scheduling already told us that the schools don't care much about "compelling matchups"?
Everyone's got their own "perfect plan" which only goes to show that no matter what system is implemented, there would be exactly as much hate and discontent about it as before, and there would still be all these tweaks to the system because somebody, whether it's the 7th team or the 9th or the 3rd, is gonna scream bloody hell.
Any "perfect plan" MUST take the following into consideration, otherwise it's not realistic:
- Any playoff will have at the very least all the BCS conference champs. The presidents and the conferences won't buy in otherwise.
- Any playoff will involve home field sites all the way until the final game. Fans won't travel twice. Forget about "integrating the bowls." Nobody cares about being the Fiesta Bowl champ if it's the quarterfinals. And the bowls won't play ball. They're independent organizations and in fact would probably band together and sue the NCAA if they don't like what they see.
- No system like the BCS can be used to select the teams. If it can't be trusted to pick two, HOW THE HELL CAN IT BE TRUSTED TO PICK EIGHT??? I've never understood this.
Blogging the once-resurgent Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com.
My proposal:
1) 12 Team Playoff
2) Top 4 teams get byes (that maintains some incentives for the Alabama/Florida situation.
3) At least the BCS Conference Champs get automatic bids. You're not going to get a playoff if the ACC or Big East have to worry about getting a bid. Also at least two non-BCS conference champs get bids -- the highest rated of those teams get the bids; others are eligible for at-large. This year, for example, Utah, Boise State and Ball State (if it wins the playoff) would get in.
4) The existing bowl structure would be used. Opening round games would be played in the likes of the Gator Bowl, Motor City Bowl, etc. Some sort of rotation would be instituted. This will help get bowl buy-in: don't you think some of the minor Bowls would be happy to get an Alabama-Boise State opening round game!!!
5) The Big Four Bowls would rotate as follows: one gets the Championship game, two get the semis, the fourth would get its pick of the quarter-final games (and the following year would get the Championship game). While everyone may say the Rose Bowl is the #1 bowl, I doubt the promoters of the other three BCS bowls would agree and you'll need their buy-in for the playoff system.
6) Probably need to cut the season back to 11 games.
The 11 conferences are rated yearly according to cumulative non-conference W-L records. (Wins against lower division teams do not count, but losses do.) The champions of the 6 highest rated conferences get byes. The other 5 conference champions plus the 3 highest ranked at-large teams play 2 rounds to get down to 2 teams. Those 2 teams are then added to the 6 bye teams, re-seeding after each round, play until 1 team is left standing. These games would take place from the 2nd Saturday in December, with the Final Four on New Year's Day, then have the Championship Game approximately 1 week later.
This would A) give all 119 teams a real, actual shot at winning the National Title every year, B) give a very significant advantage to the champions of the 6 best conferences, and C) allow the cream of the crop non-champs to get into the mix (thus not allowing a "2008 Texas" screw job to occur).
The major downside is that some teams could play an additional 5 games. That could be up to 18 games for some teams with conference championship games. (However, last year the NY Giants played 4 preseason games, 16 regular season games, and 4 playoff games. 24 games!)
If people think that 14 teams out of a 119-team field (11.77%) is too large then IMO, the BCS field must be culled. If 8 is the largest playoff field people can agree to, then the number of BCS teams should be pared down to no more than 96 teams. IMO, any scenario that automatically kills Cinderella and gives some BCS teams ZERO chance to play for the National Title is fundamentally flawed.
And I will agree to disagree with anyone who thinks a playoff field consisting of 11.77% of 119 teams would unacceptably dilute the regular season. The NFL's playoff field, at 37.5%, is more than triple that size. For that reason, the CFB regaular season would remain FAR more crucial than the NFL regular season. I think this solution would be a happy medium.
Go Blue
Return all the New Year's Day bowl to the way they used to be and play the games. All done by New Years night. Then the coaches vote the next day. All ballots are published for the public to see via this new fangled thing called the INTERNET. ESPN goes bananas, Lou Holtz spits all over the stage at the voting that leaves ND home. Mark May falls and hits his head and forgets that USC exists.
The top two teams of the real(insert sponsor here) head coaches poll play the following Saturday night (at least six days later) and you have your champion.
What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve and...Those Who Stay WILL Be Champions.
The University of Michigan is about excellence, Tradition!
