The National Championship in College Football has become Boring
Perhaps others feel this way, but year after year, it's always Clemson and Alabama way ahead of everyone else, with a couple exceptions. And the semifinals are usually boring blowouts because Clemson and Alabama are just so much better (once again, with a few exceptions). It's just boring. An 8 team playoff would be good to implement in order to at least give some other teams some excitement in the quarterfinal round before inevitably losing to Bama/Clemson.
Anyway, perhaps once players start getting NIL money, it will help to even the playing field. We can only hope.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:58 PM ^
The solution is so obvious and yet they can't figure it out
Either expand to 6 or 8 teams
6 = five power five conference champions and at large OR G5 team. Top 2 seeds get byes, first round played on campus, next two rounds neutral
8 = five power five conference Champs + 2 at large AND guaranteed G5 team. First round campus sites, neutral next two rounds
You add one extra game at most to the season for any team, you increase viewership, and you quell complaints that lower tier teams don't get a shot
December 19th, 2020 at 10:01 PM ^
If you expand to 12 or 16 their will be a mass exodous of football in the north. every top kid will go to the south. The SEC would dominate college football even more. They would get 2,3 or4 teams in a year,depending on how big you expand. Your going to get ohio state from the big ten, oklahoma from big12 and ! team from the pac 12. I dont see those conferences sending more than 1 team very often..The sec would become a super conference. Keep it at 8 or put some conference limits in.
GO BLUE
December 19th, 2020 at 10:54 PM ^
Simple solution to that is give each of the 10 FBS conference champions an auto bid.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:54 PM ^
It looks like you write the rest of your message in invisible ink but forgot to share the decoder pen.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:06 PM ^
Our rivals to the south have fared pretty well. They were better than Clemson last year in that game. Thankfully the refs gave it to Clemson. We can get there with the right group of coaches.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^
Here’s a thought - have an NCAA compliance officer and NCAA health official working independently in every P5 athletic department and actually punish schools/coaches that circumvent rules - pretty simple way to curve the playoffs away from the same teams year in and out.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^
December 19th, 2020 at 10:14 PM ^
The mentality should be that if you don't like something then take actions to become better, instead of constantly complaining about not being able to measure up.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:35 PM ^
I think it's fair to ask why college football needs to be different than every other NCAA team sport.
We wouldn't have made a four-team playoff in any of John Beilein's 13 seasons at Michigan. We'd look at him completely differently if that kind of system were in place.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:33 PM ^
"Has become"? It's been boring for several years now.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:35 PM ^
Conference expansion is when it all went to shit, the playoffs are just an extension of that. It’s how a team like WISC is able to become an elite destination- multiple years of 10+ wins because they play meatballs plus or minus one or two actual opponents.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:36 PM ^
Put caps on conferences, make every team play once in a conference.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:54 PM ^
I have to chuckle at some answers here. The current CFP is unequivocally terrible for Michigan. It’s a good thing that all other sports don’t do this. But we must bang our heads against a wall and fall short of the playoff year after year because of Honor and Duty(TM) and so we can continue the grand college football tradition of having your season be meaningless once you lose one game.
Whatever. Expand the field and give us more of a chance. I don’t know about you but I would have liked having a playoff bid in ‘16 and ‘18.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:52 PM ^
It will always be Alabama vs Clemson. OSU is a step down and ND is two steps down.
December 20th, 2020 at 8:57 AM ^
Because committee selection of “the best team” has created a self fulfilling feedback loop.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:58 PM ^
I know Michigan is going to fire a lot of the defensive staff, but....uh, you need offense in this day and age. You aren't going to run it between the tackles with zero tempo and win these days. Sobering to watch Alabama and Florida vs. what Michigan has been up to.
December 20th, 2020 at 12:34 AM ^
If Bama and Clemson are so far ahead of everyone else, what’s the point of expanding the playoffs? Just go back to the national championship game and make the bowl games meaningful again. Expanding the playoffs is pointless, there are not 8 competitive teams in any year.
December 20th, 2020 at 12:46 AM ^
Yeah, they need to expand the playoffs ASAP. I can't see how long they can keep the 4 team playoff going. At least college basketball has some parity. This is becoming ridiculous.
December 20th, 2020 at 1:01 AM ^
NIL should hopefully reduce the advantage that bag men have right now and an expansion to 16 teams like FCS would be perfect. The talent would be more evenly distributed over time as recruits could make money at more places and have opportunities to win championships at more places. Now, the vast majority of top recruits will just go to one of the top 4 teams because that is where all the action is. It is a minor miracle that Worthy turned down Bama for us.
