College Football 2022

[4_tattoos]

14 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

Maryland vs NC State for Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

 

Let’s just hope the trophy stays intact this year

 

 

I may tune in to that one. Was always a good game when Maryland played NC State in the ACC from 2001 up to Maryland joined the Big Ten.

[Burmy]

Apparently, Ed Orgeron is one of the finalists for the UNLV coaching job...and now, "Coach O in Vegas" is trending on Twitter (particularly because the fans think it would be fun to see what unfolds).

[infrared41]

2 hours ago, McCall said:

You do realize in 2 years this argument will be irrelevant, right? As the top 6 ranked conference champions are in, regardless of where they're ranked. 16th ranked Tulane would be in this year if the new format were in place.

 

You're welcome.

[leopard88]

59 minutes ago, 4_tattoos said:

I may tune in to that one. Was always a good game when Maryland played NC State in the ACC from 2001 up to Maryland joined the Big Ten.

 

Hopefully Maryland has a full compliment of players.  Word is that at least 2 of their wide receivers are skipping the bowl to prepare for the draft.

[McCall]

5 hours ago, Sport said:

 

Yes. The FBS season has always been different from the NFL and other levels of college football and I think it's what makes it great and I'll be sad when that element where winning nearly every game matters is gone.  

 

 

I'm not afraid of an 8-4 team making the playoffs. I'm afraid of a two (or three) loss at-large like this year's Alabama, OSU, Tennessee, Penn State, USC, etc making an expanded playoff because of how that undermines the regular season results. When Alabama lost to LSU this year it meant something. If we had a 12 team tournament it wouldn't have mattered at all.  

What I'm saying is conference championship games are often meaningless (See: Michigan-Purdue, See: Alabama-Georgia last year), but what if every single one mattered every single time? You can build some actual stakes to the conference title games by tying them to a playoff berth and removing at-larges. That way they'd be defacto playoff games. That also makes a game like OSU-Michigan for the right to go to the Big Ten title game into a defacto playoff game. That's your expanded playoffs, but it still preserves the demands of being perfect in the regular season.

 

Would it suck to lose one game all season and have the season end there? Yeah, but also tough ti***es. I grew up in the 90's and it happened all the time, I was in college in 2006 when we got them back, which is why the game mattered so much. Those stakes are pretty much gone now and it's a bummer. 

The likelihood of a 3+ loss at-large bid making the CFP is very slim. There cannot be an at-large team ranked below 12th. And it lowers for every conference champ ranked outside the top 12. Most likely it would be a conference champion with more than 2 losses.

[Sport]

7 hours ago, McCall said:

The likelihood of a 3+ loss at-large bid making the CFP is very slim. There cannot be an at-large team ranked below 12th.

 

I know how the new playoff is going to work. I'm saying I don't like it. I'm saying I don't like how the current playoff works. I'm saying I don't want any at-large bids. This year, 5 years from now, 7 years ago - At-large bids are, will be, and always were a mistake. They undermine the results of the regular season. Period. I can go through the list of great games this season that would have been completely unimportant if they used a 12 team playoff season. It's bad enough that OSU-Michigan didn't matter at all this season with a 4 team playoff, but people actually want to make that problem worse, destroy more results, by expanding the at-large field? 

 

7 hours ago, McCall said:

And it lowers for every conference champ ranked outside the top 12. Most likely it would be a conference champion with more than 2 losses.

 

I know. My system is simple: Take the 4 best conference champions. If one of them has 2 or more losses then I don't care because they took the path to the 4 team playoff that was outlined to every team before the season in the FBS. Win your conference or you can't gripe. It would be purely based on results on the field, still exclusive for the regular season games to matter same as they always have, turns the conference championship games into games with some actual stakes, essentially turning them into playoff games of their own, and it would lessen the power of  committee bullshirt. 

 

I get that the playoff is going to expand. I get that. I don't like it for reasons I've already explained - It's going to neuter the drama of the best regular season in sports in exchange for a few more playoff games that likely won't be that good anyways. 