Yes, OU could be the better team. It's a little different from 2006 because here it's not as much about who is better. I say that head-to-head should matter the most. Texas Tech played a weaker schedule (2 FCS teams--come on!) and was blown out by OU, so we can rule them out. That leaves us with OU and Texas. Texas beat Oklahoma, end of story. Head-to-head takes precedence over transient properties. If you want to go with who you think is better, then probably pick OU. But fair is picking Texas. Besides, I don't want to see OU in another BCS game, but that's my opinion.
Additionally, Texas played 4 ranked teams (I think all on the road) in consecutive weeks. No team has done that in a long time, so they are definitely going to get tired. Does no one remember them blowing out opponents 52-10 in the beginning of the season?
Here's something to consider, however: I rule out Texas Tech because they were blown out by OU. But what if OU did not blow them out? Did the Sooners hurt themselves? Hell no. Texas Tech barely survived against a few teams that Texas and OU blew out and played a significantly weaker schedule. Plus Texas lost on the road on a last second play. Texas gets my vote.
Charlie Weis can't coach
How hilarious!
Folks trying to use "rational" reasoning to debate the ranking of a completely IRRATIONAL poll!!
H.L. Mencken would be proud!!!
(Yes, I get paid for each "!")
Sorry Brian,
While the six team playoff idea is much better than the current BCS system, you are changing the subject here. In question is your poll, and your logic is clearly flawed....And many a time you bash the polls of others so minimizing the importance here as "my poll doesn't count anyway" is avoidant BS. Take ownership of your poll.
OU at #1 when Alabama is undefeated in the SEC????? If you believe they are better than Bama, fine, but you can't justify ranking them above a team that has taken care of business all year. If Michigan was the only undefeated team in the country(yes, I know how far-fetched that sounds right now),even playing in the shitty Big Ten, I doubt you would ever rank a 1 loss team above them. Further, Texas beat OU on a neutral field by 10. Their only loss was on the road, on the last play of the game to a top 5 team. Again, they won the head to head on a neutral field, and lost on the road. So rating OU above Texas is an illogical reach to begin with, but to put OU at #1 and Texas at #4, with an undefeated SEC team at #2, is just a huge miss.
BILG
Alabama's schedule this year is, to put it kindly, garbage. Utah has actually played a tougher schedule according to Sagarin (although not by much), as has most of the MWC. The only real difference is that Alabama beat bad teams that were supposed to be good (Clemson, LSU) while Utah beat teams that everyone knew were bad.
If you think Utah should also be ahead of OU ... then we disagree, but I'll give you points for consistency. Otherwise, you're looking at the name and ignoring most of the data.
I've actually made this argument (admittedly, off these boards) - that Utah schedule was tougher than Alabama's. They've beaten 2 teams in the top 15 in the current BCS, and a 3rd in the top 25. Alabama has beaten one in the top 25 (though Mississippi is fringe) - Georgia. Scraping by LSU is looking more and more like an indictment, not a benefit.
In my mind the vast inequity in the current system is that a team like Utah and Boise St. had, at the start of the year, literally a 0% chance to play in the championship game - their only chance would be for every BCS school to lose 2 games. Utah's schedule is not dramatically worse than a host of BCS schools - the only thing holding them back is their conference affiliation, and our perception of mid-majors.
I'm not saying that Utah would take Alabama behind the wood-shed, but it's infuriating to see them receive no chance at all because of the voter's mis-guided perception (ie, Alabama plays in the SEC which is SO HARD, and the MWC is crap). I'd rather see Utah get soundly defeated then to just see them get laughed off based on these mental gymnastics.
Seems to be that the difference between texas and every other team that has been screwed by the bcs is that texas is actually the winner of the head to head against the team they got jumped by.. any other team cannot make the same claim, as far as i remember only other teams that played each other was michigan/osu and michigan lost..
though i do believe that michigan does have the bigger grip than oklahoma (yet oklahoma actually got their chance and jumped the team they lost to, ha), michigan lost by 3 in the 'shoe, where ou got beat by 10 on a neutral field.. i'm a huge fan of both michigan and texas for those that are wondering, but i still don't see how it seems logical to somoeone that texas has to sit and watch 2 teams they beat play for the big 12 title, one on a neutral field by 10 and another at home by 25..
even georgia last year couldn't say the same thing (they lost their tie breaker because they lost the head to head with tn), i'm tired of people trying to rationalize the fact that ou scoring 60 pts a game or beating cincinnati (big east champ? halolha) makes them the better team than the team they lost to by 10.. the bcs has screwed texas royally and it wasn't even for the championship game it was for the big 12 title which is a whole other problem..
anyway, this has probably already been said, but i needed to air my frustrations.. texas bend over its your turn to take it from the bcs..