My assumption is they will start with an 8 team playoff and then go from there. That won't be perfect but will at least open it up a little bit. Pac 12 schools will start getting more talent again in that scenario and players would know that even runner ups in conferences with Clemson, Bama and OSU could still make the playoffs. So, it may impact decisions.
December 20th, 2020 at 1:39 AM ^
Co-signed
December 20th, 2020 at 3:17 AM ^
I agree. I'm hardly interested any more, after being a die-hard fan for 20 years. But it's got no novelty now. No meaningful bowls, few arguments about rankings. No debates about the champion (unless you're Scott Frost). Same 5-6 teams on top every year. Few meaningful OOC games. It's amazing that the 85-scholarship rule was made to create more parity and never really had much gravity. Now, for whatever reason, parity is even worse than it was 25 years ago when the scholarship limitations went into effect. I tend to think that even if I were an O$U fan, it would be boring. No one really challenges you. The huge Nov game that the whole year was aimed toward doesn't make any difference and is a foregone conclusion. O$U is just like Clemson in the ACC now. The season might have 1-2 close games, and otherwise just numbing obliterations. Recruiting is just so utterly dominated by a few schools.
December 20th, 2020 at 7:44 AM ^
The unfortunate result of an 8 team playoff is a round of blowouts. As is the reward for a good season is a winnable big bowl game. Instead the reward is a near definite blowout loss. There is a larger gap between teams 1 - 8 in CFB than in the entirety of the NFL.
December 20th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
NFL has a real playoff. Every other division of college football has a real playoff. High school football has a real playoff. Major college football has an invitational pretending to be a playoff. This isn’t difficult. 16 team playoff should be the minimum.
December 20th, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
We've all see the charts highlighting the concentration of 4 and 5 stars in the last decade at Clemson, Bama, O$U and UGA and we all know why. What mystifies me is that no one ever brings it up in during a game. Last night 's Bama broadcast was hilarious. "Amazing how many NFL wide receivers have played for the Crimson Tide recently," as if that were somehow not a fait accompli. I get that the networks don't want to kill the golden goose, but it honestly feels like I'm watching WWE and everyone's pretending the match isn't rigged. And please don't come back with "we do it too." Look at our talent vs those schools. With a few exceptions (who likely turned down six figure payouts to actually attend classes in Ann Arbor) we simply can't match up. We either aren't dropping bags or we're insanely inept at it.
December 20th, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
That is true but we should worry about ourselves before worrying about the national college football landscape. And, our problem is we are underperforming our recruiting rankings. Until we get consistently top 10-15 performances out of our top 10-15 recruiting classes, it doesn't behoove us to complain about other teams recruiting practices. And you even hint at the issue. You talk about alabama's NFL alumni, but we have the number 2 NFL alumni group. So we are getting plenty of talented players by that measure -- why aren't we winning more? That's the question that needs to get solved first.
December 20th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
Easy answer to say it is all cash payout cheating is an excuse...perhaps playing for championships with top level coaches who develop players and provide exposure to elite offensive and defensive schemes and NFL opportunity has nothing to do with Alabama and Clemson’s, etc., success? Venebals or Brown, who do you want to play for? Not sure the mythical bagmen are needed with what the recruit gets. It is pretty clear how good Saban is at what he does, just ask LSU following his departure. To chock this all up to unproven “cheating” etc, is the reason it isn’t discussed on air, it doesn’t hold water. All are envious of their success but 2016 was Harbaugh’s downfall. He just runs the ball and punts in the second half and allows the D to continue to stuff OSU’s O as they did all game and this program is on a different trajectory today. Results matter to recruits, these players attending P5 schools all believe the NFL comes next for them and look for the most likely path. Harbaugh is attracting top 10 talent, but the elite remain skeptical with his lack of results on O and D/championships and player development. Going to a top producing schools as a five star is risk management.
December 20th, 2020 at 10:07 AM ^
Expanding the playoff is about getting talent to spread out a little more, plain and simple. Top end talent will continue to go to the same 5-6 schools under the current system. Expanding the playoff at least introduces the possibility of randomness as well. The top teams would still win the majority of time, but at least other teams would be given an opportunity.
December 20th, 2020 at 10:32 AM ^
Yep expand to 8 teams,then 16 in a few more years, then 32 then 64 . . . There always was a playoffs, it was the whole season from week 1 and every team was in it. This end of year bracket playoffs made college football worse and we will never feel like it includes enough teams.
December 20th, 2020 at 10:55 AM ^
Bo was completely against the playoff system and wanted to stay in bowl games.
Years later we can see why.
I miss all the bowls, the pageantry, and the inevitable arguing over who was #1 afterwards.
That was a much more fun time.
December 20th, 2020 at 1:20 PM ^
Why play a season at all anymore? OSU gets the B1G trophy and pair Alabama and Clemson and be done with it.