OT: Yahoo Sports: Playoff should be on campus and have an actual formula

So naturally this format has no chance if happening. My only change would be that any team ranked in the top4 must also be a conference winner to be in the playoffs. Since pretty much every conference has a championship game, it can function as a defacto playoff game.

Good article, still think the higher seeded team who is actually in the playoff should decide where they play, not the conference.  

why can't we have an 8 team playoff?  It's basically two extra weeks of football and if the NCAA wants to protect the student athlete then cut one of the b/s non-conference fluff games. 

Higher seed gets the home games for quarter and semi-final games.  It doesn't seem that hard.   After the two week playoff, the bowl committee selects for the bowl games and every team selected participates in a post-season game.  

I don't understand why this is so damn hard?

I humbly disagree with Soldier Field.  Soldier field would be a less than ideal venue.  I know there are a ton of BIG and UofM Alumni in the area, heck I am only 90 minutes from there, but I don't see how it will serve the BIG all that well. A.) its a small stadium, ca. 65K.  Lucas Oil is estimated at 70K, Ford Field between 65-80K, but would you bet that 70K come for a playoff game at 70 degrees temp control and no wind or snow; or 45-50K to Soldier field when its snowing, blowing and miserable? B.) Its cold already in Chi-town in Decemeber, but the wind off the lake would be miserable.  Ask anyone who is a Bears, Cubs or Sox fan going to games in the spring and fall. It would also serious reek havoc in the kicking game and be miserable for the fans. We don't have a Robbie Gould, yet.  Thus, my pervious point, less fans would show for these reasons.  C.)  If you have paid any attention to the Bears over the last few years, people have been clamoring for new turf since when December hits their "grass" turf is like a skating rink.  People complain about poor play or stagnant offenses in big games, yea, let's throw a couple of soild college teams on a sheet of ice.  D.) Why do you assume the Bear wouldn't want to leverage a massive profit from this game?  Doesn't Indy or Detroit, etc.?  UofM wouldn't increase their ticket prices for a playoff game?

Sorry for the rant, just my perspective on Soldier field.  I still would love to see a playoff game at the Big House. Having said that, untill the college season starts earlier, the playoff games roll during the first week of December, and then the NC game on New Years, I would argue the bowls or neutral site games will have the leverage for now.  

I like the idea of encouraging home-and-home's against top opponents.

Yeah most championship level teams have to go 7-1 or 8-0 in conference to get a spot through what is a tough conference schedule- but that doesn't mean they should always play 4 cream puffs to round it out.

The Big Ten-PAC12 agreement ensures that it can't be too ridiculous for Big Ten teams coming up.  Plus, we always play ND, and with the Alabama game seem to be demonstrating that Michigan is already heading it that direction. 

I like the idea!  If you really are a legit NC quality team then you get there by beating even tougher competition, and if most teams have tougher schedules and you lose 3/4 games against real top opponents you still have a chance for a pretty good bowl game especially if tough games are incentivized in the post-season system.

...but after reading the article I can't help but be really really excited for the first college football playoff.  It's true there really isn't any minimizing the importance of the changes taking place.  This is huge.

Home games until the Super Bowl, seems to work great. I hate the SEC...

And, once, again, it's really cool. It's a way to make interregional games happen, only with higher stakes. It's a way to bring weather into the equation – all weather is football weather. It seems ideal.

"The NCAA tournament is not played on home floors – for a reason," SEC commissioner Mike Slive.

Please, no more comparing football to basketball. It's one of the great canards of all time. Why not use NCAA baseball as the standard and have double elimination?

Football is football and the applicable standard is the NFL, which uses home field until the Super Bowl.

Only conference winners, pick the highest four ranked out of the five major conferences (so long Big East) and you get a de-facto 8-team playoff.

that the Bowls play no purpose. basically, they serve the purpose of travel agent, tour guide for a group of athletes and fans whose specifics are unknown until 2 or 3 weeks prior to their arrival. while i hate the ticket guarantees and country club memberships and graft that go with it, organizing accomodations, practice space and activities for the players, coaches and band is a huge logistical issue.

I don't think people like Dave Brandon are ducking tough competition so much as they need to make money from home games (as we've discussed here many times, of course).   Changing a computer formula isn't going to alter that.   

I actually really agree with the regional location idea. I mean if you can't have it on campus then why not have it at least close. I could handle driving to Chicago or Indy before making a big trip to the national championship game. That would kill the argument of it not being able to handle the big game atmosphere. Let the bowl games have their games and the playoffs be separate.
Big Ten: Indy, Chicago, or Detroit
PAC 12: Rose Bowl
Big 12: Jerry's World
SEC: Atlanta
ACC: Charlotte
Big East: ...I don't care

Hell no that would be a pure lucky win with the wind coming in that time of year. That place blows, and literally blows. Play it at Ford Field or Lucas Oil depending on the teams.