-jm01
In 1993, Pre-BCS, Notre Dame beat Miami, finished with the same record, and Miami got ranked #1 in the polls to finish the year.
I think it was Florida State but the point still stands.
the brains in college football have constantly said they will not go to a playoff system. so assuming that is true, cant they tweak the system now to make it a little better?
part of what the bcs factors are where the teams finish in the ap and usa today polls. ("The BCS Average is calculated by averaging the percent totals of the Harris Interactive, USA Today Coaches and Computer polls. ") i think an easy (albeit not perfect) solution is not starting these polls until a few weeks into the season. think about it...eliminating the horse shit that is the preseason polls.
just look at the preseason top 25 this year:
1. Georgia (22) 0-0 1,438
2. USC (14) 0-0 1,430
3. Ohio State (14) 0-0 1,392
4. Oklahoma (3) 0-0 1,329
5. Florida (5) 0-0 1,293
6. LSU (3) 0-0 1,163
7. Missouri 0-0 1,143
8. West Virginia 0-0 1,008
9. Clemson 0-0 999
10. Texas 0-0 979
11. Auburn 0-0 888
12. Wisconsin 0-0 747
13. Kansas 0-0 714
14. Texas Tech 0-0 644
15. Virginia Tech 0-0 568
16. Arizona State 0-0 560
17. Brigham Young 0-0 547
18. Tennessee 0-0 506
19. Illinois 0-0 422
20. Oregon 0-0 399
21. South Florida 0-0 350
22. Penn State 0-0 313
23. Wake Forest 0-0 203
24. Michigan 0-0 112
25. Fresno State 0-0 91
Georgia, lsu, mizzou, wvu, clemson, auburn, wisconsin, kansas, vtech, asu, tennessee, illinois, s. fla, and even MICHIGAN were ranked wayyyyy higher preseason then they finished at the end of the year.
meanwhile, Penn st., bois st, utah, michigan state, ball state, tcu, cinnci, are all teams that had good years but were given no respect at all preseason.
in these seasons where the bcs comes down to hundredths of points no one really factors in these issues, where some teams are literally given a head start just because of the name of their program.
anyways, im not saying this perfect and would eliminate every problem, but it is a relatively simple change.
is that the harris poll? I thought Michigan wasn't ranked and Ohio State was number 2
a 6 or 8 team playoff; either works pretty well.
keeps the regular season important but avoids
the big mistakes of years past.
first round: home games, a week (or two) after
the regular season ends (maybe end it earlier
to accommodate this).
semi-finals: pick two of the BCS bowls (rotating)
for the semi-finals. probably a few days after jan 1
(where many other bowls would take place)
finals: two+ weeks later at one of the BCS bowls,
rotating. this would take place in the off-week
for the NFL (during the superbowl break). the
focus and buildup would be awesome, and the
longer break would give people a chance to
travel to the game.
it also needs a name. here is a suggestion:
the college super bowl. other names are possible.
That BCS game was the 2005 Rose Bowl against Michigan, by the way. Cal went on to get thumped in the Holiday Bowl by some nobody. I definitely wish UM could've played Cal, but whatever.
Amusingly, the 'nobody' Cal got thumped by in the Holiday Bowl was Texas Tech.
I actually think 2006 was as good a proof as any of why claiming that one team is the "National Champion" is a dumb idea. I'll argue that there were exactly two teams in the country who had both the personnel and the coaching to beat us that year; unfortunately, we played them both. (You think if we'd played Florida that Tebow could have run for an inch against our D? Remember, his passing game was nothing special that year.) It's all about matchups. Right now, Florida looks like they could smoke anyone - yet they lost to Ole Miss. Sure, Ole Miss is an unusually strong team this year, but no one's talking about them as top-10. We're used to the idea that USC can crush anyone they put their minds to crushing - yet Oregon State has their number? The same Oregon State who then gave up 700 yards of offense to an Oregon team that's good, but not good enough to beat USC? Oh yeah, and who lost badly to Penn State as well?
