16-Team College Football Playoff

[dylanjf83]

A few days ago, Jim Harbaugh talked about wanting the CFP expanded to 16-teams. If they were to expand the playoff, this is how I believe they should do it:

 

Each Power 5 Conference Champion gets an automatic bid. There are at least 2 bids for the Group of 5, one being the AAC Champion, and the other being an at-large among the 5 conferences. The 9 other spots would be at-large bids. It would basically be the top 14 teams in the College Football Playoff rankings, with the American Champion and another G5 team.

 

The teams would be evenly separated into 4 groups: South, East, West, and Midwest. The teams would then be seeded 1-4, with the 1-seed hosting the 4-seed, and the 2-seed hosting the 3-seed, all being on-campus games. These games would occur the week after the Conference Championship games, as most schools are letting out for winter break. Teams in the same conference can not be in the same region, unless there are 5 teams from a given conference, which is unlikely.

 

The winners of these games would then play in Regional Championships in predetermined sites, around Christmas.

 

The winners of the Regional Championships would then play in what the CFP semifinal is now, with either the Rose/Sugar Bowls, the Orange/Cotton Bowls, the Peach/Fiesta Bowls, and the Citrus Bowl and Texas (Which would be renamed Bluebonnet) Bowl also added to the mix. The 12-teams not playing in the semifinals would fill the spots of the other 6 Bowl games.

 

The winner of the semifinals would play in the National Championship, and at that point people will be calling for 32-teams in the playoffs.

 

Here's how it would have looked in 2017:

Alabama plays Georgia in the National Championship in Atlanta. The Regional sites are just random cities, and would be selected similar to the sites in March Madness.

 

[MJWalker45]

8 minutes ago, dylanjf83 said:

Each Power 5 Conference Champion gets an automatic bid. There are at least 2 bids for the Group of 6, one being the AAC Champion, and the other being an at-large among the 6 conferences. The 9 other spots would be at-large bids. It would basically be the top 14 teams in the College Football Playoff rankings, with the American Champion and another G6 team.

With 16 teams I'd like to include the champions of every league. If we're going to pretend all things are equal, the AAC champion won't always be the best Group of 5 champ and guaranteeing them a seat at the table over a Conference USA, MAC or Mountain West champions who'd face around the same level of competition doesn't make sense to me. We know they won't let every conference in because the bigger names sell more TV sets but setting in stone that at least 2 G5 teams be in sounds like a good place to start, I'd ask for 4 but we know the Big Ten, SEC and ACC would balk at that. Also, Notre Dame would want a piece of the pie if they were 11-1 or even 10-2.

 

As for the quarter-finals losers playing another bowl game, they'll basically become the second string scrimmage since those starters considering going pro will then sit out the games.

[dylanjf83]

5 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

With 16 teams I'd like to include the champions of every league. If we're going to pretend all things are equal, the AAC champion won't always be the best Group of 5 champ and guaranteeing them a seat at the table over a Conference USA, MAC or Mountain West champions who'd face around the same level of competition doesn't make sense to me. We know they won't let every conference in because the bigger names sell more TV sets but setting in stone that at least 2 G5 teams be in sounds like a good place to start, I'd ask for 4 but we know the Big Ten, SEC and ACC would balk at that. Also, Notre Dame would want a piece of the pie if they were 11-1 or even 10-2.

When it comes to TV ratings, Troy vs. Alabama isn't gonna bring in that many fans. 4 times out of 5 the American Champ is the best in G5. The AAC is between being a Power 5 and a Group of 5, so I think they deserve the one spot as their conference gets better and better.

And as for Notre Dame, they don't just get an auto-bid. Either they just join the ACC, or have to be in the top 16 ranking wise.

[MJWalker45]

Just now, dylanjf83 said:

When it comes to TV ratings, Troy vs. Alabama isn't gonna bring in that many fans. 4 times out of 5 the American Champ is the best in G5. The AAC is between being a Power 5 and a Group of 5, so I think they deserve the one spot as their conference gets better and better.

If UCF is 9-4 and Western Michigan is 12-1 I think WMU would trump them in the polls. Boise State with a similar record could bump them as well based on quality wins. 

