I think it is too long of a wait before good games to begin during bowl season. I say the 1 through 8 scenario would be great. Once the top 8 BCS teams are selected after the conference championships, start a playoff 2 weeks later. We would have some great mid-December games. Let the bowls (cities) bid on them each year like basketball Final 4 (that should bring some money.) Two weeks later you have the final 4 and one week later have the championship game. You have time for fans to recoup and figure out what else they need to sell so they can make it to the championship game. I'm all for it and I would love to see the 4 and 5 matchup this year. (If it stays this way) The NCAA could make it work and they probably could pull in a lot more money with this type of system. The fans would probably lose out on some tickets for the championship game but I would rather watch the 2 best teams on TV then keep wondering year after year who is best. Although, I do think it is more realistic to do a 4 team playoff. Lots of games for a student-athlete.
that's fine .. I'm not asking you to. I'm just pointing out the obvious that no one else seems to want to acknowledge. I look at this whole "playoff" idea, and what I come away with is no change from what exists with regards to the primary complaint .... "ranking". You'd still have a boise, tcu, etc mucking up the system, knocking a true contender out of the 4 team playoff. It wouldn't matter if they got stomped in the semi. In fact, who's to say they wouldnt end up playing each other and one of them gets to go to the final, where they get stomped as well. In that case .. the true "championship" was played semi ... with the playoff scenario just giving Boise and TCU additional excuses at to why they belong in the playoff. I think people are under the false impression that if Boise or TCU go to the playoffs once ... and get stomped ... then, that they will never be considered again. That's just naive, IMO. You'll still have the same system and biases doing the ranking in the following years ... and boise and TCU will continue to muck it all up.
I feel like if Boise and TCU or whoever is rated high enough to make it into a 4 to 8 team playoff, more power to them. A well done playoff would take care of most of the controversy with the current system.
I think the thing that you're pointing out - that a 4-team playoff isn't a completely unbiased, perfect system - is something that no one is arguing against. It's sort of like you're winning an argument no one else is participating in. My main point is that the more teams that are allowed into a post-season championship system, the less important the ranking system is, and the more fair it is, and the less likely it is that a "deserving" team is left out. Yet a 4 team system undoubtedly gives a team a better chance of making it into the playoffs, in comparison to a 2 team system. Would a 4 team system always produce a perfect outcome, with no team ever getting the shaft? No, and no one is arguing that it would do so. I personally think undefeated teams do deserve a chance to win a championship. There's no other sport that I can think of where a team can go undefeated without getting a chance to do so, in fact. But the simple fact is that going to 4, 6, 8, or even 12 or 16 teams could be done in a way that keeps the emphasis on the regular season, while being, overall, better than the current 2 team system. I think people are under the false impression that if Boise or TCU go to the playoffs once ... and get stomped ... then, that they will never be considered again. That's just naive, IMO. You'll still have the same system and biases doing the ranking in the following years ... and boise and TCU will continue to muck it all up.[/QUOTE]
I don't think the bowls would go for it. I'd think they'd rather pick from the teams that didn't make it through the playoffs. While they might not be thrilled about having to pick teams who lost their last game, I think it has to be preferable to being part of system where your bowl game isn't the pinnacle of the winning team's season.
Brett ... you say I'm winning an argument no one is making, yet the very argument I'm making is against the one you make. You say a 4 team scenario makes the ranking less important than the 2 team scenario. I disagree. This year .. you have AU, OR, Boise and TCU! Looking at those 4 teams .. you might as well have a 2 team championship between AU and OR, because neither Boise nor TCU deserve to be ranked where they are. Depending on the bracketing ... Boise or TCU could, in a 4 team system, be able to "claim" they actually made it to the NC, when they really have no business even being in consideration. IOW .. your claim that a 4 team system would be less likely to leave a deserving team out is blantantly false .... Wisconsin, LSU, Stanford, .. three more deserving teams than Boise .. would be left out this year. I don't give a rats whether Boise or TCU are undefeated .. they haven't played anybody worth playing. HECK .. LSU could join the WAC or MW, or even the PAC 10 and be undefeated every fricken year. The "point" I make is that if you are going to have a playoff system, you need to do away with Conferences, and create scheduling that evens out the SOS across the entire field. At the very least, randomly assign teams to a segment within a region to create 4 or 8 "new" conferences that more equally distribute the competition throughout the system. Only then will more teams make "ranking" less relevant. The equality of competition throughout the divisions in Pro Football is the reason that the Pro Football Playoff works .... leaving the conferences as is in College Football will prevent that equality of competition!! In Pro Football .... there is no ranking ... there is only a season designed to lead to the playoff. That's not the case in College Football. Otherwise ...you'll accomplish nothing .... other than allowing a Boise or TCU to claim they made it to a NC game [for which they will promptly be beat], when in reality, they prevented a more qualified team from competing.