 

[MJWalker45]

17 hours ago, Burmy said:

Apparently, Ed Orgeron is one of the finalists for the UNLV coaching job...and now, "Coach O in Vegas" is trending on Twitter (particularly because the fans think it would be fun to see what unfolds).

I feel like we'll see a recreation of the Running Rebels hot tub photo and no one needs to have that happen with a  60 year old man.

[PrimalCookie]

6 hours ago, Sport said:

I know. My system is simple: Take the 4 best conference champions. If one of them has 2 or more losses then I don't care because they took the path to the 4 team playoff that was outlined to every team before the season in the FBS. Win your conference or you can't gripe. It would be purely based on results on the field, still exclusive for the regular season games to matter same as they always have, turns the conference championship games into games with some actual stakes, essentially turning them into playoff games of their own, and it would lessen the power of  committee bullshirt. 

These statements contradict each other. How do regular season games matter if Utah, who lost 3 games (one of which to a 6-6 Florida who lost to *Vanderbilt*), makes it over TCU, who didn't lose at all in the regular season and then lost (in OT!) against a top 10 team they'd already beaten a few weeks earlier*? In your system, only one game matters, nothing else.

 

*This is more of a problem with doing a round robin and then a redundant CCG after that, but it still applies as long as that's how we're determining the champion of 10 team conferences.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

There's always going to be an element of Calvinball in college football that protects the ruling class of teams and conferences.

 

If any sport should have done a Super League, it's college football, except that a 64-team league likely leads to more 8-4 than 11-1 records, which I can't imagine most coaches would be happy with.

[GDAWG]

HBCU folks are upset that Deion Sanders "betrayed" them to take the Colorado job.  

 

 

[Sport]

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

These statements contradict each other.

 

 

I don't think that's contradictory, but you also didn't highlight half my point there. Regular season would still matter because the games in my preferred system determine the participants in the final four. Not a committee, or a computer system, or voters. And it's only 4 out of 100+ plus teams so it would still require exceptional regular seasons from each of the 4 best conference champions. Who's the worst team who's ever won a major conference championship game? It might be this year's Utah or K-State. The winners of these games are usually pretty good, just by nature. 

 

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

How do regular season games matter if Utah, who lost 3 games (one of which to a 6-6 Florida who lost to *Vanderbilt*), makes it over TCU, who didn't lose at all in the regular season and then lost (in OT!) against a top 10 team they'd already beaten a few weeks earlier*?

 

Because Utah had to perform well enough in the regular season to qualify for their conference championship game and then went out and won the game. That's how the regular season games matter. And most of the time the 4 best conference champions would be better teams than Utah and have fewer than 3 losses. 

 

Crossed off part is because my system basically eliminates the necessity of thinking this way. If you win your conference championship game this "X is better than Y who lost to Z, but they were ranked n at the time" nonsense is almost entirely irrelevant. The only place my system asks for some subjective ranking is when it comes down to selecting the 4th vs. the 5th best conference champions. I mean, we might put Kansas State over Utah as the 4th best conference champion because they beat TCU. IDK. I'll discuss with my oracles and the council of elders on top of Mount Olympus. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

In your system, only one game matters, nothing else.

 

How so?  They all still matter because at the end of the season you still need to be one of the 4 best conference champions to qualify for my final four and you still need to have a good season to reach your conference title game. Alabama didn't qualify for the SEC championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. OSU didn't qualify for the Big Ten championship game because they didn't win enough regular season games so all their games mattered. How'd TCU qualify for the Big 12 championship game? They won enough games to be there ergo the regular season games still matter. If TCU doesn't like that they won't be in my hypothetical Final Four then they shoulda beaten Kansas State when it counted and if you couldn't beat Kansas State* in a "play-in game" then I don't really have much sympathy for your case that you belong in the playoff that determines the national champion.

 

To put it simpler, why does OSU get another shot at being national champions when they weren't good enough to be conference champions? We decided it on the field already. I'm an OSU fan and I think it's sort of lame that they're still alive. 

 

*no offense to Kansas State. They're just the convenient example here. 

 

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

*This is more of a problem with doing a round robin and then a redundant CCG after that, but it still applies as long as that's how we're determining the champion of 10 team conferences.