[dylanjf83]

6 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

If UCF is 9-4 and Western Michigan is 12-1 I think WMU would trump them in the polls. Boise State with a similar record could bump them as well based on quality wins. 

It's at least 2 bids for G5 teams, so Boise State could theoretically make it too, but a 9-4 team winning the AAC outright is improbable.

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, dylanjf83 said:

It's at least 2 bids for G5 teams, so Boise State could theoretically make it too, but a 9-4 team winning the AAC outright is improbable.

Depends on their out of conference schedule. They could go 8-1 in conference but have 3 losses to Power 5 teams.

[dylanjf83]

5 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

Depends on their out of conference schedule. They could go 8-1 in conference but have 3 losses to Power 5 teams.

Chances that they would play all out-of-conference games against P5 teams are slim to none, so very unlikely that they would lose all 3 of those games. 

[Red Wolf]

Yeah, if we're hypothetically bothering with 16, then it needs to be the 10 conference champions plus 6 at-larges, similar to how basketball does it. 

[dylanjf83]

2 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

Yeah, if we're hypothetically bothering with 16, then it needs to be the 10 conference champions plus 6 at-larges, similar to how basketball does it. 

The NCAA doesn't regulate how the playoffs or national championship work in the FBS, so technically all 10 conference champs do not have to be included, it would just weaken the product.

[Red Wolf]

8 minutes ago, dylanjf83 said:

The NCAA doesn't regulate how the playoffs or national championship work in the FBS, so technically all 10 conference champs do not have to be included, it would just weaken the product.

Then kick the G5 out of the FBS and be done with it. 

 

EDIT: It doesn't seem like whether the NCAA is fully involved or not really matters since we're talking about a purely hypothetical situation. The G5 schools are already at an incredible disadvantage. If you put them into a situation where over half of their conference champs are always left out, then they're so totally screwed from a competitive standpoint that it doesn't make sense for them to even be in the same division. Then you may as well fall back to an 8-team playoff with the 5 conference champs and 3 at-large. 

[dylanjf83]

14 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

Then kick the G5 out of the FBS and be done with it. 

 

EDIT: It doesn't seem like whether the NCAA is fully involved or not really matters since we're talking about a purely hypothetical situation. The G5 schools are already at an incredible disadvantage. If you put them into a situation where over half of their conference champs are always left out, then they're so totally screwed from a competitive standpoint that it doesn't make sense for them to even be in the same division. Then you may as well fall back to an 8-team playoff with the 5 conference champs and 3 at-large. 

2 guaranteed spots is better than no spots. In a playoff with 16 teams, a team like Toledo isn't better than any of the P5 teams that would be in the Playoffs. Maybe I should revise and not give the American an auto-bid, but I think only 2 bids for the G5 teams is fine.

[Red Wolf]

17 minutes ago, dylanjf83 said:

2 guaranteed spots is better than no spots. In a playoff with 16 teams, a team like Toledo isn't better than any of the P5 teams that would be in the Playoffs. Maybe I should revise and not give the American an auto-bid, but I think only 2 bids for the G5 teams is fine.

Toledo probably wouldn't win. But also, they might. Loyola-Chicago would have most likely been left out of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament if they had failed to win their conference championship game. Yet they went all the way to the Final Four. Basketball teams know that winning their conference guarantees them a seat at the table. In your hypothetical tournament, conference champs from the G5 are far more likely to sit at home doing nothing, and accomplishing nothing since placing 16 in the tourney pretty much kills any interest in bowls.

[dylanjf83]

56 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

Toledo probably wouldn't win. But also, they might. Loyola-Chicago would have most likely been left out of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament if they had failed to win their conference championship game. Yet they went all the way to the Final Four. Basketball teams know that winning their conference guarantees them a seat at the table. In your hypothetical tournament, conference champs from the G5 are far more likely to sit at home doing nothing, and accomplishing nothing since placing 16 in the tourney pretty much kills any interest in bowls.

