24-team playoff concept

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

I put this together last night and based it off of the FCS model that uses 24 teams.

All conference champions get automatic bids, and just for filling purposes, I used the final CFP rankings. 

This could work if the people in charge wanted it to. And you could still keep the bowl games, though they would be pretty much irrelevant and looked at as an NIT. 

On December 13, one week after conference championships, the first round would begin. The winner of those first round games will advance and travel for a second round road game.

There will be 8 seeded teams who gets first round byes. Those seeds will host the second round games at their home stadiums. The second round games hosted by the seeded teams would be on December 20. 

The top four seeds will be placed in the regional that is closest to them in the order of seeding.For example, the Orange, Peach, Fiesta and Cotton are the four quarterfinal bowls. Since Alabama is the 1 seed and the closest of those four to them is Atlanta, they'd go to the Peach. Pasadena is closest to the 2 Oregon, Miami to FSU and the 4 seed would be stuck with whatever is left which would be OSU to the Cotton Bowl.

After the quarterfinal bowls that will be played on December 27, the two semifinal bowls would be played on January 4th. The Rose and Sugar Bowl. After that, the national championship on Monday, January 12. 

The first round games will be be hosted by the team with asterisk next to their name. 

MonkeyMan

December 8th, 2014 at 6:05 PM ^

Don't know if it will happen but I know it shouldn't happen- these kids are unpaid and take way too many hits as it is for mega million dollar coaches. I don't want to detroy their bodies any further.

Tater

December 8th, 2014 at 7:23 PM ^

I want to see eight teams, champions only, with all five major champions guaranteed a berth.  I would throw the best indie into the pool of other conference champions.

I would love to see teams having to win their conference before thinking about being "national champions."  It would make the regular season even more intense.

BlueinOK

December 8th, 2014 at 3:01 PM ^

Yeah that's way too many. If you didn't have all this TCU/Baylor complaining, most people would be ok with four. I don't want to de-value the regular season. That's what makes college football so great. 

althegreat23

December 8th, 2014 at 5:01 PM ^

I don't think the complaining ever ends about the first team left out. During March Madness, you have the bracketologists giving their last four in and first four out and the teams that get left out have a beef. Whether a team is at 5, 9, 17, 25, or 69 in the field, the first team out is going to complain.

W0lv3r1n3

December 8th, 2014 at 3:03 PM ^

Terrible idea. Renders half the regular season, conference championship, and bowl games completely irrelevant. You know, the cornerstones of college football.

6 teams, #1 and #2 get BYEs. Anything more is involving teams that have no argument.

turd ferguson

December 8th, 2014 at 6:45 PM ^

My ideal scenario is a 6-team playoff with byes for #1 and #2, #6 playing @ #3 and #5 playing @ #4.  That's not because there are six stand-out teams this year (I've argued for this configuration for awhile), but because it makes it a lot better to be #1/#2 than #3/#4, a lot better to be #3/#4 than #5/#6, and a lot better to be #5/#6 than #7.  In other words, every regular season game for top teams would matter... a lot... and the top teams would be rewarded.

Unfortunately, I think we'll always have a situation where the total number of teams is 2^x and x is a whole number.  In other words, they wouldn't stop at 6 when they could easily go to 8 (and rake in those dollars), and they wouldn't stop at 12 when they could easily go to 16 (and rake in those dollars).

bjk

December 8th, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^

But I don't think advertisers and the others who run this poop we have now will ever allow us to dispense with the equivalent of 2003 Oklahoma or 2012 Alabama.

I wish they would either respect the conference championships or get rid of them.

NCAA is about money, and money is about meaningless football games involving teams that are household names. Feh.

JamieH

December 8th, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^

You are always going to have the figure skating judges picking teams instead of having champs playing it out on the field.

 

Only people who like deciding things in the conference room rather than on the field like 4-team playoffs. Some computer polls have TCU #2 in the country right now. Where are they in the playoff?

jmblue

December 8th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^

Only people who like deciding things in the conference room rather than on the field like 4-team playoffs

There are also those of us who want to keep the regular season as meaningful as possible.

