Pretty Radical Playoff Idea, Part 2: The Mock Season

Submitted by MaizeAndBlueWahoo on

If you are interested in this but haven't read the first installment, go back and do so, otherwise this won't make much sense.

OK. In Part 1, I proposed my playoff-within-the-season plan. It takes some getting used to. The major hurdle, I think, is the lack of a set-in-stone regular season schedule. The lack of certainty is tough on the conference schedulers. Otherwise, commenters brought up some points, most of which I think I had a pretty fair answer for. But the main sticking point is that it would seem nigh-impossible for teams to know when they'll have a home or road game any later than a week in advance.

What if I told you that home and road dates could in fact be set nearly in stone before the season began?

I set out to find if this could happen. My methodology:

- All 120 teams are seeded using the CBS Sports 1-120 power rankings, and 8 sacrificial lambs that don't matter were added from the ranks of DI-AA.

- The playoffs played out with no upsets, returning visiting teams to the ranks of the regular season participants, though for these purposes I only care what happens to the Big Ten teams.

- The first three conference games of each Big Ten team happened before the playoffs, were spread out from Weeks 2-6, and were precisely reflective of the games that were actually played this season, though not always in correct order. This is because I had to adjust for dates, bye weeks, etc. The conference can, of course, make this smoother when they schedule ahead of time. I was kind of back-scheduling, if you follow.

- Starting October 18, which is Week 8 of the real season and Week 9 of mine, and covering six weeks, each Big Ten team had either a home game, away game, or a bye (nonconference game = bye for these purposes, I'm focusing on just the conference right now.) I slotted all the home games and away games and byes in the right slots ahead of time. This is important: It simulates doing so in real life. Now each team has set home dates it can sell tickets for, though no opponent yet. It forces me to try and put a home date in the right spot wherever I can.

- Week 9, teams began to return to conference play, having lost the week before. Each week, I took the teams that had returned and gave them a game based on where they were supposed to play that week. For example, the first week saw Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Purdue eliminated, and thus returned to conference play. Illinois was scheduled for a home game that week, IU was scheduled for a road game, and M and Purdue were scheduled for byes. So Indiana traveled to Illinois, and the other two teams kept their byes. The next week, Minnesota and Wisconsin joined the party, and the process continued.

- I did this each week, even paying attention to rivalries and avoiding rematches from the playoffs. Michigan plays MSU and OSU. Minny, Wiscy, and Iowa all play one another. OSU even plays Illinois.

- Then I added up the standings, using actual results and taking guesses where those don't exist (e.g. Wisconsin over Purdue.)

Here are the results, including playoff games:

(I present these for posterity as proof of my work - if you only want to see the summary, just skip to the bottom.)

Guide to the symbols:
PP - playoff game
## - Changed from home game to something else
@@ - Changed from road game to something else
%% - Changed from bye to something else

Standings (conference games only)

Penn State 7-0
Michigan State 6-0
Ohio State 6-1
Northwestern 4-3
Illinois 4-4
Iowa 3-5
Minnesota 3-5
Wisconsin 3-5
Michigan 2-6
Purdue 1-6
Indiana 1-6

ILLINOIS:
@Michigan (W)
@Penn State (L)
Minnesota (L)
@Vanderbilt (L) PP
Indiana (W)
@Wisconsin (L)
Iowa (W)
Bye
Ohio State (L)
@Purdue (W)

INDIANA:
Michigan State (L)
@Minnesota (L)
Iowa (L)
@Western Michigan (L) PP
@Illinois (L)
@Michigan (L) ##
Bye
Northwestern (W)
@Penn State (L)
Bye @@

IOWA:
Northwestern (L)
@Michigan State (L)
@Indiana (W)
UAB (W) PP
South Carolina (W) PP
@Penn State (L) PP
@Illinois (L)
Ohio State (L)
Minnesota (W)
@Wisconsin (W)

MICHIGAN:
Illinois (L)
Wisconsin (W)
@Penn State (L)
@Clemson (L) PP
Bye
Indiana (W)
@Purdue (L)
@Michigan State (L)
@Northwestern (L) ##
@Ohio State (L)

MICHIGAN STATE:
@Indiana (W)
Iowa (W)
@Northwestern (W)
Kent State (W) PP
Connecticut (W) PP
@Georgia Tech (L) PP
Wisconsin (W)
Michigan (W)
Bye
@Minnesota (W)

MINNESOTA:
@Ohio State (L)
Indiana (W)
@Illinois (W)
Tennessee (W) PP
@Ohio State (L) PP
@Purdue (W)
Northwestern (L)
Wisconsin (L)
@Iowa (L)
Michigan State (L)

NORTHWESTERN:
Purdue (W)
@Iowa (W)
Michigan State (L)
Washington State (W) PP
Buffalo (W) PP
@TCU (L) PP
@Minnesota (W) ##
@Indiana (L)
Michigan (W)
@Penn State (W) %%