There is no transitive property in football - the OU/UT/TT debate proves that - and in a 12-game season, that alone should be proof enough that there's no such thing as a "best" team either.
For that matter, who says a playoff really solves anything? Think George Mason was really the 4th best basketball team in the country two years ago, or that they just got hot (and lucky) at the right time? Same thing with the Cardinals the year they beat the Tigers in the World Series. Were the Giants really "better" than the Patriots last year? Was Notre Dame really better than us in hockey last year? Was Michigan State really the best college hockey team the year before? I'm not arguing for the status quo (which is awful); I'm just saying, playoffs aren't perfect either.
You just highlighted a truth that doesn't come up very often: playoffs merely crown a playoff champion.
sgtwolverine.com
That's better than trying to crown a champion simply by vote. I'd rather go with results on the field. The only alternative to a playoff that would be fair on-the-field results (a full round-robin) is obviously horribly unwieldy for 1-A football. (One compromise would be round-robin within each conference, then a round-robin of conference champions like the Champions League in European soccer - and that would still be the equivalent of nearly two full seasons for the teams that make it.)
I could live with the old system and a totally mythical championship. The problem is that the BCS promises a legitimate, indisputable champion decided on the field but doesn't include anywhere near enough teams in its playoff to provide such legitimacy. If you want a legitimate champion decided on the field, you need to include enough teams that you can be reasonably certain you haven't overlooked anyone with a fair claim to the title - and two teams isn't even close to enough.
"You just highlighted a truth that doesn't come up very often: playoffs merely crown a playoff champion."
Quoting this mainly because I don't think it gets said enough.
Blogging the once-resurgent Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com.
Obviously, that's true. But the benefit of a playoff is that those little teams (George Mason, Davidson) get to take a shot at the big guys. If Basketball was the same as football, Davidson would have played Vermont in the Poinsetta Bowl. Instead, we got to see them knock off two top-25 teams and almost take out #1. That's fun.
The fun of an entire season that is on a tight-rope of failure is considerably greater than the fun of watching cute l'il plucky underdogs for a week at the end of the season. Don't let ESPN tell you otherwise (no matter how hot Stephen Curry's mom is).
It is fun. But then is the argument for a system that is more fun or a more legitimate nation champion?
I'd prefer the old bowl system. (Also, I'm not saying the old bowl system would give a more legit national champion - I just don't really want a playoff.)
Let every conference seed their champion. That way there would be no bias toward non bcs conferences. Round out a sixteen team bracket with the top at large bids. That would kill the argument that "my team started slow, but now they are playing the best football in the nation." Eliminate all but one pre season game to make room for the playoffs at the end of the year.
This way winning your conference would carry the utmost importance. And if losing your pre-season game does not hurt your chances of winning your conference (except in a tiebreaker scenario) then schools would not be so afraid to schedule a worthy opponent.
Wrong! The six team, BCS seeded, no autobid playoff is one of very few right answers.
There is NOT just one right answer -- only people who wish there was.
You MUST have a 16 team playoff (first round being the existing conference playoffs and various at large bids).
How would you pick just 6 teams??
Use the BCS?? Yeah, it is the worst possible selection process in existence so let's just expand the number of teams selected with it. That will make it all better.
We are definitely into the silly season.
I don't know how you can say there is not just one right answer and then say there MUST be a 16 team playoff
A 16 team playoff would be impossible because I don't know where you're going to add 4 weeks to the season, unless you want to go into February which I HIGHLY doubt the NCAA would allow (the games can't go through December because that's exam time), or that teams would even want that. It severely diminishes the importance of the regular season, and It would also not allow bowl games to still exist.
Brian has a great system planned, and I agree with it. Even the 2 team per conference I agree with, because don't we all feel that a national champion should have won its conference? and even allowing 2 teams from a conference sounds like a lot to me, but would we give a team that finished 3rd in its conference a shot at the title? That sounds like pro sports, where a team gets hot all of a sudden and wins the title (more baseball than anything).
I would definitely allow non-BCS conference teams in the tournament (if ranked that high), and I would also want the second round games to be big Jan 1. bowl games (how to decide which bowl, debatable) with the championship game the next week.
