Am I the only one that don't want playoffs for college football?

College football is my favorite sport. But I always quit watching after Thanksgiving weekend. The bowls are about as intriguing as the NFL preseason. In fact, college football is the only sport that has the games that don't count at the end of the season instead of at the beginning.

Part of what makes college football so great is the gameday atmosphere of all the historic stadiums. Of course, all the bowls completely neutralize that aspect by playing in neutral stadiums. Even if a bowl has a good matchup, it's just not the same.

My favorite anti-playoff argument is the "well, at least people are talking about college football" argument. This makes no sense. Um...hello? You don't think people would talk about a 16 team playoff? Yes, people are talking about it, but they're talking about how stupid it is to have a NC decided by a bunch of computers. How is this good for college football?

 

The funny thing, all the other divisions of college football do have a playoff system. It is just Division I-A that doesn't.

Gosh, no bowl games, then no Rose Bowl parade. Think of the florists!

 

i dont understand how people can say "tweak the bcs system" when its clearly impossible to fix what happened w/ LSU, and USC last year, or fix what could happen this year with Auburn, USC, and OU. And to a lesser extent Utah.

the only way you will know is if those teams could manage to finish in the top 8 and then decide on the field.

it may take a long time but eventually one day playoffs will be adopted because its really the only way that makes sense.

And yes there are some negatives in doing it. For example which one loss teams deserve to be in the top 8. But you cant say thats as unfair as what could happen to Auburn this year. And Pitt and Boise state beating out UT for a BCS game when there only loss came to OU; which was a close game against the perhaps eventual national champion.

 

Actually, I don't think anyone is asking for a whole new playoff format. All we need is a 4-team playoff, that's a winner take all type of deal. This would have put USC against LSU last year and settled the debate.

The only sport in the world with two champions last year was college football. That speaks volumes about the utter stupidity of the present BCS structure. And it's exactly why ABC didn't reneg their contract.

 

Do you really deserve to go to the post season if your 7-4 or 6-5?

There are 10 major conferences. Take all 10 conference champions and add 6 at-large berths. That takes care of teams like Texas and Cal. Simple.

Yes. If you don't want to do that, finish higher than 16. That's the way it works. You know, like every other sport. I'm not sure I understand your point about alumni traveling. Do you not want to play the games because the alumni can't travel? That's why it's called home field advantage.

 

The BCS is screwed up every year ~ it will be going away soon.

Here are a few interesting solutions to chew on...

SOLUTION #1: a national elimination tournament where 15 traditional bowl games would host playoff sites for the top 16 teams in the country. The Bowl Championship Series rankings would be utilized to determine the brackets.

EXAMPLE: The B.C.S. Poll would serve as the official ranking system.

PLAYOFF SCHEDULE:

FIRST ROUND: Played two weeks after the regular season. (Approximately the second week in December)

QUARTERFINALS: Played one week after the first round.

SEMIFINALS: Played on New Year's Weekend.

THE FINAL: National Championship played the weekend before the Super Bowl.
___________________________________

1) A post season playoff system that will determine an undisputed national champion on an annual basis (settling the annual debate and confusion),

2) Keeping the same Bowl Games of today, but utilizing them as playoff sites, (preventing the current unpopularity and demise of the bowls, financially and publicly),

3) All Bowls, even the minor bowls, would increase gate and television revenue due to the significance of the games and the quality of higher ranked teams (higher caliber teams competing against one another, rather than a meaningless game between teams with no or poor rankings),

4) All Bowls will capture a greater television audience and revenue, because the major bowls will not be competing against one another on January 1st for viewership (currently there are six bowl games competing against one another on New Year's Day and the television ratings are steadily decreasing),

5) Schools are less likely to patsy their schedules to guarantee a perfect or near perfect season so that they may in the (one game) BCS championship at the end of the year. Instead the emphasis will be one of the Top 16 teams and qualify for the post season tournament.

6) The post season time frame would not be extended, thus not exceeding the NCAA's 22 week season regulation. (Actual season = 20 Weeks)

7) It would be easier to obtain and retain quality corporate sponsors for the structured playoff games as television ratings increase significantly,

8) The NCAA would receive a substantial increase in revenue to aid all, both male and female, team and individual intercollegiate sports,

9) The increase in revenue generated by the playoff structure could be distributed amongst all participating and nonparticipating schools. Even if your division I-A school never makes it to the tournament, it is still benefiting from the structure. It is a WIN-WIN situation for all Division I-A Athletic Programs. Earnings can be distributed proportionally.

There are 5 more proposals here

 

There should be a playoff system.
The NCAA uses the Academic excuse (time away from the classroom) but they have no excuse having playoffs at every other level and for playing weekday games in every other NCAA sport.
Money should not be an issue, just think how big Championship weekend is with the Big 12 and SEC championship games. If good teams are playing for something people get excited.

