Bring on the College Football Playoff Baby

[banditbdl]

With USC the #1 ranked team in both polls being shut out of the BCS championship game this is the best chance yet for a long-awaited D-1 college football playoff. If this isn't enough to get the playoff started when the BCS contract comes up then nothing is.

[Nottom]

This is thew best thing that could have happened to college football IMHO.

[Boris]

but doesnt it seem like too much of a coincidence that the BCS somehow finds a way to get OU v. LSU in New Orleans and USC v. Michigan in Pasadena? Its pretty obvious that from a revenue generating standpoint this is by far the most desirable outcome.

[HDPM]

This is hilarious. Granted, what I root for is the biggest controversy. When it comes to college sports, I want to see point shaving, drug scandals, under the table pay to players, etc.... Particularly at tax funded institutions. I thought it was funny that the BCS was so bad that congress had hearings. It made both congress and the BCS look worse, which is difficult. (How congress has any interest in college sports scares and confuses me.)

But I like the old system where fat cigar smoking good ole boys in plaid sports coats had their bowl games and let teh ink stained wretches decide who was best. That was an obvious sham, but it made for much better sports talk on the radio and New Years Day had bowls that meant something. And I liked all the scenarious where if the number one team lost by a little and the #3 team won in a blowout, then the dark horse could sneak in, etc.... This year the Rose Bowl has a traditional matchup that should result in a split national championship if USC wins. I love it.

A playoff is OK, and much better than the BCS, but I would love it if the BCS were scrapped and it was the old way. Good teams went to the traditional NYD bowls and the Weiser Lock Copper Bowls and Poulan Weedeater Bowls invited teams that traveled well or were interesting and it was a big party.

I assume like 1% of the population agrees w/ me. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Phat Mack]

I assume like 1% of the population agrees w/ me.

Everybody at last night's 3-6 game agreed with you, so it may be closer to 100%. We'd have to ask a statistical sampling expert.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
...I would love it if the BCS were scrapped and it was the old way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you 100% HDPM.


Count me in for the 1% gang. [censored] the BCS. The point is college does not need nor should it have a playoff system. It's college football - not pro football (or it's not suppose to be anyway). Anyone that thinks College football needs a playoff system should be hung from a goalpost. The old way using a voting system just illuminated the sham of democracy. It was fun and grand and stupid all at the same time - very American.

-Zeno

[ArchAngel71857]

If Jason White wins the Heisman, I am boycotting college fb next fall.

and anyone can hold me to it.

-AA

[banditbdl]

I would really like to see an 8-team playoff with either the quarters or semis played Jan. 1. Barring that I would way rather go back to the old system than keep the BCS around. At least the old system didn't try to pretend like it was crowning a true champion and gave me Big-10 vs. Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl every year. Too bad the Gophers haven't been in almost 40 stinking years.

[andyfox]

It's all useless anyway because any game that allows its results to be determined by changing the rules in overtime is bogus. It would be like having a home run derby when baseball games are tied, or a 3-point shooting contest when basketball games are tied, or a closest to the pin contest in a golf tournament.

[Ed Miller]

Actually, apparently some people in New Orleans are displeased that LSU made the Sugar Bowl because Baton Rougites don't stay in hotels... they drive home for the evening.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone that thinks College football needs a playoff system should be hung from a goalpost.
-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]

NCAA Division I football is the only NCAA sanctioned sport that doesn't have a playoff. Football even has a playoff in the other divisions. It is absurd that there isn't a playoff.

Just because we all like our New Years Day tradition doesn't mean that the system has been good. Never fear though, the major conferences are too scared of having to share the money to ever allow a playoff.

[Mano]

It's all useless anyway because any game that allows its results to be determined by changing the rules in overtime is bogus. It would be like having a home run derby when baseball games are tied, or a 3-point shooting contest when basketball games are tied, or a closest to the pin contest in a golf tournament.

Or a shootout in hockey or soccer.

[andyfox]

Exactly.

Hockey's not a sport anyway. A sport uses a round ball. Football barely qualifies.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
NCAA Division I football is the only NCAA sanctioned sport that doesn't have a playoff.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does this include track & field? which works on a somewhat different system, I thought.

[ QUOTE ]
Just because we all like our New Years Day tradition....

