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Playoff
Apr 30, 2012 6:56:41 GMT -5
Post by Tizu on Apr 30, 2012 6:56:41 GMT -5
Looks like there is going to be a 4 team play off to determine the champions from here on out. While it's a step in the right direction...they didn't take a big enough one for me. I know the bowl games are huge money making machines for the schools and the league, but I think a 4 team playoff isn't much better than what we have to deal with now. I'm not sure what the answer is, but this just seems like an appeasement rather than a fix.
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Playoff
Apr 30, 2012 8:00:28 GMT -5
Post by mattncsu02 on Apr 30, 2012 8:00:28 GMT -5
Yeah, that's like the NCAA basketball tournament going straight to the final 4 without the brackets. A good start, but there's still work to be done for the football championship to be as fair as basketball.
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Playoff
Apr 30, 2012 9:00:36 GMT -5
Post by Ken D on Apr 30, 2012 9:00:36 GMT -5
I don't know that football will ever be as fair as basketball, but this is a good start IMO.
If they simply pick the four highest ranked conference champions or independents, they will be assured a strong field of deserving teams. That's not to say they will be the best four teams - there is no way of knowing who those are. But in the entire history of the BCS, only one team who would have qualified using this criterion would have been ranked lower than #6.
People will argue that a potential - even probable - national champion might get left out (see, Alabama). I agree that can happen. It might even happen as often as the best team in basketball is eliminated before reaching the Final Four.
If there are only going to be four teams for now, I believe they should all be champions. I will be happy to include at-large teams in the future provided at least the six highest ranked champions are included.
But what I really want is for this tournament to be run by the NCAA, not the BCS. Either the NCAA has to take control of D-I football or it has to get out of it altogether - including regulating recruiting, eligibility and compliance.
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Playoff
Apr 30, 2012 16:46:21 GMT -5
Post by Ken D on Apr 30, 2012 16:46:21 GMT -5
A thought just occurred to me. The scuttlebutt is that the most likely model for 4 teams is champions only. What if that triggers a reversal of the expansion pattern we've seen recently?
The SEC and ACC have both expanded to 14 teams. I think most people feel that there is another shoe to drop in both conferences, because 12 schools make sense and 16 schools make sense, but 14 makes no sense at all. One way that could be resolved is if the SEC were to pick off two ACC schools, say FSU and Clemson for its eastern division, leaving them at 16 and the ACC at 12.
But why add two more strong teams, when there is only a playoff berth for one (out of 16)? What if the SEC were to add them, but then split into two eight team conferences? What would stop them from creating an arrangement where they jointly negotiate TV contracts, and even agree to inter-conference scheduling, but still be technically two conferences and eligible to put two teams in the playoff?
And if the SEC did take two ACC teams, would we respond by seeking to add four more or just stay put at 12?
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Playoff
Apr 30, 2012 21:02:33 GMT -5
Post by mattncsu02 on Apr 30, 2012 21:02:33 GMT -5
I totally agree that the NCAA should control the tournament, not the BCS. I've never believed the BCS way of determining the rankings and the national champion was anything more than a complicated, hard-to-understand pile of monkey crap. The NFL has a playoff system, why can't college football? College baseball has the college world series! The 4 playoff teams must be conference champions, no exceptions. However, I see the 4 playoff teams always being from the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac 12.
I don't know if the playoff system will reverse the expansion trend, or possibly increase it. Think about it. If you're a school like Boise St., and you know that you will most likely never be picked as one of the "chosen 4" because of the conference you're in, then why wouldn't you want to move to a power conference like the PAC 12? Just saying, it may reverse it, but it might fuel the expansion fire even more.
I would really hate to see any ACC teams leave for the SEC. FSU and Clemson leaving would not be good for the football strength of our conference.
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Post by Ken D on May 1, 2012 8:31:46 GMT -5
No doubt the four champions would usually come from those four conferences. But not always. In the 14 years of the BCS existence, 56 teams would have qualified, either as conference champions or as an independent ranked higher than the fourth ranked champ.
45 of these were schools now affiliated with one of those four conferences (Utah and TCU of the MWC would have qualified twice each but they are now in the PAC and Big XII respectively). The other 11 were ACC (8, including VT and Miami when they were part of the BE), the Big East (2) and Notre Dame (1). So, on average, one team per season came from outside the four power conferences.
The best bet for conferences like the ACC is to have an upset in one of the Big Four conference championships, placing a lower ranking team in the pool of champions. Another thing that would greatly help the chances of an outsider getting in would be a reduction in the number of scholarships FBS schools could offer.
