CFB Observation

Sure, the 4 team playoff is a step in the right direction, but it's still largely a joke. Nothing against Clemson, who remains undefeated after today, but why are they the CFB #1? Several other teams are also unbeaten and have had as hard or harder schedules. As long as it's left up to opinion, the legitimacy of it all is in question.



Just saying.

Agreed. They will next try to pacify the masses with an 8 team play-off ... and that will be better, but not enough. It REALLY should be a 32 team play-off, which would mean the season should be shortened a little (5 weeks of play-offs is too much with the current long season) ... but this is probably one reason the 32 team play-off won't work, too many weeks of working it down to the championship. Maybe 16 is the best we'll get ... EVER.

mtnradio wrote:
Agreed. They will next try to pacify the masses with an 8 team play-off ... and that will be better, but not enough. It REALLY should be a 32 team play-off, which would mean the season should be shortened a little (5 weeks of play-offs is too much with the current long season) ... but this is probably one reason the 32 team play-off won't work, too many weeks of working it down to the championship. Maybe 16 is the best we'll get ... EVER.

I would love to have a 32 team playoff, but don't shorten the season. Let the players play over 2 semesters.

I like the way they do it in Division 2. 24 teams top two seeds in each bracket get a bye in the first round. The most a team would play is 5 games a lot of them are during the Holidays.Shorten the season by a game start the playoffs 2 weeks after end of season so playoff goes through December ends early January. Incorporate the Bowls.If you dont make playoffs let them still play some bowl games.This works for the lower Divisions.

I like a 16 team playoff. All the conf champs and six at large. All conf champ games on first week of dec. next week is 1st round played at higher seed home or contract with stadiums. Losers now can take invites to bowl games. Second round losers play in two of the old BCS bowl games. Losers of semifinal play in 3rd place "BCS" bowl game and last two standing play in final game.



I wish the bball tourney would play the final four losers in a 3rd place game the day before the champ game.



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imuakahuku wrote:
I like a 16 team playoff. All the conf champs and six at large. All conf champ games on first week of dec. next week is 1st round played at higher seed home or contract with stadiums. Losers now can take invites to bowl games. Second round losers play in two of the old BCS bowl games. Losers of semifinal play in 3rd place "BCS" bowl game and last two standing play in final game.



I wish the bball tourney would play the final four losers in a 3rd place game the day before the champ game.



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Not sure why they don't play that 3rd place consolation game, it would be a huge draw and money maker.

imuakahuku wrote:
I like a 16 team playoff. All the conf champs and six at large. All conf champ games on first week of dec. next week is 1st round played at higher seed home or contract with stadiums. Losers now can take invites to bowl games. Second round losers play in two of the old BCS bowl games. Losers of semifinal play in 3rd place "BCS" bowl game and last two standing play in final game.



I wish the bball tourney would play the final four losers in a 3rd place game the day before the champ game.



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This does interfere with finals ... which, in theory anyway, is why these athletes are aligned with a school. I think the bowls would object to being the games for losers ... it would be much more palatable to the bowls if they were the playoff games ... and possibly more fair for the teams involved. But, I really do agree with you comments about 3rd place games!

If you replaced some of the OOC schedule at the start of the season with a group stage played at teams' home stadiums, you could have an 8-team playoff in which every team in the nation controlled their own destiny in reaching that playoff, without significantly lengthening the season, and it makes the regular season so much more interesting and important.



Here's how you do it: all conferences get 8 games to decide their pecking order, however they choose. Teams can also schedule 1 OOC rivalry game if they like to preserve traditional rivalries. If a conference does 7 games plus a CCG, they would be allowed 2 OOC games. Each conference is allotted a minimum of 1 spot in the 40-team group stage, with the ability to earn more based top-to-bottom conference performance in the group stages of past years. The conference determines the rankings of their own teams based on W-L records and whatever other tie-breaking criteria they choose, and then if the conference has N spots, the top N teams go into that playoff group stage.



The playoff group stage is 8 groups of 5 teams, and consists of 2 home games, 2 away games, and 1 bye for each team. Teams are seeded into their groups based on W-L records, and the top seed picks who they want at home and when they get their bye first, followed by the second seed, etc. You get a point for winning, nothing for losing, and whoever gets the most points in each group advances to the playoff. The other 32 teams would be bowl bound.



There would also be a bowl group stage, and a consolation group stage, consisting of the middle tier and bottom tier of teams, played in a similar way as the playoff group stage. This ensures everyone gets the home games they needs, and that they get to play at least a couple of games against similar talent each season. Group winners (and some runners up) in the bowl group stage would go on to play in bowl games against losers of the playoff group stage. The consolation group stage would not be bowl eligible, but they are playing to win more playoff group stage spots for the conference, so it still matters a lot.



This format ensures everyone plays 12 games, and you'd only have to play 15 games to win the playoff, which is what teams in a conference with a CCG would have to do now anyway. Win all your games, you are the national champion, guaranteed.



The number of spots a conference gets in the playoff group is determined by some metric of overall conference strength based on all group-stage games. I haven't worked out what that looks like mathematically, but basically if, on average, your teams are outperforming their seeding, you would take spots from conferences that underperform. Eventually, you would expect the outperform/underperform numbers to be pretty close to even once the correct number of spots was reached. The nice thing is that if it's wrong, it would self-correct fairly quickly.

Whoa, slow down there my red-necked amigo.

That sounds more like futbol than football.



Solutions from foreigners don't work for Americana, no matter how elegant and equitable.



Too bad, though. Applying the World Cup / Premier League model to CFB would solve a lot of problems. I just don't think many of your fellow red-necks could wrap their heads around it.

I'm just wondering why they still don't call the "FBS" the "FCS," we now have a Championship game - right?