[/ QUOTE ]

I do like all the bowl traditions, Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl etc and enjoyed them every year I was growing up. So I think tradition should count for something. Also, it is, in my opinion, important to have nebulous results - always knowing who is NO. 1 in every college sport is boring. Letting football always be a contentious affair as to who is best is healthy, it is part of the football tradition.

-Zeno

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
I do like all the bowl traditions, Cotton Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl etc and enjoyed them every year I was growing up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is the worst argument people make against a playoff system. There are only about 8 bowls left that have any real tradition and it really wouldn't be that hard to work them into a new system.

Is the tradition of the EV1.net Bowl worth all this BSC crap?

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
It's all useless anyway because any game that allows its results to be determined by changing the rules in overtime is bogus. It would be like having a home run derby when baseball games are tied, or a 3-point shooting contest when basketball games are tied, or a closest to the pin contest in a golf tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or a penalty kick contest when a soccer game is tied?

I understand your objection to such formats. However, I don't think the college football overtime format is that bad. At least, unlike the NFL sudden death format, it doesn't give a significant advantage to the winner of a coin toss.

[CORed]

I think I would favor a playoff, but I would rather see it go back to the old way than continue the BCS farce. I don't think a playoff system would end the controversy, though. You still have to pick the teams who go to the playoffs, and a 64 team playoff, as in basketball, wouldn't be feasible. If you only have 8 playoff teams, you will have a lot of controversy over how the teams get picked. I'm not sure how many conferences there are in Division 1, but it's more than 8, so do you give the champions of the top 8 conferences (whatever those might be) playoff berths, and freeze out the other conferences and the independents? Or do you use something like the BCS scoring system to pick the playoff teams? I think a 16 team playoff would be fairer than an 8 team playoff, but that takes 4 rounds to resolve, so I don't know if it will happen, and there would still be controversy over which teams get selected.

[thylacine]

I certainly believe it would be better to abolish all the bowls and replace them with a playoff. But if you want the bowls and an also an indisputable national champion, then you simply put the best two teams in the same bowl and the winner is the national champion.

The BCS was designed to determine the best two teams in div. 1A football and it has successfully done so. USC is clearly the 3rd best team in the country, and to call itself #1 is ludicrous.

Just consider how the voters in the AP and Choaches poll rank the teams. Whenever a team loses, it drops down and some other teams shuffle up. But if team A is ranked above team B and both win, they almost always stay in the same order. So why do these polls rank USC #1, LSU #2, OU #3? Because USC lost in September, LSU lost in October, and OU lost in December! These rankings simply reflect when each of these teams got their one loss. That's all there is to it. These human polls are all about ranking inertia, and nothing to do with how good the teams actually are.

OU only lost to 11-3 KSU. LSU only lost to a hot 8-4 Florida team that also beat Georgia and Arkansas, and only fell a few points short of beating Miami, Florida St and Ole Miss. But USC actually lost to a pitiful 6-6 Cal.

Based on who they lost to, USC is clearly #3. USC is a clear 3rd based on dozens of computer polls. They also had the weakest schedule of the three.

The fact that OU did not win a conference championship game should not eliminate them, after all, USC did not win a conference championship game either, did they?

USC is simply resorting to politics and pre-existing bias to try to claim a portion of a national title that they would not have legitimately earned. By contrast, LSU was always under-respected and had to prove it on the field.

The BCS can be improved. USC missed out by a fraction of a point, but a more accurate system would have them a much more distant 3rd. Firstly eliminating the human polls, or at least convincing the humans to take the poll seriously instead of their using drop-and-shuffle ranking would be an improvement. The fact that LSU was penalised for beating Georgia twice is clearly a problem to be addressed. Computer polls should go back to including margin of victory, maybe with a 21 point cap, so that teams like Ohio State don't remain absurdly overrated while barely scraping by mediocre teams week after week.

And finally the strength of schedule component needs to be more sophisticated. Playing a 10-2 team and a 2-10 team puts a good team at more risk of a loss than playing two 6-6 teams, and the system should reflect that, which by the way would mean LSU's schedule would be recognized as much tougher than USC's.

The bottom line is that the only game that matters for the National Title is in New Orleans on January 4th. The country's top two teams OU and LSU will play for the title. No other team can claim to be a top two team, so any title another team grants themselves will just be a fantasy in their head.

[Six_of_One]

[ QUOTE ]
USC is clearly the 3rd best team in the country, and to call itself #1 is ludicrous....

