My Radical College Football Playoff Idea

[WNY_FOOTBALL_DUDE]

Let me know how many of you are on board with this idea.

- 8 teams. All the playoff teams gets a two week bye to rest up and prepared for the tournament. The first two rounds get played on campus sites, final round on one of the six BCS Bowl sites. You rotate between the Cotton, Fiesta, Peach, Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowl every season.

- No committees or polls. Just create an RPI formula to rate EACH college football team.

- The top six highest rated conference champions in the top 20 gets an automatic playoff bid.

- Any remaining seeds goes to the highest rated at-large teams.

How would have it looked for the last four seasons?

I'll use Anderson & Hester ratings as an example:

2017
#8 USC (11-2) @ #1 Clemson (12-1)
#7 Alabama (11-1) @ #2 Georgia (12-1)
#6 Ohio State (11-2) @ #3 Central Florida (12-0)
#5 Oklahoma (12-1) @ #4 Wisconsin (12-1)

Penn State fans might complain, but they lost TWICE and failed to win their division and conference.

2016
#9 Oklahoma (10-2) @ #1 Alabama (13-0)
#8 Western Michigan (13-0) @ #2 Ohio State (11-1)
#6 Michigan (10-2) @ #3 Clemson (12-1)
#5 Penn State (11-2) @ #4 Washington (12-1)

Wisconsin at #7 might have reason to complain, but they lost in the Big-10 conference championship and lost to Michigan.

2015
#11 Houston (12-1) @ #1 Clemson (13-0)
#7 Stanford (11-2) @ #2 Michigan State (12-1)
#6 Ohio State (11-1) @ #3 Alabama (12-1)
#5 Iowa (12-1) @ #4 Oklahoma (11-1)

Notre Dame would be left out, but had 2 losses and had the same best win as Houston.

2014
#18 Boise State (11-2) @ #1 Florida State (13-0)
#7 UCLA (9-3) @ #2 Oregon (12-1)
#6 Baylor (11-1) @ #3 Alabama (12-1)
#5 TCU (11-1) @ #4 Ohio State (12-1)

Pretty cool. College football would make so much more money on this. Not only would it increase interest in the conference championship games, but it improve on OCC. Teams would be more willing to risk playing top notch competition.

 

[Airraidtech]

I’m on board, my liver may not.
8 teams is a must.

 

[daglafe]

I could live with that.

In before the pageant princesses start complaining about diluting the field or playing an extra game.

 

[Shanemansj13]

No thanks. 4 is still fine even with two teams from the same conference in. This won’t happen too often, just a rare case this year where there are no elite teams and conference champions had 2 losses

 

[Wazmankg]

8 teams. I'm flexible as long as it's 8 teams.

 

[WizardHawk]

Nope, not as long as it uses conf championship status to do anything. If you want 8 and simply expand the current criteria I still don't like it, but it doesn't entirely kill football.

Anything that ignores entirely at least 1/4 of every game played just makes no sense. OOC games do not count in any way toward conf standings and therefor do not count toward winning your conf.

Your criteria of making it the top seeded of those champions still doesn't address that glaring massive issue. If all of them are dicking around in OOC then you are simply trying to pick the least egregiously abusive of the teams remaining.

There simply cannot EVER be any method for seeding a playoff that involves using conf championship status as any real level of criteria outside of looking at it as another quality win. Period. It MUST not be allowed to ever happen.

 

[starbigd]

It doesn't have to be 8, it could be 6, I'm still good either way.

But we MUST get rid of committees with agendas and NO RULES for how teams are determined to get in.

There have to be specific, agreed upon criteria for this......no more "eye test" bullshit. No more conference bias.

 

[Wild Turkey]

It doesn't have to be 8, it could be 6, I'm still good either way.

But we MUST get rid of committees with agendas and NO RULES for how teams are determined to get in.

There have to be specific, agreed upon criteria for this......no more "eye test" bullshit. No more conference bias.

LMAO

Arguments are moot when teams actually win.

 

[starbigd]

LMAO

Arguments are moot when teams actually win.

Don't care if they win or not.......it's STILL bullshit.

There HAS to be agreed upon criteria......if not it doesn't really MEAN anything.

All I want is CONSISTENCY. Find a set of rules, publish it, and PLAY BY IT. Then nobody can realistically complain.

 

[WNY_FOOTBALL_DUDE]

It doesn't have to be 8, it could be 6, I'm still good either way.

