WSJ Says B1G and PAC12 Should skip playoff to Save Rose Bowl
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577396102303663334.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Basically it states the best thing about college football is the rose bowl, and a playoff system would make it less special
I agree
Why not just play for the B1G championship then go play against the Pac-12 in the Rose Bowl? What does UofM really lose?
WSJ is owned and operated by Rubert Murdock.. Oh shit, my computer just got hacked into
the playoffs will soon be 64 teams
playoff will make college football too like the pros
going to really change the character of the game
How is it more pro like? Because it shares an aspect in common with the NFL? If that’s the case, then facemasks should be banned because they make the game too much like the pros. If you have some other explanation, please elaborate, because I don't see how it changes the character of the game at all. And while it may be a slippery slope, I don’t think it’s quite slippery enough to get to 64 teams…
playoff wil evolve and have kids playing closer and closer to 16 games
with all the recent injuries, and not to mention academics (Dec. is Finals time) I think we would be best served playing just 1 more game
Interesting article, but national championship game > Rose Bowl
Yeah, that's going to happen.
Rather than try to cram the Rose Bowl into the play off system or run it in parallel, just evolve it. We have a scheduling agreement with the PAC12. Do something like have the Rose Bowl become the opening game of the season and a PAC-12 and B1G team play in it (Chik-a-fil Bowl with more class). Between the playoff and the conference championship games it feels like the end of the season is spoken for, so evolve the Rose Bowl into something that is meaningful and unique.
Last year's B1G #1 vs PAC12 #1 as the opening game would be a damn good game and let a lot of TV attention.
And it would also give the PAC home field advantage year in and year out. I'd rather play home and aways w/ the PAC schools so they can feel the wrath of THE BIG HOUSE
The Rose Bowl has always been home field advantage for the PAC12. Ever since it began. It is what it is. We can get revenge by inviting USC out for a November game in the Big House.
And it is one thing to earn a right to play in the Rose Bowl every year as the bowl game, but to schedule a regular season game in California and to also play a bowl game in a California/Florida seems a little unfair to the BIG teams.
My idea was predicated on the idea we go some kind of playoff system that renders the Rose Bowl meaningless. As in playoffs at a home field or something. At that point top teams would be going to the playoffs, not the bowls. So you either keep the Rose Bowl and send lesser teams to it, or you move it.
I'll only agree if you promise to send the band
I really like that idea - Wisconsin vs. Oregon in a week 1 matchup this year would be amazing. Then just take that scheduling agreement and make the B1G-Pac matchups all week 1 affairs.
Unfortunately, I don't think it will ever happen - too many folks talking about their lawns, and how we'd need to get off them.
Probably heresy for this board, but Pasadena has their events on New Year's Day goshdarnit (on a Monday if New Year's is on a Sunday so that the horses tied up at the churches aren't scared by the parade) and they likely couldn't care two hoots if the rest of world wants to evolve their college football playoff plans. The idea as it always has been to bring in crowds to sunny California (unless you were unfortunate enough like some of us and went the one year it rained) for the holidays with multiple days of band competitions, float building, games, festivities, a parade, and oh, yeah, a football game.
You could go plan a game in September or October like you say, and it may be in the Rose Bowl, but it won't be the Rose Bowl.
I love the Rose Bowl and its great traditions, but you can't pass up the chance to play for a national championship. You lose out in so many ways: recruiting, prominence, hardware, etc.
Sorry, man. As much as I don't like negging people based on their opinions, the Big 10 should never, ever shoot themselves in the foot like this. We would become irrelevant faster than you could say Ivy League. We would essentially relegate ourselves to a 1AA type of league...
...with Rachel Bachman (LSA grad). It is a completely brilliant article. She's right. If I were Mary Sue, I'd lean on the levers of power to make it happen, no matter what the AD's or the tv executives might think.
And yeah, it is about the money. It's about the Big Ten making more money, and keeping it to ourselves with the requisite share going to the PAC12 schools.
Let the SEC and the rest become NFL-lite. Because it is also about college football retaining ownership of itself and its traditions, and not becoming just another televised football league.
Who wants to be in the midwest on New Year's Day? I'd want to play golf in Pasadena.
It is sad and somewhat appalling that so few in the Michigan fanbase seem to understand the significance of tradition. I used to think that we were better than the ignorant groupthink of the masses but everytime I see another pro-playoff sentiment coming from a Wolverine I can't help but cringe.
One of these days, everybody will have the college football that they've been clamoring for. A playoff with a national champion crowned in a mega-hyped Super Bowl style game. Money everywhere, halftime shows with JayZ, 15 minute commercial breaks. Maybe even players getting paid.
Everybody keeps professing how much they love college football yet they keep beating the drum to change it. WTF?
Some people don't love Michigan football because of the Rose Bowl. Wins, national prestige, uniforms, history, players, coaches, integrity, pride come to mind first. If anything, our mediocre Rose Bowl record, frequently playing in USC's backyard, works to further move the Rose Bowl down the line as to why we love UM football. We look at March Madness and see few problems there with a neutral site playoff structure. Ideally if we could preserve a Pac10/BiG showdown as a part of the playoff should we? Of course, but please spare the "slippery slope to tradition oblivion" argument sure to follow.
is stupid. I don't agree with keeping the PAC12/BIG10 match up in the playoffs. Leave that with the bowl alliance, BCS, and all of the other by-gone stuff. Match the teams up by ranking them - how they earned their place.
