CFP Management Comittee to Issue Press Release Regarding 12 Team Playoff - It’s Happening

Michigan was ranked #13 going into bowl season in Hoke’s Sugar Bowl year, so we would have missed out. But yeah, Harbaugh would have gotten in twice 

I honestly think this is the most over-used excuse for college football's post season stupidity. In literally no other sport is a single loss a season ender. And no other sport cares whether it's the best team that wins the national championship. It's the team that wins the playoffs. Sometimes it's just a really hot team that managed to barely scrape into the playoffs in the first place. In happens in every sport. Having one bad game in October shouldn't ruin a team's chances to play for a championship.

The at-large bids kill it for me. I’d tolerate a 3-loss conference champion winning it all, because they at least punched their own ticket, but I don’t want to see a team who couldn’t win its own division getting in. Or how about a scenario where a Georgia gets a third shot at an Alabama, playing them in the regular season, conference title game, and then The playoff. That’s a possibility now, unlikely, but possible.

Makes me think of 2016 USC that ended #3 after losing 3 games.

If I remember correctly they lost 3 of their first 4 games of the year with injuries and shit to the #1 #7 and #20 teams in the nation 2/3 on the road 1/3rd neutral site. then won their last 9 games to finish 10-3 having beat the #5 team in the nation in a New years day bowl and also knocked top 5 Washington out of the playoffs a few weeks before that.

I'm all for 12 teams. I would have loved to see that USC team get a rematch vs Bama. would have been a lot closer than the 46 pt loss they had to Bama in the first game of the year with injuries. 

I always find that FBS football is viewed through a lense that other sports don't get viewed through. Would we have lamented if our 4 seed Michigan basketball team had won it all in 2013? Was it a travesty that our 3 seeded hockey team won it all in 1998? Or that an 8 seed NC State won a basketball title?

I know some of the intensity of the regular season is gone now, but this will be good for the sport in the long run. There's a reason no other sport ever tries to emulate the old way of how football determined a national champion

What if at the time, you actually are the best team? What if key players are injured early, but come back late? I don't think it's as black and white as you assume it will be. I know nothing is 100% but I would bet they get it right 99% of the time when you include conference Champs. 

So you don't enjoy literally any other sport besides College Football?

I think you mean bad news for people who enjoy voting and arguing more than watching good football games.

Also bad news for people who enjoy the current exhibition bowl games where every good junior/senior sits out to avoid getting hurt.  

 And cares about the most deserving teams winning the NC. The first time some 10 seed wins will be the time where know for sure the best and most deserving team did not win the NC. Because if you lose 3 games, no matter what happens in the playoff, you do not deserve to win the NC, and were not the best team, period. 

I simply can't wrap my mind around this thought process. Sports is not a subjective beauty pageant, you win championships by beating the teams in front of you when it matters most, not having a committee of rich and distinguished people awarding you a blue ribbon. 

I would say, you deserve to win the national championship if you've earned the right to participate in the tournament and beat all of the teams you come up against. Don't worry, Alabama, Clemson and OSU will still win plenty of championships under this new format, they'll just be less likely to be in their own exclusive elite category amongst the rest of college football. I can't possibly understand why someone outside of an Alabama/Clemson/OSU fan would think this is a bad thing.

Apparently, we're both '87 grads.  However, I cannot disagree with you more.

I'm sure you recall the 1985 basketball season.  The was the year that #1 seed UM was ousted in the second round by #8 seed Villanova.  That same #8 seed went on to play Georgetown in one of the greatest finals of all time.  

Villanova shot 79% from the floor to stun Patrick Ewing and the Hoyas.  They had to beat two #1 seeds, two #2 seeds and a 5 and 9 seed in the NCAA tournament.  So, the point is that I doubt many would say that they didn't deserve that championship despite ending their regular season #4 in the Big East behind St. John's (Chris Mullins), Georgetown, and Syracuse (Rony Seikaly and Sherman Douglas).

regular season began to die when the 4 team playoff began...

So I guess you hate March Madness then huh?

Well obviously. My point is that under a 12 team format Michigan is in the playoffs in 2016-2018 and the entire narrative around the program looks a lot different with three straight years in the playoffs including not having the recruiting crater that tanked 2020 and this year. Whenever changes like this happen, where you are when the change happens creates a dividing line. Clemson recruited well but not at an elite level but made the first couple of playoffs partly because of a transcendant QB in Watson and now are an elite recruiting team. If the playoffs get created in 2010 Clemson isn't a juggernaut. If it expands to 12 and for example PSU is the school that gets in from the east behind OSU for the first two years it creates a real problem for Michigan. It wouldn't have been a problem if they just went to 12 originally and Michigan made a bunch early on.

And that's after another neutral site conference championship game.

Really good point. No way the top 4 teams should be shafted out of a playoff game on their campus. That's asinine.