...why not a playoff system in 1a football?

[andrewharrington]

A playoff is not needed, but it could work, and here is how: First, we use one set of standard rankings in college football. The top 16 teams in the rankings play a straight-up, single-elimination bracket. You can't take all the conference champions. It would leave out too many vastly superior football teams. Thus:

1 Ohio State v. 16 Rutgers

8 Boise State v. 9 Auburn

4 LSU v. 13 West Virginia

5 USC v. 12 Arkansas

3 Michigan v. 14 Wake forest

6 Louisville v. 11 Notre Dame

7 Wisconsin v. 10 Oklahoma

2 Florida v. 15 Virginia Tech

The result is a slew of very good games, and this is only the first round. You could get some interesting rematches as well, as we see here. You can't have the bowls and a playoff, though. That devalues the bowls, and the bowls simply cannot play second fiddle to a playoff. Thus, all we need is the Plus One system. Play the Big Four Bowl Games as they were meant to be played: Pac10/BigTen in the Rose Bowl. BigXII in the Fiesta Bowl. SEC in the Sugar Bowl. ACC/BigEast in the Orange Bowl. Fill the rest of the spots in these games with the highest-ranked teams. Rank the teams again after those games have all been played, and play the top two teams a week later.

This would have settled big disputes like Penn State/Nebraska in 1996, Michigan/Nebraska in 1997, Miami/Oklahoma in 2000, USC/LSU in 2003, Auburn/USC in 2004, and The Debacle that is 2006.

[Broken Record]

D1 already has a playoff system. It's called the regular season. It's a cold hard sport and that's what I like about it.

Cold hard fact #1 - you lose a game, shut your mouth. Maybe you get a chance to play for it all if you are lucky, but you have no reason to whine if you lose.

Cold hard fact #2 - if you want to play for a national championship, don't sign with a mid major.

[Guest]

College football is illegitimate without a playoff, in my opinion. Any sport is. What if the Stanley Cup tournament was replaced by sportswriters and formulas?

[mjrbaseball]

If they insist on going with rankings rather than a playoff, then some changes need to be made:

1. No human polls. Go with computer rankings only, as they include only facts decided on the field, no emotion.

2. No factoring-in of margin-of-victory in any game. A win is a win is a win. Winning by one point should equal the same as winning by 40.

3. No strength-of-schedule. You play the hand you're dealt. If several teams in your conference are having bad years, should your good team be penalized for that?

4. Factor in players' grade-point-averages and the school's graduation rate for athletes -- at least football players. (I'm serious about this.) Make the term "student-athlete" mean something.

[OB33]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo_Bowl

Here it says that the Alamo Bowl usually matches up the fourth place teams from the Big 10 and the Big 12. That is probably why it's Texas and Iowa.

The Alamo Bowl (and the other non-major bowls for that matter) are not BCS bowls so they don't fall under the jurisdiction of the system we so vehemently hate. But many of the bowls are contractually obligated more or less to take teams that finish in such and such a place in so and so conference. We could debate that issue too, but we'd probably need a separate thread.

The Alamo Bowl takes the fourth choice team. Purdue finished 5th in the conference and would have been in line for that bowl because the Big Ten has 2 teams in the BCS, but they chose 8th place Iowa because of how their fanbase travels better than Purdue's.

And while this doesn't fall under the BCS per se, it does fall under the bowl system as a whole that university presidents vehemently defend.

[Guest]

If they insist on going with rankings rather than a playoff, then some changes need to be made:

1. No human polls. Go with computer rankings only, as they include only facts decided on the field, no emotion.

2. No factoring-in of margin-of-victory in any game. A win is a win is a win. Winning by one point should equal the same as winning by 40.

3. No strength-of-schedule. You play the hand you're dealt. If several teams in your conference are having bad years, should your good team be penalized for that?

4. Factor in players' grade-point-averages and the school's graduation rate for athletes -- at least football players. (I'm serious about this.) Make the term "student-athlete" mean something.

Margin of victory and strength of schedule bother me. If you blow a school out, then clearly they were a weak and irrelevant opponent. If you squeak out a win, you weren't dominant enough. Why can't wins be wins? It's like judging a talent show.

[Epiphanic]

I think that's what he's arguing.

Anyway, mjrbaseball, your idea isn't that bad. The problem with polls (at least the human ones) is that if your ranked high to begin with you're in a premo spot. Cinderella teams like Rutgers are put in a huge hole before the first snap is taken.

[jkrdevil]

College football is illegitimate without a playoff, in my opinion. Any sport is. What if the Stanley Cup tournament was replaced by sportswriters and formulas?

The Toronto Maple Leafs would have won a cup since 1967.

[Guest]

1A College football is the only sport in which some teams cannot win a championship, no matter what. Isn't there something wrong with that?

[Cyclopsis Joe]

College football is illegitimate without a playoff, in my opinion. Any sport is. What if the Stanley Cup tournament was replaced by sportswriters and formulas?

