College Football Playoff Primer

Submitted by MichGoBlue858 on

Since the College Football Playoff is starting this year, I thought this article was pretty helpful in understanding exactly what's going on. The recap at the end of the article:

• An elimination round now exists in college football.

• A selection committee will pick the top 25 teams in the country and seed the playoff.

• Six prestigious bowls will take place on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, broadcasted by ESPN.

• This year, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will host the semifinals on New Year's Day.

• This year's National Championship Game will take place in North Texas.

Link: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10767521/a-primer-new-college-football-playoff 

markp

April 15th, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^

I moved to Grapevine, TX (right next to Dallas-Ft Worth airport) from Novi, MI 2 years ago so I've had to learn the local vernacular as a Michigander.

There are roughly 7 million people here in the Dalls-Ft Worth (DFW) "Metroplex" and large events (especially sporting events) are courted by the "North Texas" area as a whole, rather than just a single city.

Arlington (home of the Rangers and Cowboys) has great stadiums, but it's not as well known as Dallas and lacks public transportation. The flagship city of the area, Dallas is only 20 minutes East of Arlington and has museums, nightlife, and great public transportation. Fort Worth (just 20 minutes West of Arlington) has a more Western/Texas-y feel and offers it's own amenities like Sundance Square (where College GameDay sometimes sets up camp) and the historic Stockyards. There are also dozens of smaller cities that offer their own hotels, restaurants, entertainment, shopping etc.

TL;DR – This is a huge and unique area with tons of different names. This whole area (Dallas, Ft Worth, Arlington, etc.) functions as a single metropolitan area called , "DFW", "the Metroplex" or "North Texas".

markp

April 15th, 2014 at 12:29 PM ^

That's largely true, but there is a lot more to this area than just Dallas... thus the cooperative, multi-city marketing efforts.

Anecdotally, DFW airport itself is technically located in four separate cities, none of which are Dallas or Fort Worth (Coppell, Euless, Grapevine, and Irving).

Mr. Yost

April 14th, 2014 at 8:37 PM ^

Can a bowl that hosted a Semifinal, bid---and win, the National Championship game too?

Also, interesting to note that when the Rose Bowl are NOT "hosting" they're both still New Year's Day games. So the more important playoff games would be New Year's Eve (the night before). Meanwhile the Fiesta and Orange Bowls have pretty much become NYE bowls.

Mr. Yost

April 14th, 2014 at 10:47 PM ^

...but actually kind of cool.

Generally you're off and you have New Year's Day to recover or continue drinking. Games will be over by the time the NYE stuff really starts so I think it would be fun to watch meaningful football until 10pm and then start the traditional NYE stuff.

I really enjoyed the Texas A&M/Duke game last year with all my friends as we were getting going for the night. Having "bigger games" would actually be kind of cool.

Basically it's taking away those random BCS games on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th where it's just ONE game that night and you have to come home from work/school and watch and there is no atmosphere because you have to work/go to class the next day.

No one stayed up and watched UCF/Baylor this year not only because no one really wanted to watch that game anyway, but also because it ended after midnight on a work/school day (I believe). Move a game like that to NYE and everyone is watching during their party or at the bar or wherever.

I remember Stanford and Oklahoma St. played in the Fiesta Bowl a few years back and it was an AWESOME game, and I was fighting to stay awake because I had work in the morning. Would've loved to have had that game on NYE.

SECcashnassadvantage

April 14th, 2014 at 8:56 PM ^

I wish we could play in it. It's so sad having grown up when we would have had a shot.

anewnoise

April 14th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^

I may have missed this or I'm just completely confused. What bowl would the Big Ten champion play in this year if the school, for whatever reason, is not ranked among the top four teams?

michiganman01

April 14th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^

This is not a final answer but I think it will just be like how they selected the Big East Champion in the BCS. There will be a order of the remaining four bowls have and if the B1G 10 Champ is like #5, then they might go to the bowl at the top of the pecking order. If something like Wisconsin in 2012 happens, then the bottom.

M-Dog

April 15th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^

Will the 6 bowls horse-trade to try to keep their traditional alliances alive, like the Rose taking an eligible B1G team in the years they are not hosting a semi?  I have heard speculation that that something like that may happen.  

If not, we could be seeing three, four years in a row where the Rose does not have a B1G team in it.  Would be a shame.

 

chewieblue

April 14th, 2014 at 10:02 PM ^

the thought of watching 2 SEC teams, 1 BIG 12 hack and either Sparty or Ohio duking it out in this new playoff while we flounder in a bad bowl game.  Please God let us somehow get back to being good.  Please....?

uminks

April 15th, 2014 at 2:19 AM ^

I'm thinking 2015 would be our best chance with both MSU and OSU at home. Though starting a new QB may be the reason we don't reach and win the B1G.  2017 I think we will do it! staring QB will be a senior or junior and all of our young players will be seniors and RS seniors.

Perkis-Size Me

April 15th, 2014 at 9:32 AM ^

I haven't been able to figure this out: are there still the "lower tier" bowl games that are going to happen, i.e. The Outback Bowl, Alamo Bowl, etc.?



Or is it if you don't make the playoffs or one of the 6 prestigious bowl games, then your season is over?

M-Dog

April 15th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^

I actually learned something.  I thought the selection comittee was only going to meet once to pick the top 4 at the end of the season, like the NCAA BB committee, but they are actually going to rate the top 25 every week, starting mid-season.

Also, there is nothing preventing Indy or Detroit from bidding and winning the host of the NC.  Chicago would be great, but it's probably limitited to domes in northern cities.

I say put an inflatable roof on the Big House in January and enter the bidding process.

 

northmuskeGOnBLUE

April 15th, 2014 at 12:45 PM ^

is that the national championship game will always be on a Monday night. Unlike the national championship basketball game, the national championship football game will take three and a half hours to complete. This completely sucks for us working folks (and students) that have to get up early on Tuesday. I know that having it on a Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon would conflict with the NFL Playoffs, but there has to be a better solution than a Monday night.

Maybe I just need to move to the Pacific time zone......