A scholarship reduction from 85 to 75, coupled with allowing players a full five years eligibility (with no redshirts) would save $35-40 million a year and spread the talent around more evenly. Eliminating the "grayshirt" practices allowed by the SEC would help as well.
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Playoff
May 1, 2012 18:46:30 GMT -5
Post by Marty Da Hungry Wolf on May 1, 2012 18:46:30 GMT -5
My thoughts: Taking away arguments (good or bad) about money, power, university presidents, etc.: If every other division of college football can have a "tournament" or a "playoff", then Division I-A can as well. Most every year, Appalachian State makes the I-AA playoffs, and they are one of 16 teams that play games at the home fields of the higher seeded team of each pair, with a pre-determined championship game site. As an example, I will use a system that a friend and I came up with on paper years (YEARS) ago; so long ago, the AP only ranked a Top 20. I will use the teams from the final BCS standings from this past season in the example and, for brevity, will only include the Top 16. I do realize the BCS standings were final after the BCS bowls and BCS title game but, again, this is just an example. Assume these rankings were after the completion of the mandated 12 game regular season which should, by the way start Labor Day weekend (throw in some Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday games if you must), one mandated week off after all teams have played at least 4 but no more than 7 games, with the last week of the regular season being Thanksgiving weekend (by my estimation, from looking at a calendar). The first round of the football tournament (per msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/polls) would be: #16 Georgia at #1 LSU ("rematches" don't matter, you use the rankings) #15 Clemson at #2 Alabama #14 Oklahoma at #3 Oklahoma State #13 Michigan at #4 Stanford #12 Baylor at #5 Oregon (would hope there would be fresh batteries in the scoreboard for this one) #11 Virginia Tech at #6 Arkansas #10 Wisconsin at #7 Boise State #9 South Carolina at #8 Kansas State after that first round, which would take place the first weekend in December, the remaining teams (lowest remaining -vs- highest remaining, 2nd lowest -vs- 2nd highest, etc.; "bracket style") meet. If necessary, use the seven biggest bowl games in a true championship rotation for Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Finals, which should conclude sometime around Christmas or, if you'd like, have the championship game the weekend closest to New Year's after a week break following the semifinals. Teams outside the Top 16 could still play in lower-level one-off bowl games like they do now, and those teams' fans would likely still travel about like they do now. I don't want to hear that 16 teams is too many, and it's too many games, etc., etc., etc. Football would become a one semester sport, D-I teams (just the Top 2, actually) would play as long of a season as the Top 2 football teams in every other division, the television possibilities would be enormous, and we'd actually have a tournament to determine a champion on the field of play just like we do in every other sport and in every other division of football. Ken, I do wholeheartedly agree with scholarship reductions (spread the talent base around) and with stopping the SEC's ridiculous practice of "over-signing" (they're the only conference I know of that does this), which keeps every school in every other conference really only competing for signing and playing with leftovers and discards.
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Playoff
May 1, 2012 21:03:48 GMT -5
Post by mattncsu02 on May 1, 2012 21:03:48 GMT -5
I think Marty's playoff schenario is right on target! Makes perfect sense to me.
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Post by Tizu on May 2, 2012 6:45:13 GMT -5
Awesome, Marty! That would be perfect! Unfortunately, with the BCS having control it's highly unlikely something like this would come to fruition. I could see there being MORE money involved in this scenario than the current (or 4 team playoff) scenario.
