Time to split up FBS

[Commoner]

No, it's time to make football like any other NCAA sport. There is a tournament at the end if the year and an actual champion. We do it for every other sport except football.

Unfortunately, the NCAA has no say in CFP. The 10 conferences and Notre Dame excluded the NCAA from the creation, the format, and management of the playoff.

[mormonrasta]

There is a system that would work for 130 teams, without extra games, without nuking existing conference relationships, without destroying traditional rivalries, and without devaluing the regular season. We would just have to be willing to get rid of the way we schedule OOC games. Right now, the college football season consists of 13 weeks (12 games + bye) + conference championships + bowls/playoffs. Here's what you do to change that.

• Give conferences full autonomy in determining the final ranking of their members. Not just a champion, but a 1-n ranking of the members.
• Weeks 1-9, Conference Play: You've got 9 weeks to determine your conference rankings. You can play 8 conference games + an OOC rival or a bye, 9 conference games, whatever you want. Conferences determine this.
• Weeks 10-14, Group Play: Teams are sorted into tiers. The top 40 teams* go in the top tier, the next 40 into the middle tier, and the rest are in the bottom 50+. Each tier is sorted into groups of 5, based on an S-curve, like the NCAA Basketball tourney, or a seeded draw, or whatever. Conference rematches are avoided. Groups play round robin, 2 home, 2 away, with the highest ranked team in a group picking who they play when and where and their bye week first, then the next team, etc.
• Post-season: Top tier group winners go into an 8 team playoff for all the marbles. Top tier group losers and middle tier group winners and runners up (32 + 20 = 52 teams) are fed into the bowl system for one more game. We can include more from the middle tier or even the winners of the lower tier, depending on the number of bowl games.
• Tier allocations: Conferences are evaluated based on how their teams performed relative to their seedings in group play over multiple years. Conferences that overperform are rewarded with more representation in the top or middle tiers. Teams that underperform will lose representation.

A non-bowling team in this situation is going to play 12 games, just like they do now. Bowling teams will have 13. Teams that go to the playoff are going to play a maximum of 15 games, just like Alabama and Clemson will do this year. If conferences have a championship game or other, lower-level tie breaks, or there's a rivalry game or whatever, those numbers could be 13, 14, and 16, but it's not a significant increase from what we have now.

September games will actually mean something, because it's conference play. Every game determines what tier you'll wind up in. No more cream puff bodybag payday games for a freaking month!

October will be intense, because everyone is fighting for those top- or middle-tier slots. Your season isn't over if you've been eliminated from the conference championship. It's the ranking that matters.

November group play football will be absolutely EPIC. You're going to have a ton of really good matchups, and even teams who have sucked most of the year are going to be matched up with teams of similar skill level and have a chance to get some wins. The top tier group play by itself will 40 games between top-40 teams. I don't know that we get that many top-40 games in a season right now; I'll have to run the numbers on that sometime.

If you win all your games, you are the national champion. Period. There is no SOS argument that can be made against you. Your 8- or 9-0 record in conference play gets you to the top tier of group play. Your 4-0 record in your group gets you to the knockout round. Winning the playoff makes you the champion, and you had to play and beat a minimum of 7 top tier teams in the process.

If the SEC thinks they are head and shoulders above the rest, they can prove it on the field. They can earn the right to have 50% or more of the conference in the top tier come season end. Or they don't, and we get more parity. Likewise, the Sun Belt can be punished down to only having 1 team in the top tier. Or they don't, and begin to surprise everyone. But it's all done with on-the-field results. No committees, no polls, no computer models.

I'm not sure what we do about independents yet. Basically, everyone needs to be in a conference for this to work. More members can help your conference earn more slots in each tier, though, so conferences like the Big XII and Pac-12 might be persuaded to expand, and that might solve the independence problem for everyone. Sorry, Notre Dame.

This may sound a little like the FIFA World Cup. There's a reason for that: if you look at the number of teams, the number of conferences/continents, and compare the number of qualifying games that can be played, it's actually pretty similar.

I love your thinking. I have alot of questions:

Why 40 teams in the top tier? In any given year, it is a struggle to think of 10 teams that could even potentially defeat the likes of Alabama, Clemson, Ohio St, or Oklahoma in 3 successive weeks.

