Unverified Voracity Says A Tearless Goodbye

Frankly, it makes me feel like a complete nerd to think about how much I watched that show when I was a kid.

Yes, if you did a playoff system you would actually have to pay some games on some teams' home turf. Not like these days, where USC actually has to travel down the street to attend the Rose Bowl.

And you might have to play in weather that people in Florida, Texas and California aren't used to, and don't play as well in. "Football weather." Shit, some damn Big Ten team might even win.

That would be horrible. Luckily, the Big Ten is against playoff games too. Suckers!

To me he has been the perfect set of chipped fingernails scraping a dry chalkboard.

Regarding Kiffin, resident SI College Football God Stewart Mandel had an interesting note in his most recent mailbag on that. Not so much on the qb end of things, but on his general behavior and incurring of secondary violations. According to Mandel, he's doing it on purpose.

I was anti-playoff for a long time, but I think I'm coming around to it. Properly done, there's MORE money in it for the schools and the NCAA and so on, the smaller schools won't be any more likely to break into it than they are now, and when was the last time you heard a football player other than a pro complain that they got to play MORE.

to see an sec team or usc play north of the mason dixon line after dec 1st ... even though it might only be a warm 20 degrees in aa, instead of playing home games in the bowls

with the Mden situation. they got out bid. end of story. you might start seeing cheaper stuff. you know, cheaper than $65 sweatshirts. and $23.50 for a size 6mos onesy.

BMs financial strategy has placed the M athletic dept in a position to be successful for the next half century.

Glad that he is being sent out to the pasture. But I hope this also signals the end to having more than two announcers calling a game. It is like an arms race in football broadcsting booths these days. (The NFL pre-game shows are horror shows.) Just show me the game and have someone who is not an idiot provide a bit of color commentary here and there.

Also, mathmanmathmanmathmanmathman, etc.

Playoff games on campus is the biggest reason I would support a playoff. Students would have a chance to go to the games without having to travel to three different locations on short notice across the country over a span of 3-4 weeks. I don't know about anyone else, but back in '97 for example there's no way I could afford to buy plane tickets from Michigan to Playoff location 1, Playoff location 2, and the Rose Bowl all with less than a week's notice to follow the team.

I imagine if we ever do get around to a playoff situation the biggest opposition to home games will come from the SEC and PAC-10 who have most of the bowl games in their backyards already.

Why would the political pressure for participation be more intense?

Because the BCS, outside of the championship game, does not have the slightest bearing on determining the actual championship. Autobids are not autobids to the national championship, they're just autobids to a particular bowl game the same way C-USA's champ has an autobid to the Liberty Bowl. If you structure a playoff without autobids, the current "BCS conferences" won't go for it because they don't want to lose the money train, and if you structure it with autobids, you can't include some and exclude others.

Once you go from BCS to playoff, complaints about being left out of the national championship become legit, thus raising the pressure: every other sport has autobids. Right now it's just bellyaching about how the money is split up.

And why couldn't you structure a playoff such that everyone worthy is included?

Because the number of worthy teams is different every year and entirely subjective anyway.

This aMAIZEing video is sweet. Love the Kanye track too

To be honest, I always thought Moe's had the coolest stuff anyways and they have survived without licensing. I do miss Steve and Barrys though, as shown by my 30+ disposable M t-shirt collection.

(yes, it's a defacto playoff) to an official, NCAA sanctioned playoff structure you are now inviting NCAA committee structure to make decisions. there are waaaaay more little schools than big BCS schools. so a huge 16 team playoff with 3-4 4 loss teams would be implemented. i'm all for a modestly sized structure (say 8, maaaaybe 12 teams) but 16 would dilute the regular season too much by including teams that have no business arguing to be included for a chance at a MNC.

3 hours later, Freep still hasn't fixed it.