Keep the season as is. Revert the bowls to pre-Playoff format (bowls can have conference tie-ins, at-large, etc.). Form a selection committee to pick 64 teams following the bowls.



Those 64 teams are seeded into four 16-team brackets. Following three weeks of spring ball in March, they will play a single elimination tournament that begins on Final Four Weekend. The games would be held the Friday night before the Final Four or Saturday before the games start.



The round of 32 would be the following week, Sweet 16 is done by the third week of April. Elite 8 the last week of April. Give the Final Four teams a bye week to prepare and then another bye week with the championship game for Memorial Day weekend.

Still a lot of football to be played, but is anyone else loving current predictions of



1. Clemson

2. Alabama

3. Ohio state

4. Notre Dame



First 2 out - Iowa, Baylor



Which leaves the Big 12 out of the party 2 years in a row and has the pac 12 in outer darkness.

CrimsonCoug wrote:
Whoa, slow down there my red-necked amigo.

That sounds more like futbol than football.



Solutions from foreigners don't work for Americana, no matter how elegant and equitable.



Too bad, though. Applying the World Cup / Premier League model to CFB would solve a lot of problems. I just don't think many of your fellow red-necks could wrap their heads around it.

Confession: I'm not a soccer fan. I'll watch the World Cup to follow Uruguay because I served my mission there, but that's about it. One of these days, Luis Suarez will find a way not to get banned (maybe eat a snack before the game?) and we'll get another win. But I know a good tourney format when I see one.



It's really too bad - the World Cup has been solving the problem of finding a champion among tons of teams with tons of travel distance with a small number of games for many years. But to market this, you'd have to emphasize:



1) November-December suddenly has an 2-3 seasons worth of awesome OOC matchups in 5 weeks. March Madness would have nothing on this. You could get ridiculous TV money for it.

2) The regular season means something for everyone all the way through, including the one that went 0-8 in conference.

3) The sacred cow of FBS football, the bowl system, gets to live on.

4) Every team controls their own destiny from day 1. Win and advance!

5) You think your conference is the best? Now you get to prove it once and for all, on the field.

BroncoBot wrote:
Which leaves the Big 12 out of the party 2 years in a row and has the pac 12 in outer darkness.

And that's a good thing.

If we really want to spice things up we should implement relegation and promotion!!

I'm fine with the current format. Every other sport has mediocre teams making the playoffs on a regular basis. College football is different. You have to be excellent throughout the year, and I think that is great. I have zero desire to have a 3rd place ACC team make the playoffs.

BroncoBot wrote:
Still a lot of football to be played, but is anyone else loving current predictions of



1. Clemson

2. Alabama

3. Ohio state

4. Notre Dame



First 2 out - Iowa, Baylor



Which leaves the Big 12 out of the party 2 years in a row and has the pac 12 in outer darkness.

I don't see that happening as Bama still has to play Auburn and a championship game. Ohio St. still has to beat Michigan and Michigan St. and there is some doubt that they will. Notre Dame still has to get by Stanford and USC.

KingCoug wrote:

Which leaves the Big 12 out of the party 2 years in a row and has the pac 12 in outer darkness.

And that's a good thing.

I disagree as everyone thought it would be a good thing last year and it didn't help anyone as nothing changed during the off season and if the Big XII is left out again this year I doubt you will see any change this off season either. Beside I think if a Big XII team makes it and wins the title it will help BYU more in the long run as it will give BYU more legitimacy than they have now from all the times that they beat up on Big XII teams.

mormonrasta wrote:
I'm fine with the current format. Every other sport has mediocre teams making the playoffs on a regular basis. College football is different. You have to be excellent throughout the year, and I think that is great. I have zero desire to have a 3rd place ACC team make the playoffs.

I think 16 teams is better as the top 16 teams in the polls make it and you would still have to be excellent all year to make it and you would have enough teams to make it interesting. You could start the playoffs the weekend before Christmas and let it run to the beginning of February if necessary. You have 4 weeks in January and the last 2 weeks in December to run your tournament which would allow finals to take place without interfering with the tournament or vice a versa. 16 teams would take 4 weeks, 32 teams would take 5 weeks, and 64 teams would take 6 weeks which is why I would keep it to 16 teams as it would give enough chances for teams to make it yet short enough that you could make it work in the time frame I mentioned above.

I believe the playoffs should determine the best and most deserving champion. I don't understand why we need a 16 team format. Why make CFB as flawed as every other sport?



1. If you won your division, but lost in a Conference Championship in a neutral site, why should you be in a playoff to determine the best team in the country? How is that fair to the Champions of those conferences? Why should last year's Missouri team be in a playoff? If you are not the best team in your conference, you're not the best team in the country.



2. Speaking of divisions, if you can't be the best team in your 6 or 7 team division, why should you be in a playoff to determine the best team in the country? Somebody proved on the field that they are better than you by a combination of head to head and common opponents. If you're not the best team in your division, you're not the best team in the country.



3. What is cool about the CFB system is winning your conference championship may not be enough. You better make sure you're either perfect or playing some tough competition outside of your conference or both. Baylor and TCU got burned by that last year.



I don't need playoffs for playoffs sake. Every single professional and NCAA sport has playoffs for playoffs sake. I prefer to keep college football different.

Every team should be able to say at the beginning of the season "all we have to do is win all our games and we will be national champs." The current system does not provide that and therefore I don't agree with it. A 12 team playoff may be big enough to ensure that any undefeated team makes the cut, but small enough to keep the pool from being too watered down. Also, isn't it CFP?



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I still don't understand why we have an "official" CFB playoff announcement ever week from mid-October until it's permanently official. They definitely don't do that with NCAA B-Ball final four. Besides Lunardi and a few 'experts' who do their own thing anyway...



Go Cougs!!!

J. Child

Ammon, ID