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Post by Ken D on May 2, 2012 9:38:50 GMT -5
My thoughts: Taking away arguments (good or bad) about money, power, university presidents, etc.: If every other division of college football can have a "tournament" or a "playoff", then Division I-A can as well. Most every year, Appalachian State makes the I-AA playoffs, and they are one of 16 teams that play games at the home fields of the higher seeded team of each pair, with a pre-determined championship game site. As an example, I will use a system that a friend and I came up with on paper years (YEARS) ago; so long ago, the AP only ranked a Top 20. I will use the teams from the final BCS standings from this past season in the example and, for brevity, will only include the Top 16. I do realize the BCS standings were final after the BCS bowls and BCS title game but, again, this is just an example. Assume these rankings were after the completion of the mandated 12 game regular season which should, by the way start Labor Day weekend (throw in some Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday games if you must), one mandated week off after all teams have played at least 4 but no more than 7 games, with the last week of the regular season being Thanksgiving weekend (by my estimation, from looking at a calendar). The first round of the football tournament (per msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/polls) would be: #16 Georgia at #1 LSU ("rematches" don't matter, you use the rankings) #15 Clemson at #2 Alabama #14 Oklahoma at #3 Oklahoma State #13 Michigan at #4 Stanford #12 Baylor at #5 Oregon (would hope there would be fresh batteries in the scoreboard for this one) #11 Virginia Tech at #6 Arkansas #10 Wisconsin at #7 Boise State #9 South Carolina at #8 Kansas State after that first round, which would take place the first weekend in December, the remaining teams (lowest remaining -vs- highest remaining, 2nd lowest -vs- 2nd highest, etc.; "bracket style") meet. If necessary, use the seven biggest bowl games in a true championship rotation for Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Finals, which should conclude sometime around Christmas or, if you'd like, have the championship game the weekend closest to New Year's after a week break following the semifinals. Teams outside the Top 16 could still play in lower-level one-off bowl games like they do now, and those teams' fans would likely still travel about like they do now. I don't want to hear that 16 teams is too many, and it's too many games, etc., etc., etc. Football would become a one semester sport, D-I teams (just the Top 2, actually) would play as long of a season as the Top 2 football teams in every other division, the television possibilities would be enormous, and we'd actually have a tournament to determine a champion on the field of play just like we do in every other sport and in every other division of football. Ken, I do wholeheartedly agree with scholarship reductions (spread the talent base around) and with stopping the SEC's ridiculous practice of "over-signing" (they're the only conference I know of that does this), which keeps every school in every other conference really only competing for signing and playing with leftovers and discards. Marty, I'm afraid a 16 team playoff is so far off that you can't even see it from here. There would have to be so many sacred cows slaughtered to make it happen there will be blood running in the streets on campuses across the country. Your proposal would virtually kill the four major bowls (otherwise known as "golden egg laying geese"). And it would virtually eliminate the bowl experience for all the traditional power schools like Alabama, USC, Ohio State, etc, who every year would be relegated instead to the more mundane atmosphere of the playoffs. I believe there would be less money available from your scenario than there will be under the proposed four team playoff. And I don't think you can overestimate the importance the Big Ten and PAC 12 place in maintaining the Rose Bowl as a New Year destination. To get to 16 teams, you will have to have the second round at the traditional New Year's bowl sites, and the games will have to be scheduled close to New Year's day. That's a must in order to allow time for travel packages to be worked out for the teams that advance beyond the first round. There is a reason why the FCS can do it differently than the FBS. They aren't going to a playoff instead of a bowl game because they aren't attractive enough to be invited to a major bowl in the first place. They sacrifice nothing. And by having a hiatus in the FBS schedule to accommodate the bowls, the FCS gets to enjoy the stage all to themselves for their playoffs. I'm not sure if your proposal allows room in the schedule for conference championship games. If they are eliminated, the revenue the major conferences now get from them will offset the new revenues from a playoff. My solution would be to simply start the regular season earlier so the championship games could be played in November. Fans are ready for the season to start by mid-August, since there's little else going on at that time of the year in sports. I also take issue with just taking the top 16 teams in the rankings. The rankings don't measure relative strength of teams. If they did, then Houston would not have dropped from #6 to #19 just by losing a single championship game. If they really were only the 19th best team in December, then they weren't really the 6th best in November. Had Houston won that game, they probably would have been ranked even higher. Does anybody really believe they were that good? Since we know that rankings are inherently biased and unreliable, I think at the very least we should include any conference champion ranked in the top 25. If we made that change to your scenario, Big East champ West Virginia (70-33 winners over Clemson) would have been matched against LSU in the first round. C-USA champ Southern Miss would have played Oklahoma State and Mountain West champ TCU would have been paired with Stanford. Those changes would have left the four power conferences with 10 teams. The ACC and Mountain West would have had 2 each and the Big East and C-USA one each. That seems more truly representative of FBS football to me. In short, I don't think any of the players - college presidents, bowls, conferences and ESPN - are likely to accept your proposal in my lifetime. I doubt they would accept mine within 5-10 years (which I hope is less than my lifetime). That makes all these conversations interesting, but academic.
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Playoff
May 2, 2012 19:09:50 GMT -5
Post by jgunn on May 2, 2012 19:09:50 GMT -5
I like the model Ken described, and Marty's was good as well. While the four team playoff is a step in the right direction, it is a BABY step, and I'm afraid it will take forever to get through all the red tape, or should I say "green" - as in $$$$. I also think the NCAA will have to pry the greedy fingers of the BCS off their cash cow bowls before a true playoff system can be put into effect.
