There are only a handful of worthy teams in a given year. We can quibble about whether TCU should have been 4 or 5 or whatever, but there are only a few elite teams each year.
Instead, let’s kill the one, unique thing about FBS football - a truly meaningful, week to week regular season - so we can hand out more participation trophies. Get ready for a crap ton more playoff blowouts.
(at home of course), Delaware and UMAss......scumbag JoePA lives on through scumbag 2.0, Franklin
Is there a single decision made by the powers that be that has the benefit of the student athletes in mind? There is only one objective.
Why do we need 12 teams? Money. Why do we need conference championships? Money. Why conference realignment? Money. Why are USC and UCLA making the most strange move to a Midwest conference? Money. The desire for the dollar is destroying college football. Can’t talk about the portal, capping NIL, etc without addressing the rot at the top. Everyone is out for themselves.
The conferences do not care about the state of the game. They are purely looking out for themselves. There is no entity out there willing to stand up and call a time out, and ask the conferences to consider what they are doing to the game. The student-athletes are the absolute last consideration.
As much as we can lay the blame on any single group, I blame the CFP Board of Managers. They have the gravitas and influence to actually accomplish something, or at least set some parameters for the conferences to consider. Fr Jenkins sits on this Board. Maybe this Board doesn’t have the authority to effect change, but they could provide some guidance and use their voice to look out for the game itself and guide the discussion, not to mention to look out for the welfare of the student-athletes.
The NCAA has basically quit and doesn’t seem to give a shit.
Link: Useless Figureheads
Just a few schools can look recruits in the eyes and say “come here and you will make the playoffs.”
Once expansion hits, probably somewhere close to 50 teams can say that.
If (big if) talent ever starts to even out in CFB, the playoffs will be very interesting. If things remain the same and we have 2-3 teams with a BCR of 80%, it will be mostly boring and predictable.
In either scenario, the regular season becomes a lot less interesting.
Using those two teams as an example, and that just seems weird.
But, overall I support the playoff, so what if you have some blowouts? We also got to see Michigan lose. And you'll have upsets as well. People don't complain about blowouts in the NCAA basketball tournament.
But that will never happen.
only one, and they should have been beaten in the semi finals. It will work out but these blowouts always look bad. Football is odd though, if one team is hot they can make anybody look bad.
This year was the only year there were remotely competitive semifinal games. I think what we learned from having playoffs these last several years is that the BCS was probably the right system. There is very rarely more than 1 great team, let alone 5 or more.
EDIT: I just went back and looked at the final scores for all the semifinal games and I was wrong. It is occasionally competitive but I still don't agree with screwing up the regular season to add so many more playoff games in the off chance a 5 seed is more deserving than the top 4 selected.
Focus should be on ensuring teams aren't scheduling a playoff run by avoiding any decent out of conference play. Not TCUs fault the Big12 was overrated but they didn't play anyone of consequence outside of the conf games.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Football_Playoff
(no message)
(no message)
I would love to see a return to the way it used to be done with concern to bowl games. It was great to know that every Jan 1st you were going to see the SEC champ in the Sugar Bowl, the Big 10 v Pac 10 in the Rose, the SWC champ in the Cotton, the Big 8 champ in the Orange while filling out opponents to create the best matchups allowing the Irish to basically choose their locale and opponent some years.
After the bowls, a committee could meet and determine if further games were needed to decide the national champion. Some years it may not be necessary (like 1988! Go Irish!) but others there would be great matchups. Who would not have wanted to see FSU-ND part 2 in 1993? Or Nebraska play Michigan in 1997? Maybe some years it gets to where a 4 team playoff might be needed.
This year could have been UGA-Penn St in the Sugar, Michigan-Utah in the Rose, Clemson-KState in the Orange, TCU-Alabama in the Cotton, Tennessee-Ohio St in the Fiesta, etc.
I know this cannot happen now because of money but man do I miss the greatness that used to be bowl games on New Years Day.
(no message)
Like clockwork, you knew what time and channel these games were on. Many games competing with each other being played at the same time. Then, you left it in the hands of the voters. Sometimes the champion was obvious. Sometimes there was a fan bruhaha. Some might recall in 1977, there were several teams with one loss behind undefeated Texas but these teams were involved with conference bowl tie ins. So, You had #5 Irish destroy undefeated #1 Texas in the Cotton and #3 Bama beat #8 Ohio State in the Sugar with the voters giving the title to ND. The Bama fanbase went ballistic. Voters felt destroying undefeated #1 team was more impressive than beating a #8 team, even though Bama was ranked higher. So ND jumped over the Tide for the title. Maybe that was more fun than a playoff. It's up to opinions. If only there were message boards and twitter back then.
(no message)