It seems like there would be autobids for each of the conferences. Is that necessary? The MWC champ lost to the 9th place B1G team this year. The MAC champ lost to the 10th place ACC team. Do we really need to give all conference champs a spot when we absolutely know by their performance on the field some do not measure up?

Why use previous years results to determine available slots per conference? Success or failure should be dependent on individual teams not on the conference. Previous years shouldn't matter. That means selection of the top 40 would be a subjective evaluation or a hybrid of subjective and autobid like every other NCAA sport.

What happens if there are ties in the pool system? If everybody goes 2-2 what happens?

Is the hope that that the additional round of the playoff offsets the loss of revenue of potentially reducing conference games and virtually eliminating the possibility of 7 home games a year?

I'm totally on board with reserving the end of the year for OOC games. I would limit it to the last 2 weeks. This way conferences can choose to play 9 games plus a conference championship if they choose. This would also allow OOC rivalries (USC-ND, Miami (OH)- Cincinnati, Army-Navy) to continue.

I would then have a committee rank all 130 teams in order. The conference champs are seeded 1-10. Then they choose one home and one road OOC game in order of rank. So Alabama could say we want to #20 Syracuse at home and number #99 Florida International on the road. Then when the season concludes the committee can determine who participates in the 4 or 8 team playoff.

Why I prefer a separation is because is makes things easier and more fair. Reward the programs that actually commit to championships. Each of the elite conferences would be more valuable than any of the existing conferences and could land superior tv deals than they are getting now. Meanwhile, the tournament division can compete at a more appropriate level.

And there is nothing sacred about conferences. They change all the time. Over time BYU has been a part of the Rocky Mountain Conference, Mountain States conference, Skyline conference, WAC, MWC, and now independent.

[YNot]

I've seen a variation where it separates CFB into four tiers as follows:

TIER 1 = COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF - 16 teams
Autobids for P5 champs and one G5 champ. Four 4-team groups that play 3 games, based on rankings (but also avoid same-conference matchups where possible). Schedule = #1 hosts #2 and #3, plays at #4; #2 hosts #3 and #4, plays at #1; #3 hosts #4, plays at #1 and #2; #4 hosts #1, plays at #2 and #3.
Top-2 from each Group advance to the 8-team CFP. All teams go to a marquee bowl game. 2018 example:

Group A: Alabama, Ohio St., Washington, WVU
Group B: Clemson, Georgia, Penn St., Texas
Group C: Notre Dame, UCF, Florida, Washington St.
Group D: Oklahoma, Michigan, LSU, Kentucky

TIER 2 = NATIONAL INVITATION TOURNAMENT - 16 teams
Autobids for G5 champs not selected for CFP. Similar 4-team groups and 3 group games. Top-2 from each group advance to NIT. All teams play in a bowl game. 2018 example:

Group A: Utah, Missouri, Boise St., NC State
Group B: Mississippi St., Iowa St., Army, Appalachian St.
Group C: Texas A&M, Northwestern, Utah St., UAB
Group D: Syracuse, Fresno St., Cincinnati, NIU

TIER 3 = National Bowl Selection Pool - 32 teams
32 teams separated into eight 4-team groups. P5 schools with 4+ conference wins and best of the rest. Similar Group games as outlined above for CFP and NIT. Group play qualifies teams for various pre-determined bowl games.

TIER 4 = Regional Bowl Selection Pool - 66 tea,s
Sixteen regional Groups (two Groups have 5 teams - but still only 3 Group games). The first 8 Groups include P5 leftovers and best remaining independents, AAC, and MWC schools. The last 8 Groups include whoever else is left from the G5. Group winners advance to various pre-determined lower-tier regional bowl games.

[jvquarterback]

I think this would be great. While we're waiting the CFP should institute a rule that forces teams to play a 13th game the week of Conf championship or they can't participate in the CFP. The NCAA should completely deregulate conference championship games allowing top teams to play any other top team that week.

No more 11-1 Alabama, Ohio or 12-0 ND getting in without playing someone while everyone else has to. UCF can play the best non-champion if they want (this year that would have been Michigan).

[Commoner]

I think this would be great. While we're waiting the CFP should institute a rule that forces teams to play a 13th game the week of Conf championship or they can't participate in the CFP. The NCAA should completely deregulate conference championship games allowing top teams to play any other top team that week.