I would like to go back to the old system as well, but that is never going to happen, so I feel we have to do the best with what we have, and that's the BCS. And I feel a BCS enforced change to a tournament is a better option than the status quo
Obviously, you didn't get the sarcasm about "no right answer".
Also, you obviously have not been paying attention. Virtually all playoff scenarios start with conference champions. I merely back up one week and make the conference championship games the first round and add at large teams. So, everyone will play 13 games just like the SEC, ACC, and Big12 already have. If the other BCS conferences choose not to form divisions, their first round will be against an at large team.
So, you end up with just 8 teams as of the end of a season the same length as now. The next week is an additional game and result is 4 teams left.
New Years day, 2 current BCS bowls are used for a playoff. The next week, a current BCS bowl is the championship game.
Ahhhhhh, perfection!!!!
Thank you, thank you very much!!!!!!!!!!!
Seeding is important. Forcing the conference championship games into the first round AND allowing any underqualified conference champ into the playoff both lead to a higher probability of ruining the matchups we all want to see in favor of carnage.
I don't want carnage, the last thing I want to see is George Mason in the Final Four. I want to see the best teams play the best teams. The BCS system is great for ranking teams. It is the users of the BCS rankings that abuse the system by arbitrarily limiting the contenders in the "playoff" to two. There are usually four or five legitimate NC contenders every season. This year more like seven, and they are all right at the top of the BCS. Who is not a title contender? Cincinnati. Boston College. Every other ACC team. Shoehorning conference champs into a playoff only leads to more carnage at the expense of the best matchups.
So, D2 Football can justify and conduct a 16 team playoff.
And, FCS Football can also justify and conduct a 16 team playoff.
But the BCS can't??
Even when several of us have provided 16 team playoff scenarios that actually retain ALL the current bowls and retain or improve the desirability of all the bowls??
Ow, my brain hurts!
Anyone else see this as a very nice, esoteric, philosophical, and totally useless, irrational discussion based on (as Brian said) "the worst playoff that has ever been conceived"??
People complain about how they have been ranked in "the worst playoff that has ever been conceived".
How joyous!!!!!
"I do not get the people that say OSU/UM 2006 would have lost some luster with a playoff. Every OSU/UM game is sacred to me."
To you, yes. To all of us, yes. The rest of the world would have ceased to give a shit entirely. Depending on the system, the outcome of the game would have meant nothing but which opponent you play - and would you really care if we played Texas instead of USC (or whichever teams were good that year)?
Blogging the once-resurgent Virginia Cavaliers at http://fromoldvirginia.blogspot.com.
Who cares if the rest of the world stops caring about UM vs. OSU? Do we need everyone else to watch us in awe? Did anyone give a shit this year? Or last?
Two points—although I am not really emotionally vested in a playoff because it’s not likely to happen anytime soon and I recognize the argument is much of the fun.
1. A playoff would increase not decrease interest in the regular season. Right now one slip up and your on life support which whittles the fan bases hoping for the crystal football down week by week. If the system was just a tad more forgiving more teams would remain alive longer. It’s not as if a 6 team playoff is going to mean “Oi, who cares if [insert team] wins this weekend because they’ll be in the top 6 anyway!”
2. I do not get the people that say OSU/UM 2006 would have lost some luster with a playoff. Every OSU/UM game is sacred to me. That one was just one of the biggest, baddest of all (not as big as 1997 or 2002 though because each had won one recently). When UM is beating OSU in the second half I can barely breath regardless of the external stakes. No crystal trophy could have made that game any bigger. The BCS was just something to get jacked about a week after I stopped running around the neighborhood with no pants on yelling, “Michigan just beat OSU and I got no pants on!” That one could not go to eleven. Lastly, policy justification via anecdote is stupid and results in policies that are geared to stop a terrorist from planting a time bomb on a bus full of orphans (which only happens in movies.) But if I’m allowed to carve a terrorist up bit by bit, I can save a bunch of orphans like Jack Bauer (besides my dum ass daughter has been kidnapped for the third time and the President is a double agent)! OSU/UM 2006 is not going happen again and even if it did that is not sufficient justification for a stoopid policy.
I laughed when I read about UM 2006 getting screwed. That outrage has not aged well.
Give it to Wheatley!