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Playoff
May 2, 2012 19:19:14 GMT -5
Post by Marty Da Hungry Wolf on May 2, 2012 19:19:14 GMT -5
I like the model Ken described, and Marty's was good as well. While the four team playoff is a step in the right direction, it is a BABY step, and I'm afraid it will take forever to get through all the red tape, or should I say "green" - as in $$$$. I also think the NCAA will have to pry the greedy fingers of the BCS off their cash cow bowls before a true playoff system can be put into effect. Hammer, meet nail. jgunn, you and Tizu bullseyed the BCS issue; no other collegiate sport has a championship that is "governed" by the participants - how stupid is that? Of course, the "powers that be" would have to agree that integrity and fair play should trump money. Oh well, a football fan can dream, can't he?
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Playoff
May 2, 2012 21:28:39 GMT -5
Post by mattncsu02 on May 2, 2012 21:28:39 GMT -5
Hey Marty, kind of like the patients running the asylum, right? I think we might as well get used to looking forward to watching 100 bowls that mean jack every year and waiting to see which two teams a bunch of "experts" decide to put in the championship game.
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Post by Marty Da Hungry Wolf on May 3, 2012 3:49:30 GMT -5
Hey Marty, kind of like the patients running the asylum, right? I think we might as well get used to looking forward to watching 100 bowls that mean jack every year and waiting to see which two teams a bunch of "experts" decide to put in the championship game. Funny how few of the football "experts" and "gurus" look like they actually played football past 7th grade, just like The Oompa-Loompa ESPN has running their basketball "Bracketology". Lunardi has to stand on his soapbox just to be short, but he "knows" basketball inside and out. Funny to me. ;D
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Playoff
May 3, 2012 21:38:50 GMT -5
Post by mattncsu02 on May 3, 2012 21:38:50 GMT -5
Haha! Exactly.
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Post by Ken D on May 4, 2012 9:21:38 GMT -5
Hey Marty, kind of like the patients running the asylum, right? I think we might as well get used to looking forward to watching 100 bowls that mean jack every year and waiting to see which two teams a bunch of "experts" decide to put in the championship game. Funny how few of the football "experts" and "gurus" look like they actually played football past 7th grade, just like The Oompa-Loompa ESPN has running their basketball "Bracketology". Lunardi has to stand on his soapbox just to be short, but he "knows" basketball inside and out. Funny to me. ;D Lunardi's day in the sun lasts about four weeks every year. You have to wonder what it is that he does the other 48 weeks. For that matter, I wonder what he did all his life before ESPN appointed him "Guru for life" a couple of years ago. If I could get the opinion of any one person about who should make the tourney field, it wouldn't be Joe Lunardi. It would be Jay Bilas.
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Playoff
May 4, 2012 17:29:41 GMT -5
Post by Marty Da Hungry Wolf on May 4, 2012 17:29:41 GMT -5
Funny how few of the football "experts" and "gurus" look like they actually played football past 7th grade, just like The Oompa-Loompa ESPN has running their basketball "Bracketology". Lunardi has to stand on his soapbox just to be short, but he "knows" basketball inside and out. Funny to me. ;D Lunardi's day in the sun lasts about four weeks every year. You have to wonder what it is that he does the other 48 weeks. For that matter, I wonder what he did all his life before ESPN appointed him "Guru for life" a couple of years ago. If I could get the opinion of any one person about who should make the tourney field, it wouldn't be Joe Lunardi. It would be Jay Bilas. "...wonder what it is that he does the other 48 weeks." Hibernates. Comes out in late January, sees his shadow, goes back in for six weeks, then comes out in mid March and gets his photo endlessly taken and gets hours of television coverage, while people marvel at how fat he's gotten over the winter.
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Post by mattncsu02 on May 7, 2012 7:46:33 GMT -5
Where can I get a job like that? Sounds like a sweet deal to me!
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Playoff
May 7, 2012 17:31:01 GMT -5
Post by Marty Da Hungry Wolf on May 7, 2012 17:31:01 GMT -5
Where can I get a job like that? Sounds like a sweet deal to me! Bristol, CT ;D
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Playoff
May 18, 2012 14:51:31 GMT -5
Post by Ken D on May 18, 2012 14:51:31 GMT -5
I believe the announcement by the SEC and Big XII today that their champions will play in a New Year's bowl sets the stage for a four conference monopoly of the major postseason games. Here's how I see the scenario playing out.
Every year the Rose Bowl will pair the champions of the Big Ten and PAC XII while the Sugar Bowl will match the SEC and Big XII champs. Unless, of course, their champs are selected for the four team playoffs held at the Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. In that case, another representative of those conferences will play in the Rose and Sugar (which will be most of the time).
The championship game will be held every year at the Cowboys stadium in Dallas (central location, plenty of luxury suites).
Five blockbuster games, all the money divided among four conferences. Every once in a while, the ACC gets a bone if their champ cracks the top 4 in the polls.
Congratulations, ESPN. Your takeover of college football is complete.
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