I don't feel sympathy for Baylor or TCU. They each lost a game. Once you lose, it's no longer in your control. You haven't done everything possible at that point.

College football is one of the last remaining American sports where the national champion actually has to have been the best team all season long. The rest just reward a team that gets hot at the end of the season.

I can accept a four-team playoff because some years there's been a third team that got jobbed. But there's never been more than four teams with a legitimate claim at being #1. If any computer poll really claims that TCU is #2, I don't take that formula seriously.

JamieH

December 8th, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^

You don't feel sympathy for Baylor or TCU because "they each lost a game".  Yet so did Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State.  So how the hell does your statement make any sense?  Like I said, you are rooting for things to be decided in conference rooms rather than on the field.

 

An 8-team playoff doesn't do ANYTHING to "make the regular season less meaningless".  5-major conference champions + 3 at-large teams isn't going to somehow ruin the clusterfuck of stupidity that we are witnessing right now.



Right now the entire college football season is meaningless because of the bullshit way it ends. 

JamieH

December 8th, 2014 at 4:10 PM ^

You are basically begging every team to play the biggest pussy schedule they can possibly find.  Because all you care about is making sure you don't lose. 



Attitudes like this are how we got to everyone rusing to schedule SWNE Tuscaloosa State as their primary OOC opponent. 

AFWolverine

December 8th, 2014 at 3:05 PM ^

You listed the Orange Bowl twice in your QF list.

Otherwise it's pretty close to what the FCS level does, as you said. I doubt this will come to fruition soon. They'll progressively add games I think, but it will take a long time, if ever, to reach 24.

ThadMattasagoblin

December 8th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^

I don't think 24 would work. The FCS plays way less regular season games before their playoff. That could be 18 games. Imagine how many of our players would tear their ACLs in this format. Also, it's already difficult to get fans to travel to three neutral site games CCG, national semifinal, and national championship. With this you add yet another neutral site game.

Naked Bootlegger

December 8th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^

I feel very strongly that the Miss St.-Wis/'Zona winner should be aired on ESPN, not the deuce. 

Also, too many damn games (unless you take away a regular season game or two, which ain't happening).

umbig11

December 8th, 2014 at 3:06 PM ^

....thought and hard work you put into that, but we may see this playoff quickly jump to 8 teams and remain there for a very, very long time. It's just too many games and the President's hate seeing this sport cross two semesters as it is. Granted the money to be made is there. 

From a die hard fan perspective under your scenario it would make it very difficult for me and I know many other fans to attend an extra 4-5 games. That's a lot of money to spend.

Needs

December 8th, 2014 at 5:13 PM ^

They hate it crossing semesters because a football game is hugely disruptive to a campus in a way that a basketball of a hockey game is not. Also, any plan that involves games during finals weeks (roughly the second two weeks of December) is a non starter.

jmblue

December 8th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^

Way too big.  Being a borderline top 25 team should not give you the right to win a national championship.  

I'm OK with the current setup.  I could live with six or eight, but I don't want any more than that. Keep the regular season as meaningful as possible.

 

Sauce Castillo

December 8th, 2014 at 3:10 PM ^

I think this would be plausible if there wasn’t so much attention on D-1 Football. I think to some extent this works on the FCS level because there isn’t as much media attention and hoopla around it for the players and coaches.  I can’t even imagine the drama and circus ESPN would have with 24 teams.

Also makes it difficult to repeat.  You’d have to think those kids and staff would be drained from that long of playoff. I think 8 is as high as I’d want to see.

westwardwolverine

December 8th, 2014 at 3:12 PM ^

Its really not difficult. 

Six teams. Five P5 champs + the next highest ranked team outside the P5 conference. Or create a sixth major conference and say bye, bye to the dregs of the FBS world. 

If you win your conference, you get a shot at a national title. That way the conference schedule acts as its own playoff to whittle things down to one representative. 

 

OccaM

December 8th, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^

I'll reword it for you. Five Power 5 champions + Highest ranked Group of 5 champion (that's literally what they call it The Group of 5 lol)...

aka Boise St or BYU + 5 other teams every year probably... 

 

Unless the B12 absorbs both of those schools...