The fact that OU did not win a conference championship game should not eliminate them, after all, USC did not win a conference championship game either, did they?....

Computer polls should go back to including margin of victory, maybe with a 21 point cap, so that teams like Ohio State don't remain absurdly overrated while barely scraping by mediocre teams week after week.


[/ QUOTE ]

I completely disagree that USC is "clearly" the 3rd best team in the country (and this is coming from a UCLA fan who loves nothing more than to see the Trojans lose). I do, however, agree that the system is seriously flawed. OU didn't win their conference, USC did. LSU played a few extremely weak teams, USC didn't. USC won their games by an average of 26 points or something, so including margin of victory in the formula would probably have put them in the Sugar Bowl. They lost in OT against a mediocre (not the same as "pitiful") Cal team, while OU got spanked by a pretty good KSU team. I'll call that even.

The best system in my opinion (assuming we can't have a playoff) would have disqualified OU for not winning their conference. I agree also that the strength of schedule component needs to be changed somehow...rewarding teams for scheduling terrible opponents, as you seem to suggest, would not be the solution, though.

What it comes down to is that I think USC got shafted. I'll be rooting for them to win the Rose Bowl and half the national title.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
LSU played a few extremely weak teams, USC didn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

USC also played no really good teams ... LSU and OU did.

[Mano]

Wouldn't it be nice if this sort of debate could be settled on the playing field? Just a thought.

[thylacine]

A fairer strength of schedule rating would help LSU more than USC. Winning both games against a 10-2 and a 2-10 team is much harder than beating two 6-6 teams. For a National Title contender a 6-6 team is barely more threat than a 2-10 team, whereas a 10-2 team puts the Title contender's chances in very serious jeopardy. LSU's schedule was rated as slightly harder than USC's, but in reality it was much harder (as was OU's). Perhaps using opponents winning percentage SQUARED, or some such, would be farer.

Reintroducing margin of victory (or some function of score, or some measure of on-field performance relative to previous ranking) would favor LSU and OU much more than USC. USC spanked average teams, (which a fair computer rating would regard as merely par for the course) while LSU and OU spanked good and even great teams (which would be rewarded by a fair computer rating system).

And why should conferences with a championship game benefit from not risking a loss in such a game. Perhaps conreference champs without a champ game should be penalized half a loss.

And the human polls merely reflect the fact that USC lost earlier in the calendar. So maybe as a booby prize, USC should get the longest win streak title.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
And why should conferences with a championship game benefit from not risking a loss in such a game. Perhaps conreference champs without a champ game should be penalized half a loss.


[/ QUOTE ]

How about this? If the conferences *with* a championship game want to be greedy and get the revenue the game generates, they accept the risk that their best team might trip up.

Let's face it, money is the only reason that such games exist.

Besides, penalizing the Big 10 and Pac 10 for not having a championship game is ridiculous since the NCAA won't allow them to have one until they expand to 12 teams.

[TimTimSalabim]

Well, ok, I'll jump in with my thoughts:

1. It's kind of ironic that USC fans are doing the whining, considering that last year their big boast was about how tough their schedule was, when they almost got left out of a BCS bowl. But this year they want to conveniently overlook USC's weak schedule and focus instead on the rankings (which always tend to favor high-profile TV teams like USC). If you look at the Pac 10's record in bowl games in recent years you can hardly even consider them a major conference. Last year's record was something like 2-5. The same argument that keeps TCU out of the national championship applies to USC.

2. If you go to a playoff, you're still going to have teams whining about getting left out. I mean, in basketball, you always have some 18-12 team whining that they were'nt considered one of the top 64. If you go to an 8-team playoff, you're gonna hear #9 complaining, guaranteed.

[Six_of_One]

[ QUOTE ]
The same argument that keeps TCU out of the national championship applies to USC...

If you go to an 8-team playoff, you're gonna hear #9 complaining, guaranteed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Comparing TCU to USC is absurd. The Pac-10 is not the strongest conference in the country; it is, however, certainly a major conference that happened to have a bad year last year.

As for the #9 team complaining...that would always happen, but just like in basketball, it would not result in anyone questioning the integrity of whoever ended up winning the national championship. The #65 team in basketball, or the #9 team in football, wouldn't have any kind of realistic chance of winning anyway.