If people are worried about losing bowl money why not cut the regular season back to 10 games and have a 32 team playoff? That way it ensures 31 games in the tournament that someone can sponsor.

1st Round (32 teams, 16 games) - 16 top seeded teams host games unless their stadium is too small. Try to do 1 vs 32, 2 vs 31 but regional pairings will take precedence over BCS rankings. For example if USC is #1 and Maryland is #32 and UCLA is #31 have USC play UCLA to reduce travel time. Basically the brackets would be done like B-ball rather than just on standings. To be held weekend before Thanksgiving.

2nd Round (16 teams, 8 games) - At regional sites. That way large historic stadiums which do not usually get Bowl games get to host (Big House in Michigan, Horshoe in Columbus) games. Make stadiums bid on games just like b-ball. To be held Thanksgiving weekend.

3rd Round (8 teams, 4 games) - At traditional bowls (Rose, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, etc). January 1st.

4th Round (4 teams, 2 games) - 2 different sites (maybe Florida and Texas/CA/Arizona). Next full weekend after January 1st.

Championship - TBD (Rotate it like the SuperBowl). To be held week before SuperBowl.

Again I'd be happy with any kind of tournamnet (8,16 or 32 teams) but some way to decide it on the field.

 

Having too many teams in the playoff dilutes the overall product. We've already separated the wheat from the chaff.

32 teams is insane. That's a higher rate of participation than the NCAA basketball tournament currently has. Look at the bottom of the AP poll right now. Do any of those teams deserve to participate in a playoff for the national title? It's an insult to Southern Cal, OU, and Auburn to say they should have to go through Ohio State or Texas A&M to compete for the national championship.

16 teams is also too many. Florida State is 8-3 and ranked #16. Three losses conclusively proves that they do not deserve a chance at the national title.

Eight is probably about right. Right now, that would include one two-loss team (Georgia).

The playoff is intended to allow the most qualified teams to determine the best team in college football. You are never going to have a season in which there are 16 teams that can make a legitimate claim that they've got the best team in the country. It will never happen. Even eight teams is stretching it; I don't think Georgia can make much of an argument this year with two losses.

I'm also not necessarily in favor of matching up the winners of the top two BCS bowls in the fifth BCS bowl the week after New Year's. That would have been pretty stupid in 2002. Ohio State was 14-0 and beat the No. 1 team. What more did they need to prove? That they could beat a two-loss USC team? What did Tennessee have to prove in 1998? Or FSU in 1999?

Sure, it would have worked last year, but it's really kind of double-jeopardy for clear No. 1s.

 

I think 4 teams would preserve the sanctity of the regular season the best - but if we could just get rid of all the BCS shenanigans and put 1 vs 2 - using the human poll average, like in the early days - and let the rest sort itself out as it previously did, I'd prefer that. The only time that results in injustice is when there's three undefeated teams like this year (though it isn't over yet) but that's exceedingly rare.

 

That's better, that's kind of what I was trying to get at. It completely undermines the regular season to make an 11-0 USC team play a 7-4 Ohio State team in the playoffs. Southern Cal should be rewarded for winning all its games (and I think you can extend that to teams with one loss).

 

The only reason I would want 16 teams is because I think if you win your conference, you should get an automatic berth. Like Division I-AA. At the same time, the stronger conference runner-ups (like Texas and Cal) wouldn't be left out in the cold either.

I-AA has a 16 team playoff and the NC is decided before the first meaningless bowl is even played.

 

Well, I disagree with you on that one. The Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-10, and ACC will just about always deserve to have their champ in the playoffs, but that's about it. Conference USA and the Mountain West have teams this year (Louisville and Utah) that can make a case, but that's not true every year. The Big East, Sun Belt, and MAC don't have teams that qualify this year, IMO, and frankly I think Boise State is the biggest fraud since Enron. If they want to be taken seriously, then they should take a page out of Florida State and Marshall's playbook and go on the road to take on BCS conference teams.

FSU's non-conference schedule in the 1980s and early 90s was insane, but they won enough of those games to transform their program into a national one. Marshall played at Ohio State this year. I don't buy this "the big boys won't schedule us" baloney. I think what the big boys won't do is agree to travel to frickin' Boise for a return game, and if you look at what Michigan or Ohio State or Texas makes from a home game, that's understandable. Hell, FSU didn't get any return trips from Ohio State or Michigan or Nebraska. It just kicked their asses.

Anyway, that's kind of a tangent.

 

There is not another major college sport that does not give invites to the tournament to the conference winners.

If you win your conference, you deserve a shot. If you think that the winner of C-USA can't advance, let it be proven on the field. That is still where football is played, right?

One of the reasons why the smaller conferences cannot recruit is that they have ZERO chance of being champions. This goes away if all conference champs get invited. The change would take YEARS, but over time, it could happen. That will make the overall product better.