There'd be no NHL right now.

[slightly shotgunned]

D1 already has a playoff system. It's called the regular season. It's a cold hard sport and that's what I like about it.

Cold hard fact #1 - you lose a game, shut your mouth. Maybe you get a chance to play for it all if you are lucky, but you have no reason to whine if you lose.

Cold hard fact #2 - if you want to play for a national championship, don't sign with a mid major.

with fact #1

usc lost a game to an unranked team and had they beat ucla (which was a great game imo) they would still get to play for the championship. correct me if i'm wrong, but IF the regular season is a playoff like you say, wouldn't losing to an unranked team eliminate you from title contention? and if it doesn't, how does that elimate michigan, florida (who's in, i'm very aware), or any other 1-loss team that loss to a RANKED team?

with fact #2

why not, then, just eliminate mid-major programs from d1 if they are unable to even compete for a national title? consider this hypothetical situation. WHAT IF a school like...Ball State plays a schedule where it beats teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in consecutive weeks, remains undefeated, and wins the MAC championship. couldn't an argument be made they were one of the best teams in the country and deserving of a shot at the title?

...bcs supporters are thinning it seems...

[SteveR]

I'd love to see 16 teams play off. But you'd never sell that to the hypocrites that are the university presidents who sing the 'too much school missed' song to perfection but don't mind sending their basketball teams off to 4-5 day conference tournaments and then all over the country for the NCAAs -- smack dab in the middle of the Spring semester.

So, I think you could get four teams, in bowls, and a Plus One. Here's how it would go:

* Use the final BCS rankings

* Play #1 vs. #4 in the bowl aligned with #1's conference

(This year: Ohio State vs. LSU in Rose Bowl)

* Play #2 vs. #3 in the bowl aligned with #2's conference

(This year: Florida vs. Michigan in Sugar Bowl)

* Winners go to BCS title game

All other bowls are filled with who's left in their normal manner.

[Broken Record]

D1 already has a playoff system. It's called the regular season. It's a cold hard sport and that's what I like about it.

Cold hard fact #1 - you lose a game, shut your mouth. Maybe you get a chance to play for it all if you are lucky, but you have no reason to whine if you lose.

Cold hard fact #2 - if you want to play for a national championship, don't sign with a mid major.

with fact #1

usc lost a game to an unranked team and had they beat ucla (which was a great game imo) they would still get to play for the championship. correct me if i'm wrong, but IF the regular season is a playoff like you say, wouldn't losing to an unranked team eliminate you from title contention? and if it doesn't, how does that elimate michigan, florida (who's in, i'm very aware), or any other 1-loss team that loss to a RANKED team?

with fact #2

why not, then, just eliminate mid-major programs from d1 if they are unable to even compete for a national title? consider this hypothetical situation. WHAT IF a school like...Ball State plays a schedule where it beats teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in consecutive weeks, remains undefeated, and wins the MAC championship. couldn't an argument be made they were one of the best teams in the country and deserving of a shot at the title?

...bcs supporters are thinning it seems...

It's a playoff in the sense that if you lose a game, you lose the right to complain. Yes, you might lose a game and still get in, but you very well might not. That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

I wouldn't have any problems with eliminating the mid majors, but that's just my opinion. NCAA D1 is too big.

[rams80]

D1 already has a playoff system. It's called the regular season. It's a cold hard sport and that's what I like about it.

Cold hard fact #1 - you lose a game, shut your mouth. Maybe you get a chance to play for it all if you are lucky, but you have no reason to whine if you lose.

Cold hard fact #2 - if you want to play for a national championship, don't sign with a mid major.

with fact #1

usc lost a game to an unranked team and had they beat ucla (which was a great game imo) they would still get to play for the championship. correct me if i'm wrong, but IF the regular season is a playoff like you say, wouldn't losing to an unranked team eliminate you from title contention? and if it doesn't, how does that elimate michigan, florida (who's in, i'm very aware), or any other 1-loss team that loss to a RANKED team?

with fact #2

why not, then, just eliminate mid-major programs from d1 if they are unable to even compete for a national title? consider this hypothetical situation. WHAT IF a school like...Ball State plays a schedule where it beats teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in consecutive weeks, remains undefeated, and wins the MAC championship. couldn't an argument be made they were one of the best teams in the country and deserving of a shot at the title?

...bcs supporters are thinning it seems...

It's a playoff in the sense that if you lose a game, you lose the right to complain. Yes, you might lose a game and still get in, but you very well might not. That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

I wish Urban Meyer had gotten that memo.

[Broken Record]

D1 already has a playoff system. It's called the regular season. It's a cold hard sport and that's what I like about it.

Cold hard fact #1 - you lose a game, shut your mouth. Maybe you get a chance to play for it all if you are lucky, but you have no reason to whine if you lose.