You would have to have a 16-team playoff eventually because the political pressure from anything smaller would be too much to bear. An 8-team playoff would produce too much complaining and bitching. That's how the hockey and basketball tournaments grew and it would be inevitable in I-A football if there is ever a playoff. With this system, you would probably have automatic bids for shitty teams from the Sun Belt, conference USA, WAC, and/or MAC while 3-loss or even 2-loss teams from the Big 10, SEC, Big 12, etc, would stay home and get nothing. In the meantime, some ofthe huge early games from recent years like Ohio State vs. Texas and Ohio State vs. USC would mean much less. A playoff has some great benefits but it has some huge drawbacks too.

"In it is an admission that a properly structured playoff would be awesome."

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Highlighting the problems with a more likely outcome is not an admission that the less likely outcomes would be awesome. I don't think a "properly structured playoff" -- which is sort of an arbitrary designation -- would be awesome, and I certainly think the playoff system the ever-bumbling NCAA will eventually implement will be substandard to whatever a properly-structured playoff would be.

What I'm saying is that I'd prefer not having my playoff objections erroneously painted as tacit approval.

Yes, you'd "have to" go to 16 teams. There would ultimately have to be auto-bids for every conference- there are currently eleven conferences in the FBS. Till then we'd have endless complaints and controversies and legal threats from mid-majors. Auto-bids are also probably the best way to retain the significance of the conferences and regular season for the largest number. So with any playoff you'd have a minimum of 12 slots, allowing for one at-large berth (for ND, etc.).

12 would inevitably swell to 16, as any argument against would be overwhelmed by the arguments and pressure (financial, Notre Dame, BCS conferences) to create extra slots/games. Sooner or later, whatever playoff scheme you begin with, that is where we'd end up.

"Why would the political pressure for participation be more intense?"
Because with a four-round (16 team) playoff, the stakes would be that much higher. Most- if not all- the bowls would invariably be crowded out. While some might say, 'good riddance' to them, in the current environment making a bowl is at least a realistic consolation for those not appearing in the NC/playoff game. Bowls also provide motivation and reward and a means for added exposure, which are especially important for the non-premier FBS programs (the vast majority). Making the playoffs would become an all-or-nothing proposition. Hence more pressure.

"And why couldn't you structure a playoff such that everyone worthy is included?"
Because definitions of worthiness of inclusion are even more subjective when you talk about six or eight or sixteen than when just talking about two. Even though the supposed purpose for a championship is to determine 'The Best College Team in America', simply handing the crown to a team that seems to be head and shoulders above the rest- i.e. most worthy throughout the regular season (e.g. OSU 2006) without holding a championship game only in such years is impractical; and for that matter, as often as not, an ostensibly inferior #2 (quite arguably the best among several ostensibly inferiors) prevails. Other years there are three teams arguably the best, but perhaps none clearly superior. Whatever the size, for every team receiving a playoff spot, there will always be at least one or two more than feel they are 'worthy'.

"This is common anti-playoff gambit: you can't have a good playoff that makes sense, you have to have a stupid one because of fuzzy reasons I will not justify. In it is an admission that a properly structured playoff would be awesome."
If you read the interview, he wasn't throwing out a straw man argument. He just didn't elaborate about playoff scenarios. Part of his answer to the previous question about the BCS: 'the regular season is by far the most successful of any American sport'

BTW I do very much agree with Brian et al. re: 'You'd have to play the games until the championship on campuses, so you'd be playing games at Michigan and Ohio State, weather-wise, in late December or January.' That would be perhaps the most redeeming feature of a playoff. Come to think of it, it is also what is so redeeming- and good and just- about conference alignments and schedules...

with the top 4 getting byes. 11 conferences are covered, ND should be appeased with that extra spot, the byes are really beneficial, so the best reg seasons are rewarded.

I'm willing to accept the argument that the regular season is like a long playoff, with each game a potential eliminator for a team (actually, it is like a double elimination structure for most teams--lose once, you still have a chance, lose twice and you are in trouble) but would like to see a additional rules. For example, there should be a rule that no 2-loss team can play for the title when there is an undefeated team remaining.