But if they do win their conference, and are one of two teams put in the Playoffs, they bring national attention to their school, which in turn helps the entire athletic department, and would also boost academics, as success in athletics will help the academics of a school (I.e. success of UCF football team and other athletic teams has grown UCF to one of the largest schools in the nation)

[Red Wolf]

47 minutes ago, dylanjf83 said:

But if they do win their conference, and are one of two teams put in the Playoffs, they bring national attention to their school, which in turn helps the entire athletic department, and would also boost academics, as success in athletics will help the academics of a school (I.e. success of UCF football team and other athletic teams has grown UCF to one of the largest schools in the nation)

If they win their conference they'll most likely get left out entirely, making it that much more difficult to draw fans and athletes. This would be a level of separation between the G5 and P5 that would make staying in the FBS or keeping football at all completely unfeasible. 

 

It sounds like you really just want name brand football though. In which case we may as well start kicking schools like Kansas, Indiana, and Wake Forest out of the major conferences as well, because nobody wants to see an underdog defy the odds apparently. 

 

UCF didn't become a gigantic school because they got good at football. They were gigantic before that. If anything, their size and location has more to do with their athletics success than the other way around. 

[dylanjf83]

7 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

If they win their conference they'll most likely get left out entirely, making it that much more difficult to draw fans and athletes. This would be a level of separation between the G5 and P5 that would make staying in the FBS or keeping football at all completely unfeasible. 

 

It sounds like you really just want name brand football though. In which case we may as well start kicking schools like Kansas, Indiana, and Wake Forest out of the major conferences as well, because nobody wants to see an underdog defy the odds apparently. 

 

UCF didn't become a gigantic school because they got good at football. They were gigantic before that. If anything, their size and location has more to do with their athletics success than the other way around. 

Right now, G5 teams don't even have a shot of making the Playoff, with this method at least two will be included. Name brand football isn't the goal, getting the best teams in the Playoffs is the goal.

[MilSox]

Please, just... no.

I like the idea of expanding to 5 teams and using the format that the NFL had in the 80s.  But I feel like if you should at least finish in the Top 5 for a chance at the national championship.  Championships are supposed to reward a great season, not the team that got hot at the right time and blew through a tournament.

[infrared41]

It's been a while since I posted my "perfect" CFB Playoff so here it is again...

 

8 teams. 

• 5 highest ranked conference champions. Each conference champ must be ranked 15th or higher. 
• 3 at-large from the highest ranked non-conference champions and/or independents.
• If more than 5 conference champions are ranked in the top 15 then each conference champion after the top 5 takes the place of an at-large bid.
• If less than 5 conference champions are ranked in the top 15 then an extra at-large bid is added to replace conference champs that weren't ranked in the top 15.

Using last season as an example, this is what the playoff would have looked like.

 

Conference Champions: Oklahoma (Big 12 Champs) Ohio State (B1G Champs) Georgia (SEC Champs) USC (Pac 12 Champs) Clemson (ACC Champs) and UCF (AAC Champs)

At Large: Alabama and Wisconsin. 

[Red Wolf]

41 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

It's been a while since I posted my "perfect" CFB Playoff so here it is again...

 

8 teams. 

• 5 highest ranked conference champions. Each conference champ must be ranked 15th or higher. 
• 3 at-large from the highest ranked non-conference champions and/or independents.
• If more than 5 conference champions are ranked in the top 15 then each conference champion after the top 5 takes the place of an at-large bid.
• If less than 5 conference champions are ranked in the top 15 then an extra at-large bid is added to replace conference champs that weren't ranked in the top 15.

Using last season as an example, this is what the playoff would have looked like.

 

Conference Champions: Oklahoma (Big 12 Champs) Ohio State (B1G Champs) Georgia (SEC Champs) USC (Pac 12 Champs) Clemson (ACC Champs) and UCF (AAC Champs)

At Large: Alabama and Wisconsin. 

16-teams (10 conference champs and 6 at-larges!) is probably unrealistic. This is probably the best 8-team setup I've seen and is actually doable. 

[infrared41]

23 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

16-teams (10 conference champs and 6 at-larges!) is probably unrealistic. This is probably the best 8-team setup I've seen and is actually doable. 

 

Thanks!