It does. You are focusing on one specific season, with teams still having one or two games remaining. I say 4 teams are better because a team ranking #5, #6, etc. are more likely to be able to move up into the top 4 than they are to moving up into the top 2. I'm NOT saying that #5, #6, etc. WILL move into the top 4 THIS year - I'm just saying that they have a better chance to do so than they do to finish in the top 2. You keep applying a hypothetical 4-team system onto this year - first, we don't know if Oregon, Auburn, TCU, and Boise will wind up in the top 4 this season. Second, with human voters in the mix, we know that with the current system they will sometimes "adjust" their final vote in order to try to get the top 2 teams "right" - why do you think that they wouldn't sometimes do that with a 4 team system? Basically, right now only the top 2 teams really matter, so the teams that finish #3, #4, and lower don't really matter all that much - if LSU finishes #3 after the end of the regular season, it's no better than if they finish #5, for example. That is more of an argument for a 6 or 8 team playoff system. We may all agree here that Boise and TCU "have no business" being considered (not saying that we DO all agree), but there's a BCS ranking system in place (granted, it seems to get "tweaked" every few years). If Boise and TCU make a playoff and they get exposed, maybe the BCS rankings get tweaked again. I personally think that undefeated teams should always be included in a playoff system once that playoff system reaches 8 teams. I disagree that the only way to have a playoff system is to do away with the current conferences. It's simple - instead of two teams playing for the championship, 4 teams play. Make those 4 teams play a semi-final game on New Year's Day at two of the BCS bowls, and the winners play a week later at another BCS bowl. Add in the Cotton Bowl as a BCS-level bowl destination, get TV money that guarantees that all parties involved (BCS bowls, teams, etc.) get more money than they do now, and presto - we'd have a 4-team playoff system. The world wouldn't end, even if a Boise State, Utah, or TCU gets into it every so often. If those types of team prove consistently that they don't belong, then the voters will punish them in future years. (It would help if teams like Bama and Oklahoma actually beat these so-called undeserving teams when they play them in bowl games). Also, if more deserving teams ARE consistently left out of a 4-team playoff, then maybe enough pressure could be brought to bear to increase the playoffs to 6 teams (top 2 get bye weeks). Yes, the 4-team playoff I'm describing isn't a clone of the NFL playoff system. (By the way, that playoff system will, on occasion, allow a crappy undeserving team, such as a crappy NFC West team this season, while a more deserving team could be left out of the playoffs.) Disagree again - "accomplish nothing" is not a guaranteed, every year thing, even if, for THIS year, a 4-team system would potentially keep out teams such as LSU, Wisconsin, etc. in lieu of TCU and Boise. Like I said in a prior post, I'm not claiming that a 4-team system would be perfect, unbiased, etc. I'm just saying that OVERALL, a 4-team system would have a better chance of allowing deserving teams to have a chance at the championship. I personally think that there's a "sweet spot", probably around 8 teams, maybe as many as 12, where the deserving teams get in, the bowl games can still happen, and the regular season isn't rendered meaningless.
The way I see it - make the semis and the championship BCS bowls. Any quarterfinal games would be hosted by the higher seeded team. Then the secondary bowls pick from the remaining pool. You can't use bowls throughout a playoff of more than two rounds because a college football fanbase can't travel that many times. Have a week between playoff rounds to help teams stay rested and healthy as well as give a fanbase time to plan and absorb the blow.