So you're willing to allow the BiG to stunt itself even further behind the SEC, just so you can play golf in Pasadena... Sorry mate, but watching UM win an NC in Indianapolis or Dallas after a playoff would be just a touch more pleasurable than getting in a round of 18 while a 12th ranked BiG team played a 13th ranked P10 Rose Bowl. March Madness anyone?
- The erosion of the meaning of regular-season games;
- The erosion of the meaning of conference championships;
- The erosion of the meaning of our season-ending game with Ohio State;
- The loss of our special access to the very best bowl, which is the Rose Bowl;
- The furtherance of the slippery slope of nationalized monetization of our football program, and the loss of control that goes with it;
- The NFL-ization of college football;
- et cetera, et cetera.
I agree in the sense that a real national title through a playoff is still bullcrap.
Nobody would believe the Super Bowl was a legitimate championship if the Saints and Falcons got to draft an extra player every round, held 80-man rosters, and had a different CBA allowing them to manage rosters differently than the NFC North.
Whatever. There's no point in fighting it. I wish the Big Ten and Pac-12 would tell the SEC they'll go home unless they change their rules to fit Big Ten and Pac-12 values. Doubt it will happen.
I'm so over caring about this because it's just a mob mentality at this point.
...is a point in trying to fight it. If you love college football as it's been, then why wouldn't you try to resist change?
Haha I guess I should've been clear.
I'd love for the Big Ten and Pac-12 to fight it. That's their job; unfortunately, I don't get paid to debate the college sports and I've got playoff fatigue. I'm tired of playoff articles, playoff blogs, playoff arguments. I try to stay out of it now.
As you can tell by my multiple posts in this thread, easier said than done.
and I bet you Hoke and the entire team 133 would agree with me.
and I'm a tradition-loving old-timer as much as anyone else.
EDIT:
The tradition of phrasing the season's goal as getting to Pasadena stems from the days when a) that usually equated to a national championship and b) when it was the only bowl you could get to. It's not the Rose Bowl that's the tradition at Michigan...it's motherfking excellence that's the tradition. Current measure of excellence = M.N.C.
For all you people indoctrinated to extol tradition without thought or experience - I also bet you Bo, Lloyd, Crisler and especially Yost would have agreed with me in today's age.
...with that premise. I have no idea what the Coach and the team think but it is a mistake to assume that a mythical national championship is greater than a Rose Bowl.
At it's core, the mythical national championship is just an affirmation of what other people think of you. It's ultimately decided by voters & politics. That was true in the pre-BCS era. It remans true in the BCS era. And it will likely remain true even under most of the proposed playoff scenarios (unless the NCAA steps and officially sanctions a true national championship).
At the same time, one of the fundamental of football is setting goals and then working hard to acheive them. Big Ten titles and Rose Bowls thus hold a lot of currency because they are tangible goals in which the team controls it's own destiny. Coaches generally love that kind of thing. 20 year old kids, on the other hand, don't always fully appreciate it but it is a good lesson to learn. There's simply too much politicking involved in mythical national champions to make most coaches comfortable with it as a goal.
Any Michigan fan who remembers 1997 should understand this perfectly well. That team was undefeated, won the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl. Perfection. Yet there were still some poll voters who felt they were not the best team in the nation. But so what? Who cares what some other people think about us when we just ran the table. We're Michigan fergodsake!
Contrast that with last season when Alabama wins the "national" championship yet didn't even win their own division or conference titles. How many of their preseason goals did they accomplish? Yet they have the audacity to call themselves champions of the nation? I'd be embarrassed if that were me...but then I'm not a soulless bastard like Saban either.
I agree with most all of what you say. Your premise on the goal setting and accomplishing said goals, and tying in 1997 to compare, is beautiful. Not everyone sees it like us, though. People, and student athletes included, don't realize how mythical the BCS MNC really is. Most of us understand it seems weird to root for mediocrity (i.e. Rose over a National Championship), but again, as soon as you realize how mythical and assinine the BCS MNC really is you have greater respect for what the Rose Bowl really is (aside from the fact that at the moment it's a game run by a Bowl Committee and all that goes along with that garbage, we know how much we hate this, but to bring back its glory from yester-year would help the Bowl regain it's Superiority and meaning).
It's not going to be mythical by the time we're dealing with this issue. Why would you not shoot for the highest goal possible--the national championship game?
They both opposed playoffs and said so on the record.
As for Crisler and Yost; Crisler opposed just about everything that sapped the dominant influence of Michigan in the Big Ten, including the admission of Michigan State into the Conference. Crisler opposed it, unsuccessfully. As for Yost; Old Man Yost didn't mind pulling Michigan out of the Western Conference if that is what it took to get his way.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, schooled in the tradition of the rose bowl (and every other Michigan tradition), going to every home game and an away game or two each year since the early 91.