I don't see how you can use strength of schedule to rank Oklahoma over Texas. It ignores the fact that Texas's strongest opponent and win was over Oklahoma on a neutral field. Oklahoma's weakness is its defense. It couldn't stop Texas, while Texas's defense stopped Oklahoma when it mattered.
Why do people seem to want to disregard Oklahoma's ten point loss on a neutral field to the team with which it is being compared and not look at the fact that Texas's only loss came on a fluke last second TD to the number five team on the road? It's not like Texas lost to Baylor.
The problem is this: It's a three-way tie. If you're voting to break that tie (voting on the rankings while completely ignoring that may be a different matter, but let's face it, the fact that it's the tiebreaker definitely influenced some votes if not most), you can't throw Tech out just because OU flattened them (that would effectively be telling OU that they won by so much that it doesn't count anymore for the tiebreakers).
(Also, that wasn't a "fluke last second TD". Tech was in field goal range and could have kicked a FG to win it had the pass fallen incomplete, or had Crabtree been shoved out of bounds before reaching the end zone for that matter. 60-yard tip-drill Hail Marys are flukes. A 25-yard pass is not a fluke.)
I can see the argument for either (which is why it's totally stupid that we have to have the argument at all), but "45-35" is not a sufficient argument for Texas by itself.
For the same reason you are disregarding Texas's loss
PLAYOFF WILL BE 16 TEAMS. this will be the death of CFB as we know it. I like Brian's proposal, but the NCAA will NEVER approve it, so don't go running to the NCAA about a playoff unless you want 16 teams.
Harvard: The MICHIGAN of the East
We're not arrogant, we're just better.
Agreed - a 16 team playoff would be absolute garbage.
Playoffs in general aren't always that fucking cool. Let's think back to the 2005 World Series, where the playoff format rewarded a team that was utterly mediocre during the regular season with the championship. Along the lines of Michigan Arrogance, I believe that the very best part of college football is the importance of every single damn game. Take that away for the sake of pleasing smarmy little bastards like Josh Elliott, and you're not any better than the NFL - a league that has become increasingly boring.
I dread the day when a playoff comes to CFB (unless it was Brian's version, which makes way too much sense to ever happen.) I throw up in my mouth every time some twit gets a hard-on over 'Cinderella.'
16 is fine with me, 11 conference champs and 5 at large. First 2 rounds (at least) at home sites.
Didn't Texas leapfrog Cal a couple years ago in the last week of the regular season when they played and Cal didn't? And didn't that end up sending Texas to a BCS game instead of Cal? In the long term, this all evens out.
sgtwolverine.com
Not quite. IIRC, the reason Cal got leaped over was because they had to fight and claw for a victory over some piss-poor mid-major in their final game. Actually, I don't even think Texas played that week at all, and they still got the nod.
That BCS game was the 2005 Rose Bowl against Michigan, by the way. Cal went on to get thumped in the Holiday Bowl by some nobody. I definitely wish UM could've played Cal, but whatever.
I remember at Christmas that year my uncle and cousins saying how lucky we were for avoiding Cal in that Rose Bowl. I said how screwed we were by having to face Vince Young. I took no happiness in being correct, but certainly made me question everyone's general football intelligence.
Yeah, I think you're right -- I got it backwards. In any case, that poll bump doesn't help me feel sorry for Texas now. Everybody gets screwed by the polls at some point, and I'm sure Texas will benefit at the expense of someone else (again) in the next few years. It's like bad calls in a game ... just on a longer scale of time.
sgtwolverine.com
just go back to the bowls. it was fine back then
Brian, I'm a bit perplexed as to how you can say that autobids are a mistake, but that a six team playoff with no more than 2 teams from each conference going would be a workable system. The fact that you would have Penn St. over Texas Tech shows the utter failure of your system. Either no autobids, and no max teams per conference, or autobids with at-large. I prefer a return to the old system, call me nostalgic. College Football was never about "crowning" a national champion, it has become a complete creation of ESPN and the Sports Media in general. College Football is about winning your conference, getting to the best bowl game, and winning that. If I had to do a playoff, I would do a 16-team playoff with 6 auto-bids. Anything less than 16 teams would make an already horrible system worse. You can't arbitrarily decide between a handful of 2-loss teams, which, although not this year, would be the case in most years. I would drop 1 or even 2 non-conference games, and eliminate the conference championships. Still, the old system was the best.