I'm just not clear on when those would take place. What I'm envisioning is having the "BCS Final Four" the weekend after the conference championship games. It would be for the most part a television-only "event" on that Saturday where two semifinal games would be played in, say, Ann Arbor (yay) and then Tuscaloosa, Norman, Austin, or Eugene, etc. There wouldn't be the Final Four-style pomp and pageantry but that's fine. The TV ratings would be through the roof and the host schools would -- instead of being rewarded with an instant title game shot -- be rewarded with one additional home game with a built-in sold-out crowd of the usual fans including season ticket holders. 

I'm also not reading anywhere what happens to the LOSERS of those semifinals. In my mind, I would envision then being dropped into the BCS bowl pool with the rest of college football. Some years they might play each other in, for instance, the Fiesta Bowl, but that wouldn't be a requirement to set up a de facto third place game. ALL the bowls would go on as usual, as they have been since they added the double-hosted BCS Bowl/"champioship game." The championship game could be bid out to "Super Bowl" sites, or it could remain a rotating double hosted game attached to the Rose, Sugar, Orange, or Cotton (I really DO home the Cotton replaces the Fiesta or gets added to the BCS lineup. 

So this past year, it would have been Stanford @ Alabama and Oklahoma State @ LSU the weekend after the conference championship games. THEN, assuming Bama and LSU won, the still would have met in the Superdome the weekend after New Year's. What would have been added was a TV bonanza during an otherwise dead weekend for college football (save for the Army-Navy game, which could be a sort of "undercard" for the semifinals). You get the "playoff" out of the way well ahead of the bowls, removing *most* of the controversy from the championship game matchup, and everyone's happier. 

This forces just four teams to play an extra game during what might or might not be an exam period. This solution definitely has an aspect of "being right under our noses the whole time." As far as the "what if Boise State is #2 and a semifinal is hosted in Idaho" argument ... So what? Good for Boise ... will people not watch on TV because the turf is blue??

The conspiracy theorist in me really believes that the powers that be will allow a playoff to happen, just a controlled, not very palatable one.  Then, when everyone "sees how awful" this playoff thing really is, they can simply go back to the bowl system and start raking the cash back in.

PLEASE give me home semi-finals.  I cannot imagine how great the atmosphere would be at one of those events!

My thoughts:
Playoff should include all NCAA FBS conference champions and one wild card (12 teams). Teams are seeded by strength of schedule. Wild card is chosen by selection committee, but cannot get a bye. All games except for championship game to be played at site of higher seed’s choosing (teams could be required to have a minimum stadium capacity).

Here is how it would have worked in 2011:

Round One (December 10, 2011)
Ark St @ Alabama
N. Illinois @ West Virginia
S. Miss @ VaTech
BSU @ La Tech

Round Two (December 17, 2011)
Ark St/ALA winner @ Wisconsin
N. ILL/W. VA winner @ Oregon
S. Miss/VaTech winner @ LSU
BSU/LaTech winner @ OK St

Round Three (semi-finals) New Year’s Day (January 2, 2012)
Two games at highest seed winners from round 2

Round four (final game) 6-8 days following New Year’s Day

Bowl selection for most schools could be done in early December. Bowl invitation to tournament losers could be factored in. Losers of round two and three could be slotted into New Year’s weekend bowls.

Benefits of this system:

Includes all NCAA FBS schools (no mid-major whining allowed. ND and BYU and other independents have a chance to be included as wild card)

Makes the conference season all important. Maintains that which has been lost in basketball: an important regular season.

Keeps the chances of a non conference champion winning very low.
Provides very strong incentive to schedule tough non-conference games which enhances regular season. A home game in round two or three could be dependent on scheduling tough non conference games.

Allows bowls to continue with high quality of football.

There are two, and only two, ways to encourage teams to schedule harder opponents.



1. Make a good loss worth more than a bad win.



(In our case Michigan's ranking after an Alabama loss would have to increase more than a team beating a mod-major in the same week. This is unlikely).



2. Restrict the bids to conference champions and give certain conferences automatic bids. This would render non-conference results effectively meaningless.



Until one of these is implemented nothing will change. The fact remains that going undefeated in a major conference virtually assures a top-4 finish, while 1 or 2 losses to good teams does not.

They would have to open it to everyone in the FBS or otherwise they could get sued by the nonBCS conferences.

I think a solution such as the top 3 ranked conference champions + an at-large to the highest ranked non-champ would resolve most of the concerns that people have with leaving someone out with a realistic shot at the national title w/o making it a complete regional(SEC) affair

I am just glad ther is a playoff. Regardless of how many games right now...it is a start and can be improved. I hope the higher seed has home field...its how it should be...I would love to go to the BIG HOUSE in Dec.!!!