[Six_of_One]

[ QUOTE ]
And why should conferences with a championship game benefit from not risking a loss in such a game. Perhaps conreference champs without a champ game should be penalized half a loss.


[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't make any sense. Without a championship game, the conference would have no champion. The conference needs a champion, to determine who gets the automatic BSC bid. Therefore, the conference needs a championship game.

The conferences themselves have chosen this arrangement, as Clarkmeister pointed out, due to the revenue it generates. If they don't want to risk a loss to their best team by having a championship game, then get rid of the two-division design, and simply pick a champion the same way all the other conferences do.

[andyfox]

I note that the Cal coach said he hasn't seen the other two teams play much, but certainly USC has to be in the Championship game.

How would he know this if he hasn't seen the other two teams play much?

The polls are suspect, to say the least. I prefer computer rankings.

[thylacine]

I assume you're joking.

[Six_of_One]

Why would you assume that? I'm completely serious.

[Prickly Pete]

[ QUOTE ]
NCAA Division I football is the only NCAA sanctioned sport that doesn't have a playoff.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is pretty much true if you say "team" sport.

And of course it's ludicrous that there is no playoff system in Div I football. It's easy (in theory). Have the pollsters pick 8 or 16 teams and play a tourney starting the first week of Dec. That way, most teams will have their players back in class before they otherwise would. And that is all the college pre$ident$ seem to be concerned about.

Yes, #9 or 17 will whine, but just like #65 in basketball, nobody remembers or cares as soon as the first game begins.

[thylacine]

Read your own post. You blatantly contradict yourself.

[Six_of_One]

I read it several times to try and figure out what you mean, but I'm afraid I'm at a loss.

What I said was, given the separation of the conference into two divisions, without a conference championship game the conference would have no champion. A champion is needed in order to determine who gets the automatic BCS bid, so therefore there must be a conference championship game.

If the conference doesn't like this fact, they can simply do away with the two division format, have all teams together in a single division, and award the championship to whichever team finishes with the best record. But this is not the way they do it.

[TimTimSalabim]

Okay, perhaps I went a bit too far in my comparison of TCU to USC. But the fact is, there are several one-loss teams like TCU and others that we don't consider to be worthy of the championship game because of their strength of schedule, and USC's strength of schedule does not match up with OU and LSU.

As for #9 not being able to win, I completely disagree there. K-State could be the #9 team, for example, and they're definitely capable of beating anyone.

[TimTimSalabim]

Also, I would add that the reason the BCS does not solely depend on AP and UPI polls is that they're flawed. The writers will tend to favor high-profile TV teams and teams in their own areas. (I assume there are many more writers from California voting in the polls than from Oklahoma). The coaches probably rely mostly on the writers poll, they're too busy preparing for their next game to be spending a lot of time with national rankings anyway. To make up for this bias in the human polls, the BCS takes into account other, more objective evaluations like computer rankings and strength of schedule. I think the system is working just fine.

[thylacine]

And for the top 3 teams the human polls reflect nothing more than length of win streak.

[thylacine]

That's totally ridiculous. Whether the SEC and BIG12 have one divisions of 12 teams, or two divisions of 6 teams each, or twelve divisions of 1 team each, or perhaps over a thousand divisions of one player each is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.

You said `Without a championship game, the conference [SEC or BIG12] would have no champion.'

But then you said `they [SEC or BIG12] .... [could] simply pick a champion the same way all the other conferences do.'

These two statements bluntly contradict each other. And clearly the whole division thing is a red herring as far as what conferences could do. They could have one division for bosons and one division for fermions! They could still find ways to select a champion with or without a championship game.

It's not about rules and regulations, it's about fairness.

[Six_of_One]

Of course they COULD find a way to pick a champion without using a championship game. That would be preferable to me, taking into account the entire season rather than just a single game. However, this is not the way they do it.

I agree it should be about fairness. It is unfair to allow a team that did not win its own conference to play for the national title.

[thylacine]

I disagree. It IS fair to to allow a team that did not win its own conference to play for the national title, provided that it is one of the best two teams in the nation, as determined by considering the WHOLE season.

[bernie]

"And why should conferences with a championship game benefit from not risking a loss in such a game."

because teams that win a conference championsships get lots of extra money for winning the CC. almost like a lesser bowl game.

b

[thylacine]

That's not a reason. It's a complete Non Sequitur. I bet you can't come up with an actual reason.