Cold hard fact #2 - if you want to play for a national championship, don't sign with a mid major.

with fact #1

usc lost a game to an unranked team and had they beat ucla (which was a great game imo) they would still get to play for the championship. correct me if i'm wrong, but IF the regular season is a playoff like you say, wouldn't losing to an unranked team eliminate you from title contention? and if it doesn't, how does that elimate michigan, florida (who's in, i'm very aware), or any other 1-loss team that loss to a RANKED team?

with fact #2

why not, then, just eliminate mid-major programs from d1 if they are unable to even compete for a national title? consider this hypothetical situation. WHAT IF a school like...Ball State plays a schedule where it beats teams ranked 1, 2, and 3 in consecutive weeks, remains undefeated, and wins the MAC championship. couldn't an argument be made they were one of the best teams in the country and deserving of a shot at the title?

...bcs supporters are thinning it seems...

It's a playoff in the sense that if you lose a game, you lose the right to complain. Yes, you might lose a game and still get in, but you very well might not. That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

I wish Urban Meyer had gotten that memo.

Same here, what a cry baby. You didn't hear him mention strength of schedule at his last job.

[Brian in Boston]

A playoff is not needed...

Wrong, and here's why...

You can't have the bowls and a playoff, though. That devalues the bowls...

No. What "devalues" the bowls is the fact that there are 32 of them. What "devalues" the bowls is the fact that in an average year - such as this one - games amongst the aforementioned bowls will play host to fourteen teams with a just-above-mediocre record of 7 and 5. What "devalues" the bowls is that six teams will take to the field in 2006-2007 bowl games while sporting a piss-poor 6 and 6 record... the very definition of mediocrity.

... and the bowls simply cannot play second fiddle to a playoff.

If the bowl system chooses to celebrate mediocrity (as it currently does), it deserves to play second fiddle to a playoff.

Thus, all we need is the Plus One system. Play the Big Four Bowl Games as they were meant to be played: Pac10/BigTen in the Rose Bowl. BigXII in the Fiesta Bowl. SEC in the Sugar Bowl. ACC/BigEast in the Orange Bowl. Fill the rest of the spots in these games with the highest-ranked teams. Rank the teams again after those games have all been played, and play the top two teams a week later.

If you're going to "seed" eight teams into what amounts to a truncated, half-assed "Plus One" system, you may as well seed between eight and sixteen teams into a three or four-round true playoff. If you wish to preserve some vestige of the vaunted "bowl" system, utilize the identities/locales/venues of between seven and fifteen of the more historically-significant bowls in siting the various rounds of the playoff. Otherwise open the playoff siting up to competitive bidding.

As for the lower-tier bowls, and the mediocre teams that populate them, they can exist outside the NCAA Division 1-A Football Championship playoff structure... and continue to provide the institutions that accept invitations to them with a largely misplaced sense of "accomplishment" and the empty bragging rights that accompany said "accomplishment". If they can make a go of it in the marketplace, they deserve to survive. If they can't... well, that will be proof that the market doesn't exist for their particularly watered-down brand of "post-season" college football when compared to the excitement of determining a true champion via a playoff format.

This would have settled big disputes like Penn State/Nebraska in 1996, Michigan/Nebraska in 1997, Miami/Oklahoma in 2000, USC/LSU in 2003, Auburn/USC in 2004, and The Debacle that is 2006.

So would a true playoff.

[slightly shotgunned]

That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

...wouldn't the same theory apply for a top 16 ranking playoff system though?

my problem is not so much that there isn't a playoff system, but the fact that every year it seems as if there are at least six teams who deserve a shot and the deciding factor is not the players on the field, but a computer and a voting booth. do you have any suggestion on how to fix that?

[Broken Record]

That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

...wouldn't the same theory apply for a top 16 ranking playoff system though?

my problem is not so much that there isn't a playoff system, but the fact that every year it seems as if there are at least six teams who deserve a shot and the deciding factor is not the players on the field, but a computer and a voting booth. do you have any suggestion on how to fix that?

It's definitely not the same for 16 team playoff system. A good number of those top 16 teams will have two losses.

[slightly shotgunned]

That gives every game a playoff atmosphere. You line up against a patsy early in September and get beat, that will probably do you in. I love that. You've got to show up every week. If you are in contention for a national title, there are no small games.

...wouldn't the same theory apply for a top 16 ranking playoff system though?

my problem is not so much that there isn't a playoff system, but the fact that every year it seems as if there are at least six teams who deserve a shot and the deciding factor is not the players on the field, but a computer and a voting booth. do you have any suggestion on how to fix that?

It's definitely not the same for 16 team playoff system. A good number of those top 16 teams will have two losses.

point is though that they'll have a shot at the title like the one-loss teams....i don't agree with only allowing one team, as chosen by voters, a shot at the #1 ranked team because it makes the NC game a popularity contest unless there is no debate as to who the #2 team is.

but you haven't answered my question.

[WJMorris3]

I have a hunch that a MAC team could go 14-0 (and yes, it's still possible in this day and age), and still not sniff the national title game.