 

So that's kind of my entire point. Those conference championship games shouldn't be redundant. If we're going to have them then they should mean something, right? The SEC championship game last year between Georgia and Alabama was kind of a farce because it meant a lot for Alabama and basically nothing for Georgia. It should mean the same thing for both teams and would have if it was the only ticket to the playoff for both teams. 

 

 

46 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

There's always going to be an element of Calvinball in college football that protects the ruling class of teams and conferences.

 

If any sport should have done a Super League, it's college football, except that a 64-team league likely leads to more 8-4 than 11-1 records, which I can't imagine most coaches would be happy with.

 

That's what I'm getting at. My idea removes the Calvinball and the moving goalposts that we deal with every year where the line for acceptance into the playoff is constantly changing throughout the season. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then every team has the same goal at the beginning of the season and the goal is fixed in place. If the definition to make the playoff is set at Conference Champion then these subjective top 25 rankings we discuss all season long are almost entirely irrelevant. 

 

RE: the super league, I think a huge problem in college football is the scale of it, but we already kind of naturally solved that issue with the segmented conferences that breaks it down into smaller groups defined by regions (more or less). Why not actually use those conferences for something when we already have them? 

[MJWalker45]

37 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

HBCU folks are upset that Deion Sanders "betrayed" them to take the Colorado job.  

 

 

I think it's more about a fear that all the attention he gave to HBCU's will disappear. There's plenty of former NFL players coaching at HBCU's now, but they weren't front and center like Deion was. 

[tBBP]

7 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think it's more about a fear that all the attention he gave to HBCU's will disappear. There's plenty of former NFL players coaching at HBCU's now, but they weren't front and center like Deion was. 

 

It goes way, WAY deeper than that—but in an effort to keep this thread on topic about sports, I'll save all that for another thread in another forum.

[GDAWG]

12 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I think it's more about a fear that all the attention he gave to HBCU's will disappear. There's plenty of former NFL players coaching at HBCU's now, but they weren't front and center like Deion was. 

 

Others think that Deion should have held out for a bigger job, like one in the SEC.  Deion did say that he's not going to coach in the NFL, so the only options if he succeeds at Colorado might be the SEC or Big Ten.

[infrared41]

21 minutes ago, Sport said:

To put it simpler, why does OSU get another shot at being national champions when they weren't good enough to be conference champions? We decided it on the field already. I'm an OSU fan and I think it's sort of lame that they're still alive. 

 

The Buckeyes being in this playoff is absurd. Don't get me wrong, if the Bucks somehow pull off the miracle and win the whole thing, I'll take it, but the fact that they're even involved is silly. Utah, Clemson, and Kansas State should be there over TCU, Ohio State, Alabama, or anyone else with a "better resume." Imagine if the NFL pulled this . "Yes, the Jets beat the Chiefs in the AFC playoffs, but the Chiefs had the better regular season and their losses were to playoff teams. Sorry, Jets, it was a nice win, but the Chiefs are still advancing." This is nonsense.

[Sport]

5 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

The Buckeyes being in this playoff is absurd. Don't get me wrong, if the Bucks somehow pull off the miracle and win the whole thing, I'll take it, but the fact that they're even involved is silly. Utah, Clemson, and Kansas State should be there over TCU, Ohio State, Alabama, or anyone else with a "better resume." Imagine if the NFL pulled this . "Yes, the Jets beat the Chiefs in the AFC playoffs, but the Chiefs had the better regular season and their losses were to playoff teams. Sorry, Jets, it was a nice win, but the Chiefs are still advancing." This is nonsense.

 

Exactly. And this whole thing started a few pages back because I've always said it's dumb when this happens in the SEC too. It's not extremely silly that Alabama and Georgia played for both the conference championship and national championship last year? Why'd they even play the first time? 

 

The worst ever was 2011/2012 when LSU beat Alabama in the regular season and their reward in the BCS title game was Alabama again who got a second chance with the unintended advantage that they, unlike LSU, didn't have to incur the extra punishment of the SEC championship game. It was so stupid then and it's stupid with OSU now. Again, I say all of this as a Buckeyes fan. They didn't get it done and if they beat Michigan in the National Championship game I don't know how I'll feel in the moment, but I'm imagining right now that it would feel a little bit hollow. 