OHIO STATE:
Wisconsin (W)
Minnesota (W)
Purdue (W)
North Texas (W) PP
Minnesota (W) PP
Mississippi (W) PP
@Penn State (L) PP
@Iowa (W)
@Illinois (W)
Michigan (W)

PENN STATE:
Illinois (W)
@Purdue (W)
Michigan (W)
James Madison (W) PP
Fresno State (W) PP
Iowa (W) PP
Ohio State (W) PP
@Oklahoma (L) PP
Indiana (W)
Northwestern (W)

PURDUE:
@Northwestern (L)
Penn State (L)
@Ohio State (L)
@Central Michigan (L) PP
Bye
Minnesota (L)
Michigan (W)
Bye @@
@Wisconsin (L)
Illinois (H)

WISCONSIN:
Penn State (L)
@Ohio State (L)
Michigan (L)
Temple (W) PP
@Boston College (L) PP
Illinois (W)
@Michigan State (L)
@Minnesota (W)
Purdue (W)
Iowa (L)

OK. Problems and their possible answers:

- Clearly, this makes a mess of the conference standings. Only 5 of 11 teams play a full conference schedule. I did include intra-conference playoff matchups (PSU-OSU, for example) in the standings, except for rematch games (OSU-Minn.) Answer: Intra-conference matchups in the playoffs will happen more than you might think - consider the birthday problem - and so it's not hard to count on being able to add them to the standings to help mitigate this. This also provides an excuse for the Big Ten to play a championship game. I don't worry about a team that went 1-6, but MSU/PSU might turn into an issue without a pretty well-defined tiebreaker of some kind, be it a championship game or whatever else.

- Inequitable spread of home and road games. This happens because some teams lose a home conference game by advancing, some lose a road one, and some lose a bye. This and the above problem can be greatly reduced with slop-time games at the end; if Week 8, the first round of the playoffs, is October 18, then Week 14 is November 29 and there's still one more week of football left (at least in the real season.) However, Penn State has already played 13 games, a slop-time game would give them 15 all season.

- A very few instances of lost home games. Lost road games are not a huge issue, except for the revenue. Lost byes are probably a bonus - if the other divisions can play a home game in the playoffs on a week's notice, so can this one. Lost home games, as mentioned by commenters, are the big thing. But I really think this can be eliminated entirely with some rejiggering. I'm a dude with a spreadsheet, playing nerd games. If I can figure this out in an hour and a half with only three lost home games (which were changed to road games - and mind you, the home team for those three games already had a home game scheduled so there isn't a reciprocal switch. If there were, then there would be no issue) then I have little doubt that a crack group of people who do it for a paycheck can figure it out so this doesn't happen.

So the main thing now, to me, is the inequitability (actual word?) in the conference schedules. I think it's very possible, and very workable, to set home dates in stone so that fans can plan around those dates. I have yet to think of a proper solution to the uneven conference schedules. Other than "just live with it" or "the team that advances farthest in the playoffs is the conference champ, and if two teams tie then they just play each other when they're eliminated" I don't have any solutions to that, just mitigating factors. The main idea might be mvp's proposal from the other comment thread that had six conference games, then the start of the playoffs, which would help big-time with this issue but create a couple others.

Comments

Mlaw2010

December 13th, 2008 at 2:25 AM ^

I really appreciate your hard work and I wish there was a way to do a playoff, but this couldn't work. Programs need to know ahead of time where they are going to be playing (if on the road) and fans will often only get tickets to a game when they know who they are going to see. There is planning involved for these events.

Besides, what happens in a year when, let's say 3 or 4 Big 12 South teams are really good? For instance, this year there is a good chance Okla, Tex, Tech and Okla St. all would have played into the final 16 at least. That leaves Baylor and A&M with nobody in their division to play except each other for most of the season. I know they will play other Big 12 teams, but their fiercest rivalries are with the teams in their division. Could you imagine A&M vs. Kansas or K State as one of their big games for the season? The fans wouldn't show up.

Then there's the obvious problem of what happens when a team makes a run to the finals. Let's take, for instance, Michigan. Do you want a season where Michigan doesn't play Ohio State or Penn State or Michigan State or Notre Dame? Those are the games, as a fan, that I'd like to see. I'd be happy if we won the National Championship, but how fulfilling is the season if we can't (hopefully sometime soon) beat the crap out of the Buckeyes?

Again, I really appreciate the idea and the hard work, but it could never work.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

December 13th, 2008 at 8:45 AM ^

Well, there are workarounds, of course. First, I think the whole idea of divisions would probably get scrapped since teams would play whoever's available. And I think, if the fanbase at the games really is made up of the hardcore regulars that other commenters have mentioned, then they'll go to games no matter who the opponent.