No more 11-1 Alabama, Ohio or 12-0 ND getting in without playing someone while everyone else has to. UCF can play the best non-champion if they want (this year that would have been Michigan).

Three years ago, the NCAA ceded oversight of CCG to the conferences when it signed off on legislation proposed by the ACC (supported by the other 9 conferences) that brought CCG back under the control of the conferences.

L

[jvquarterback]

Yes but they can't invite teams from other conferences to play.

CFP should stipulate no team can play without a 13th game the first weekend of December against a top 12 team. ND shouldn't get in without a 13th game and we shouldn't have to put up with NW, Pitt, Tx, or Utah for one more week. Better to watch UCF play Michigan, Ohio and Oklahoma.

[YNot]

I think this would be great. While we're waiting the CFP should institute a rule that forces teams to play a 13th game the week of Conf championship or they can't participate in the CFP. The NCAA should completely deregulate conference championship games allowing top teams to play any other top team that week.

No more 11-1 Alabama, Ohio or 12-0 ND getting in without playing someone while everyone else has to. UCF can play the best non-champion if they want (this year that would have been Michigan).

Pretty silly. Why punish Notre Dame because they don't play an FCS payday home game? Compare Notre Dame's and Clemson's 2018 schedules:

ND: WAKE FOREST, FLORIDA ST., SYRACUSE, PITT, Michigan, Vanderbilt, , Stanford, Virginia, Navy, Northwestern, USC, and Ball St.

Clemson: WAKE FOREST, FLORIDA ST., SYRACUSE, PITT, Georgia Tech, NC State, Louisville, Boston College, Duke, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Georgia Southern, FCS Furman

Yes, Clemson played one more game than Notre Dame. But, penalize Notre Dame because they played Pitt earlier in the year than Clemson? And because they didn't play an FCS opponent? Clemson benefits by playing Furman and Georgia Southern?

[jvquarterback]

It's really meant to be an expansion of the playoffs and to keep non champions out if they don't play an extra game. I'm more concerned about Ohio 2016 and Alabama 2017 than ND. But no one should get in without playing Conf championship weekend.

I'd also like to see teams like Pitt, NW, Tx and Utah eliminated from Conference championship games. How much better would it be to have Michigan, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Penn St, Wash St playing UCF, Washington, Clemson, Oklahoma, ND and Ohio on Conf championship weekend?

[YNot]

It's really meant to be an expansion of the playoffs and to keep non champions out if they don't play an extra game. I'm more concerned about Ohio 2016 and Alabama 2017 than ND. But no one should get in without playing Conf championship weekend.

I'd also like to see teams like Pitt, NW, Tx and Utah eliminated from Conference championship games. How much better would it be to have Michigan, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Penn St, Wash St playing UCF, Washington, Clemson, Oklahoma, ND and Ohio on Conf championship weekend?

I would much rather see quarterfinal CFP expansion to replace the conference championship games. But, the conference championship games have almost become untouchable because there's too much money and exposure and the P5 don't want to share.

But this would have made for a much better December 1 lineup, that would have flowed directly into the CFP semifinals (with NY6 consolation bowls for the losers):

#9 Washington (PAC) at #1 Alabama (SEC)
#8 UCF (G5) at #2 Clemson (ACC)
#6 Ohio St. (B1G) at #3 Notre Dame (at large)
#5 Oklahoma (B12) at #4 Georgia (at large)

There definitely would be the chance for a couple of 'upsets' - especially #6 Ohio St. v. #3 Notre Dame...and that #5 Oklahoma v. #4 Georgia would have been a terrific quarterfinals clash. And, the PAC 12 and G5 would at least have a crack at the national championship. The NY6 might have been:

Cotton (CFP): #1 Alabama v. #6 Ohio St.
Orange (CFP): #2 Clemson v. #3 Georgia
Rose: #9 Washington v. #7 Michigan
Sugar: #5 Oklahoma v. #10 Florida
Fiesta: #11 LSU v. #12 Penn St.
Peach: #3 Notre Dame v. #8 UCF

[jvquarterback]

I definitely prefer quarterfinal match ups like you've described. But like you said the conferences want the money from the conference championship game and this makes those games more valuable. If you allow a conference champion to host any team in the top 12 of the CFP rankings (and prevent any team that doesn't play that weekend from participating in the CFP) you've made the ACC, PAC, B12, B1G and top G5 conference championship games way more valuable.