 

For this reason I won't be terribly upset if they lose to Georgia because I don't feel like they should be in the playoff to begin with. 

 

[McCall]

57 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

The Buckeyes being in this playoff is absurd. Don't get me wrong, if the Bucks somehow pull off the miracle and win the whole thing, I'll take it, but the fact that they're even involved is silly. Utah, Clemson, and Kansas State should be there over TCU, Ohio State, Alabama, or anyone else with a "better resume." Imagine if the NFL pulled this . "Yes, the Jets beat the Chiefs in the AFC playoffs, but the Chiefs had the better regular season and their losses were to playoff teams. Sorry, Jets, it was a nice win, but the Chiefs are still advancing." This is nonsense.

There are 32 teams competing for 14 playoff spots in the NFL. There are 131 teams competing for 4 playoff spots (currently) in FBS. The systems are not comparable.

[infrared41]

4 minutes ago, McCall said:

There are 32 teams competing for 14 playoff spots in the NFL. There are 131 teams competing for 4 playoff spots (currently) in FBS. The systems are not comparable.

 

None of that changes the fact that a team that didn't participate in what is essentially the first round of the CFB playoff still made the second round.  Then we have TCU who lost in the "first round" of the playoff and still advanced.  USC was #4 until they lost to Utah in their conference title game. TCU was #3 and stayed there despite losing to Kansas State in their conference title game. Conference title games either matter or they don't. It can't be both. You can twist this however you want, (and I'm sure you will) but my comparison remains valid.

 

[jmoe12]

32 minutes ago, McCall said:

There are 32 teams competing for 14 playoff spots in the NFL. There are 131 teams competing for 4 playoff spots (currently) in FBS. The systems are not comparable.

I'd argue that if we're making conference championships a playoff qualifier, that's 12-16 teams competing for 2 spots apiece.

[Sport]

15 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

None of that changes the fact that a team that didn't participate in what is essentially the first round of the CFB playoff still made the second round.  Then we have TCU who lost in the "first round" of the playoff and still advanced.  USC was #4 until they lost to Utah in their conference title game. TCU was #3 and stayed there despite losing to Kansas State in their conference title game. Conference title games either matter or they don't. It can't be both. You can twist this however you want, (and I'm sure you will) but my comparison remains valid.

 

 

 

Right. Like it's so stupid that sometimes the SEC championship game is a blood battle for the right to go to the playoff and sometimes it's a pointless exhibition that doesn't matter for either team (as was the case this year). They should all have the same stakes every year otherwise what's the point? Championship weekend would be more entertaining, the games would matter every year, and something like TCU's loss would carry the same weight as USC's. It's the expanded playoff without having to actually expand the playoff and you keep the regular season meaningful. I don't get why any football fan wouldn't love that. 

 

 

 

Edit: Here's another example that shows why the 12 team playoff will suck. 2013. The Kick Six beats previously unbeaten Alabama. Bitter rival eliminates them from the National Title in a humiliating way. Auburn fans will tell the story and replay the clip forever. It's legendary because it meant something. Auburn goes to the SEC Championship Game and has to battle with 11-1 Missouri and that's a great game because that game had actual stakes on it for Missouri too. Whoever loses that game is out of the BCS. Auburn ultimately loses to FSU in a phenomenal game. Now let's pretend that season had a 12 team playoff. The kick six happens, it's Alabama's first loss, but they still get an at-large bid so it doesn't sting nearly as much. Other than losing to the rival it doesn't really matter at all. Auburn goes to SEC Championship where they play Missouri who also doesn't need the automatic bid so it's a whatever game for both sides. All 3 go to the playoffs where they IDK maybe rematch*, none of it matters, and Kick Six is a footnote from a mostly pointless and then forgotten game. This is what our future holds and it will be lamer.  

 

 

*and I don't know about you, but I don't like rematches. Rematches are almost never better than the original and inherently unfair to the team who won the first time.