Okay, first of all, there isn't a BCS conference that will accept a playoff with their champion omitted. and that's just starters....
Wanna figure out who get's left out? Simple ... Flip a quarter, best out of 5 goes... for the Au and Bama fans that means ya gotta win 3 out 5 coin tosses... I would get in this arguement, cause I believe CFB needs this, but I don't see it happening... to much money involved.... besides.. I am getting pumped for the weekend... FOOTBALL ROCKS!!!!
No matter how many teams are included in any playoff scenario, there will ALWAYS be a team left out whose fans will think they are deserving of a shot. (How would the NCAA basketball tournament shaped up last season if the selection committee hadn't picked George Mason?) For any playoff system to be considered remotely successful, I think it should satisfy a few basic criteria at a minimum: 1. Eliminate the possibility of a situation as in '03 where the #1 ranked team in the polls would not participate in the playoffs. 2. Ensure that no undefeated team from a major conference is left out of the playoffs (Auburn '04) Granted, the inclusion of 1-loss teams and undefeateds from mid-majors and even those from ACC or Big East is definitely up for debate. But if these two conditions are met, I would consider that system a vast improvement over the current system of complicated formulas and media popularity contests.
Well, the current system is just a 2-team playoff now, right? #1 vs. #2. A 4 or 6 team playoff just gives the conferences a much better chance of their champion making it in.
Like I already said, you take the 4 highest ranked teams that won their conference championship games. If, after 5 years, it's decided that 4 teams aren't giving truly deserving teams a chance, add in 2 more games to allow #5 and #6 in as well. If you can't win your conference AND finish in the top 6, you probably won't get much sympathy (not nearly to the level of a top conference team, like Auburn, going undefeated and not getting a chance at all). No system other than possibly a 119-team playoff system is completely fair. In the NFL not long ago, the Saints beat Tampa Bay twice one year, yet Tampa Bay went on to the Superbowl. There are examples all of the time of team A losing to team B in the playoffs, while beating them earlier in the season. In your example of Georgia and West Virginia, would that game had played out the same way if it was a playoff game, instead of a dead-end bowl game? We'll never know for sure. But the point I'm trying to make is that the current playoff system most definitely keeps teams like an undefeated Auburn out of the running. A 4-team playoff will make that a lot less likely. A 6-team playoff even less so. I think we really wouldn't need to go beyond 6, or maybe 8 max, in college football to avoid all chances of leaving out truly deserving teams. Is a 4 or 6 team playoff guaranteed to be controversy-free? Nope, but it'd be a lot better then the current 2-team playoff system we have now.
The difference is you are proposing a playoff. The BCS is not a playoff system. If a "playoff" system is installed, you can rest assured each BCS conference will insist on their champion "playing in the off".
Correct. You would have to have a minimum of 6 teams. And by only taking the 6 BCS conference champs, you are rewarding a team for winning a weak conference. Who's a better team 1-loss Auburn who may not even go to SECCG or whoever wins the ACC that already has more losses, and isn't even on the radar?
Before the BCS, there was no guarantee that #1 would play #2. Now we have such a guarantee, via a 2-team/one game format - I know people don't refer to it as a playoff per se, but that's basically what it is. The biggest obvious flaw in the current system is when there's some legitimate concerns about who exactly is #1 and/or #2. The more teams that you add to the two-team system we have now, the lesser the chances are of having a team that deserves a shot being excluded. Will a 4-team playoff be perfect? No, but it'd be better than a 2-team playoff like we have now in most years at least. Will a 6-team system be better than a 4-team system? In some years yes, maybe in most years. Once you get to about 6, maybe 8 teams, I think you start running out of teams that have a legitimate complaints... most teams finished lower than that have lost at least one, maybe two games, so my response to them would be, win more games. Will the BCS conferences agree to something like this? Not sure... I guess they could insist that their champion should always make the playoffs. If you did that, then we'd need an 8-team playoff - the 6 BCS conference champs, plus the two highest-ranked teams left. I think the money issue is the big hold-up... if LSU wound up playing in 3 extra games, then there are at least 2 schools who would have otherwise played in 2 of those games under the current system. So some revenue sharing would be necessary to coerce all conferences to feel like they're going to get some decent revenue out of the playoff system, even if one of their teams don't make it to the playoffs.
But right now, all you're doing is moving the controversy from who's # 1 to who's # 4 or # 6. What everyone in power fails to do, is consider what could happen. Instead that look at what did happen and try to fix that. This year is a perfect example of why 4, 6, maybe 8 would cause just as much controversy as 2. Everyone not named Ohio St. and Michigan in the top 12 have nearly identical records, accomplished just as much, and have the same legitimate claim to belonging in your system. To say it probably won't happen isn't good enough. No one ever expected the #1 team in both human polls to be left out but it happened. No one expected an unbeaten SEC team would ever get left out, but it happened. So when you set up your playoff system, you have to be prepared for the unexpected. You can't just say that in most years this will work, because that is no better than we have now. I already broke down for you that in each of the last 5 years, 4 teams wouldn't have been enough. Would 6 have worked? Maybe (I'm at work right now, so I can't break it down). Everyone is so quick to point out that it works in the NFL. But what most people don't take into consideration is the number of D-1 teams. Tie breakers would be near impossible, because there just aren't enough common opponents like the NFL has. So you still would need a poll, you would still need a BCS type system. So how are we improving the system? The humans are still going to be biased towards teams in their region, or big TV markets, or what match-up they like. The computers won't take into consideration some of the intangibles that go into outcomes, like a controversial call by an official that cost team A a game vs. team B.