Second, if there are games that have to be played, and most teams have such games, they can certainly be played at the beginning of the year when the schedules are still fixed. I'm not even convinced I would like to play OSU at the beginning of the year - rivalries belong at the end - but it's not a hard workaround if the CFB Dictator said you had to implement this system. Most teams only have two such games at most. There have been years in recent memory where Michigan didn't play ND or PSU, and in the case of PSU, those years aren't too far in the future either.

scottcha

December 13th, 2008 at 11:30 AM ^

You've put together a system that goes out of its way to crown an undisputed National Champion at the expense of drastically devaluing conference level football (which is all that will matter to 64 teams after week 1, 96 teams after week 2, etc.)

Look at the Big Ten. You've got Penn State winning the conference, that's fine. But, you have MSU finishing second having played one less game than 3rd place OSU with none of their 6 wins coming against OSU, PSU, or Illinois (a fifth place team that's played more conference games than 1st-4th, mind you). I have good reason to believe than not one program would deem that fair.

And that's just at the conference level. What happens if a team like Florida drops a fluke game to a team like Ole Miss in the early rounds of the tournament. They'll win out the rest of the season, but that one loss bumps them out of NC contention and leaves Ole Miss in the bracket to likely get bumped off by a team they shouldn't even be playing. The result: presumably one of the best two teams in the country is out of the running and another high-seeded team gets two easy wins (both against Ole Miss and the I-AA fodder you've padded the bracket with that they beat to get to Ole Miss).

Now, there's a little bit of controversy this year with Texas being bumped out of the MNC, but how much more controversy would there be if every single one of those one-loss teams vying for the NC was bumped in the tournament and we had Boise State v. Utah to look forward to? Could you really call a team that strings 7 wins together a National Champion? It's not going to be undisputed and it certainly won't be worth butchering conference championships for.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

December 13th, 2008 at 12:35 PM ^

"You've put together a system that goes out of its way to crown an undisputed National Champion at the expense of drastically devaluing conference level football"

No, I've put together a system that goes out of its way to crown a national champion and still keeps the bowl system almost perfectly intact that has the unfortunate side effect of devaluing conference level football. Devaluing conference level football isn't what I set out to do, and believe me I'd love to find a way in this system to fix that.

"The result: presumably one of the best two teams in the country is out of the running and another high-seeded team gets two easy wins."

Something that absolutely nobody gives a shit about - they even celebrate it - in the basketball tournament.

"Could you really call a team that strings 7 wins together a National Champion?"

I dunno....can you really call a team that strings four wins together, as in a 16-team bracket, a national champ? One of the big arguments against a playoff is that it risks giving unworthy teams a shot - the usual counter to that is that if the "unworthy" team beat these worthy ones, then they become worthy. Boise State wouldn't just be stringing together 7 wins against WAC competition. In the mock bracket I did they'd have had to beat Navy, UNC, BC, Utah, Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma, all in a row, in order to be national champs. By the time they got done beating Utah, Florida, and Alabama, do you think anyone would be questioning the "undisputed" label? Again: Nobody really worries about Cinderella destroying March Madness. And basketball is a much easier sport to pull off an upset in.

As for the Wetzel plan, there's nothing wrong with it other than the fact that I completely, totally, utterly despise it. Talk about ruining the regular season! Wetzel claims the sanctity of the regular season would be kept by offering up fluff opponents. Texas' reward for losing to Texas Tech is to get East Carolina instead of Buffalo in the bracket. Wooooo, real scary. (Wetzel also seems to think Oklahoma is undefeated, at any rate.) Wetzel says he using the same system other divisions use, which is nice until I-AA expands to 20 teams, which they are about to do. Anyone who likes the nice, simple, cut-and-dry system that a nice clean 16-team bracket offers had better not get used to it, because the NCAA will money-grub and make it bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Wetzel also claims that the bowls allow corporations to "cut themselves in on millions of profits" forgetting the THE BOWLS ARE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS.

I know Brian doesn't give a fig for the tradition of the Orange Bowl and such, but I do.

scottcha

December 14th, 2008 at 10:39 AM ^

"Devaluing conference level football isn't what I set out to do, and believe me I'd love to find a way in this system to fix that."

We can fix that by not having an 128 team tournament. With regard to no one giving a shit about upsets in the basketball tourney, I agree. The point I was making is that a 128 team bracket assumes everyone is worthy (they're not) and seeds them based on very shaky ground. Lets say that BSU doesn't meet half the powerhouses that your simulation puts them against because said powerhouses were upset (Florida) or beaten (Oklahoma) by what the BCS standings would call weaker teams earlier in the tourney. Your system seeds way too many teams (like 122 many) with very little data to do it accurately, setting the groundwork for what many would argue to be a disappointing result.

Couple this with the train wreck that becomes of scheduling once you're out and you've got yourself more potential for controversy than the current system (which is a hell of a thing to do, by the way).