I've been to the Rose Bowl twice (1998 and 2004). Both were great experiences and the Rose Bowl definitely sets itself apart with its college atmosphere.
I graduated from Colgate, a IAA football school. At the time, IAA ran a 16 team playoff... home teams hosting until the final, which was at a neutral site. My senior year, Colgate had a run to the finals, with two home games on the way there. In as few words as possible... I've never enjoyed football as much as I did during those playoffs.
Do we lose something special by giving up the Rose Bowl? Yes.
Do we get something much much more by switching to a playoff (hopefully a 16 team one eventually that will include all conference champions, thus giving every team in IA an objective shot at the playoffs)? Yes.
False. As much as I love the Rose Bowl, and what a good luck charm I've been for UM (only two Rose Bowls I attended were the 89 and 92 Rose Bowls where we beat USC and Washington), I'm also for a playoff, for three reasons:
1. Stay competitive for recruits.
2. No more USC home field.
3. Tired of the debates, even 15 years later from Nebraska fans over '97, and similar fall out from the lack of a playoff.
Just make the playoff and be done with it.
Is it better to go with a playoff system against teams/leagues that are described best by Hardware Sushi as playing with unfair advantage plus these same teams are usually playing their final game close to home or is it better to fight that system by going old school and sticking with Rose Bowl game against PAC-12?
I wouldn’t give up the Rose Bowl unless B1G received the right for home playoff games.
Put me in the camp that doesn't see much good in Michigan laying down with the SEC and getting fleas.
The SEC schools cheat and the SEC players aren't students. There's a limit to how much Michigan should be associating with that. If the new playoff system institutionalizes SEC mores and folkways, and gives the SEC champ effectively an automatic bid, I don't have to have Michigan and the B1G involved.
Delaney's main thesis is correct -- they've tried and are trying to nationalize something that really can't be nationalized.
If Michigan goes undefeated and beats a top-10 Pac-12 champ in the Rose Bowl, who cares what the delusional Southerners think about who the national champ is?
Everybody knows what's going to happen, right? If the playoff isn't limited to conference champs, the SEC is going to agitate for their second-best team to get the 4 spot -- just like they agitated for Alabama next year. The SEC championship game is going to be Danielson and Lundquist talking up how great a team the loser of that game is and how tough they played the winner -- and how everybody knows the SEC champ is the best team in the country.
And the massive SEC Amen corner will, as they did last year, usually win out and the SEC will have two teams in. Years like 2008, when Utah, who probably wouldn't have even been admitted to a 4-team playoff, went to Alabama's backyard and blew them out, will be conveniently ignored, just as every other rational anti-SEC argument is ignored.
Those people don't want to reason their way to a fair, sensible four-team field; they want to rig the system. They're already bitching about having to play somewhere cold and they're going to continue to bitch until they get their way. We should just tell them to fuck off.
A national championship is important in any sport, and if we opt out of it the Big Ten may never be relevent again in college football.
The idea is that by pulling out of any playoff scheme, the Big Ten and the Pac12 can themselves delegitimize the remainder of college football that wants to become an NFL farm system. Force everybody else to do it our way.
Leaders. Maybe the ACC and BigXII follow suit with the storied conferences, and hell maybe the Big East, MAC, etc. all do as well. The SEC then can do nothing but come along for the ride and abide by the rules of the Leaders. Far fetched I know, but the Big Ten and the PAC Ten setting the bar and delegitimizing what remains isn't as far fetched as many think.
the Big Ten and Pac12 further marginalize themselves rather than delegitamize the conferences that have produced 16 and a half out of the last 19 national champions since the Bowl Coalition started in 1992/1993 followed by the Bowl Alliance then the BCS (Michigan's half championship in 1997, OSU in 2003, USC in 2005). At the poor success rate the Big10 and PAC12 have in producing national champions, forcing everyone to "do it our way" is delusional.
It's also a little late to prevent college football from becoming an NFL farm system, as it has been that way for about 70 years. Could you provide 1 example, of an NFL player that did not play on the college level (exception - kickers and to a lesser extent punters, who could have played soccer instead)?
EDIT: Just thought of one - Vince Papale of the Philadelphia Eagles back in Dick Vermeil's first few years in the mid/late '70's.
No recruit is going to come to the Big Ten if we can't go to the National Championship game.
If the B1G and PAC-12 don't participate in the playoff, no one will take the playoff seriously because it doesn't involve the B1G and PAC-12. There won't be any "national championship game" that we'd be missing out on.
Mike Slive needs us a lot more than we need him.
Articles like this one -- from a Michigan grad -- could very well be trial balloons and somebody else's mouthpiece.
Like I've posted before, I'll believe Delaney's going to let the Rose Bowl miss out on the top 4 teams every single year when I see it.
How about the top Big Ten team goes to the playoffs if they are ranked in the top 4, and if not they go to the Rose Bowl? In the case that a top 4 team goes to the playoffs, the 2nd place big ten team goes to the Rose Bowl.
If you have a 4 team playoff then it becomes less of a crapshoot to be NCs. i can't imagine the meltdown here if we finish # 3 only to see the #4 team win it all while we're playing in Pasadena.