But we MUST get rid of committees with agendas and NO RULES for how teams are determined to get in.

There have to be specific, agreed upon criteria for this......no more "eye test" bullshit. No more conference bias.

That's the beauty of my idea. The criteria is transparent. Everybody knows that the top 6 conference champions gets into the playoff and we're judging teams based on SOS factors. There's no left field variables.

 

[Wild Turkey]

Don't care if they win or not.......it's STILL bullshit.

There HAS to be agreed upon criteria......if not it doesn't really MEAN anything.

All I want is CONSISTENCY. Find a set of rules, publish it, and PLAY BY IT. Then nobody can realistically complain.

Ok Mr. Smarty...who didn’t belong in the playoff? The only team I saw that didn’t was Clemson and there is no way you didn’t have them in there.

System works and has from the beginning.

 

[WizardHawk]

Don't care if they win or not.......it's STILL bullshit.

There HAS to be agreed upon criteria......if not it doesn't really MEAN anything.

All I want is CONSISTENCY. Find a set of rules, publish it, and PLAY BY IT. Then nobody can realistically complain.

The problem with all such rules is there would always be exceptions that caused outrage. You go ahead and create some iron clad rule here. Do it. We will promptly show you examples of where adhering to it would produce some really bad result, even if it's good 90% of the time.

No 'rule' set would stop the endless bitching.

There isn't a system for doing this that would stop, or even reduce bitching.

 

[Shanemansj13]

Ok Mr. Smarty...who didn’t belong in the playoff? The only team I saw that didn’t was Clemson and there is no way you didn’t have them in there.

System works and has from the beginning.

The only team that has an argument, after the fact, is UCF but only to be one of the best 4 teams. Their resume didn’t stack to even top 10 opponents. Only case can be made is undefeated and they beat Auburn who beat UGA and Bama but it really doesn’t matter bc that was in a bowl game, after the fact. The argument before was Ohio St or Bama but Bama doesn’t look like the #4 seed this year just like Ohio St didn’t look like the #4 seed a couple years ago

 

[Wild Turkey]

The only team that has an argument, after the fact, is UCF but only to be one of the best 4 teams. Their resume didn’t stack to even top 10 opponents. Only case can be made is undefeated and they beat Auburn who beat UGA and Bama but it really doesn’t matter bc that was in a bowl game, after the fact. The argument before was Ohio St or Bama but Bama doesn’t look like the #4 seed this year just like Ohio St didn’t look like the #4 seed a couple years ago

The big difference is tOSU laid an egg a year ago and Bama won (and I hate typing that) and when you win then you have proved your worth. If Bama plays UGA tight or wins then guess what? They get the benefit of the doubt next year also. The only way to win a championship is to win the games; bitching about selection is for pussies.

 

[PhilSimms11]

2013
(1)Florida St (13-0) vs (8)Missouri (11-2)
(4)Michigan St (12-1) vs (5)Stanford (11-2)

(2)Auburn (12-1) vs (7)Ohio St (12-1)
(3)Alabama (11-1) vs (6)Baylor (11-1

2014
(1)Alabama (12-1) vs (8)Michigan St (10-2)
(4)Ohio St (12-1) vs (5)Baylor (11-1)

(2)Oregon (12-1) vs (7)Mississippi St (10-2)
(3)Florida St (13-0) vs (6)TCU (11-1)

2015
(1)Clemson (13-0) vs (8)Notre Dame (10-2)
(4)Oklahoma (11-1) vs (5)Iowa (12-1)

(2)Alabama (12-1) vs (7)Ohio St (11-1)
(3)Michigan St (12-1) vs (6)Stanford (11-2)

2016
(1)Alabama (13-0) vs (8)Wisconsin (10-3)
(4)Washington (12-1) vs (5)Penn St (11-2)

(2)Clemson (12-1) vs (7)Michigan (10-2)
(3)Ohio St (11-1) vs (6)Oklahoma (10-2)

2017
(1)Clemson (12-1) vs (8)USC (11-2)
(4)Alabama (11-1) vs (5)Ohio St (11-2)

(2)Oklahoma (12-1) vs (7)Auburn (10-3)
(3)Georgia (12-1) vs (6)Wisconsin (12-1)

This would be:

 

[ellupo]

The big difference is tOSU laid an egg a year ago and Bama won (and I hate typing that) and when you win then you have proved your worth. If Bama plays UGA tight or wins then guess what? They get the benefit of the doubt next year also. The only way to win a championship is to win the games; bitching about selection is for pussies.

Winning 2 games only proves you are able to beat those 2 teams. For instance who is to say OK could not have beat Bama last year? Or UCF for that matter. Making into the beauty pageant like tOSU did the first doesnt prove much other that they could beat Bama and Oregon in those 2 games. Who can say if Baylor or TCU could not have done the same.

 

[tducey]

Yeah, an expansion is a must. Whether it be to 6 teams or 8 teams I'd be good with that.

 

[WizardHawk]

2013
(1)Florida St (13-0) vs (8)Missouri (11-2)
(4)Michigan St (12-1) vs (5)Stanford (11-2)

(2)Auburn (12-1) vs (7)Ohio St (12-1)
(3)Alabama (11-1) vs (6)Baylor (11-1

2014
(1)Alabama (12-1) vs (8)Michigan St (10-2)
(4)Ohio St (12-1) vs (5)Baylor (11-1)

(2)Oregon (12-1) vs (7)Mississippi St (10-2)
(3)Florida St (13-0) vs (6)TCU (11-1)

2015
(1)Clemson (13-0) vs (8)Notre Dame (10-2)
(4)Oklahoma (11-1) vs (5)Iowa (12-1)

(2)Alabama (12-1) vs (7)Ohio St (11-1)
(3)Michigan St (12-1) vs (6)Stanford (11-2)

2016
(1)Alabama (13-0) vs (8)Wisconsin (10-3)
(4)Washington (12-1) vs (5)Penn St (11-2)

(2)Clemson (12-1) vs (7)Michigan (10-2)
(3)Ohio St (11-1) vs (6)Oklahoma (10-2)

2017
(1)Clemson (12-1) vs (8)USC (11-2)
(4)Alabama (11-1) vs (5)Ohio St (11-2)

(2)Oklahoma (12-1) vs (7)Auburn (10-3)
(3)Georgia (12-1) vs (6)Wisconsin (12-1)

This would be:

These types of lists are always used to support the idea of expanded playoffs and entirely miss what would inevitably change and make them worse.

You cannot go look at what a playoff would have looked like if we used this or that criteria today, when the formula used for making schedules wasn't based on that same criteria.

It is 100% dead FACT that OOC games would become exhibition with a playoff that has auto bids for P5 conf champs. Purely inevitable. You would sacrifice the quality of the regular season for some notion of a more exciting and more fair post season and yet wouldn't achieve at least the latter in any way.

You have some conferences only playing 8 conf games a year. So now their entire bid to get into a playoff is at most 9 games (including their CCG). And they skip playing nearly 40% of their available conference opponents each year as it is.

Others play more of their conference opponents all the way up to 100% of them.

Last season the Pac was garbage. Some years it might be the ACC or a downturn for one of the others. And yet we are going to value ALL of them entirely equally for getting into a playoff. And leave out much much MUCH more deserving teams because it is more fair?

I know most of you just want more quality football. We all want that. Really. It's just these formulas that sound good on paper but cannot possibly work at all in reality are not going to get you there. It will lead to worse regular season scheduling, I mean after all why would a high end team risk more injury scheduling a tough team from another P5 when that game has ZERO input on their post season qualifications? You would fire a head coach that got his QB creamed in such a game wouldn't you? So most of those will be DII type bye week games from now on.

That really is what would happen which is why none of these will ever come true.

 

[Wild Turkey]

Winning 2 games only proves you are able to beat those 2 teams. For instance who is to say OK could not have beat Bama last year? Or UCF for that matter. Making into the beauty pageant like tOSU did the first doesnt prove much other that they could beat Bama and Oregon in those 2 games. Who can say if Baylor or TCU could not have done the same.

You got blown out. Win and you get the benefit of the doubt, lose and you create doubt.

That is how the world works and that is why it's a bad idea to lose games and leave it up to a committee.

 

[ellupo]

You got blown out. Win and you get the benefit of the doubt, lose and you create doubt.

That is how the world works and that is why it's a bad idea to lose games and leave it up to a committee.

Let me go ahead and quote this since you didn't read.
"Making into the beauty pageant like tOSU did the first doesnt prove much other that they could beat Bama and Oregon in those 2 games. Who can say if Baylor or TCU could not have done the same."