For an influental coach or commissioner to start calling for an expansion to the playoffs because his school was fifth in the decsion making process for the four team playoff?

We all know it's going to happen. We all know four teams isn't enough to truly have a fair, equitable and legit playoff. Will we even make it through the first one before those calls start happening?

One of the interesting things I believe is noteworthy is the fact that the NFL allows 40% of its teams into the playoff. College football will let 3%.

Eight team playoff would be 6%
Twelve team playoff would be: 9%
And a 16-team playoff would still only be: 12.5%

I hope it happens immediately, it will be very difficult to crack into a 4 team playoff from CUSA. Eight teams...there's a realistic shot at that.

Not sure how long it would take but 8 seems like the magic # .

(05-27-2014 02:42 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  For an influental coach or commissioner to start calling for an expansion to the playoffs because his school was fifth in the decsion making process for the four team playoff?

We all know it's going to happen. We all know four teams isn't enough to truly have a fair, equitable and legit playoff. Will we even make it through the first one before those calls start happening?

One year.

We need to hope for five or six teams that have a good enough record to be worthy of serious consideration, so that there are a couple of outraged and loudly vocal fanbases left out. It would be better still if those left out were on the order of Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, or USC.

I can't help but think that an expanded college football playoff is all but inevitable. Every other sport does it, and the TV money for an 8 or better still 16 team playoff would be humongous. Look at how much money March Madness generates.

They may whine and cry about student athletes, but behind closed doors that money talks. If you really want to know how important the student athlete is to the NCAA, take a look at the time a college baseball team spends on the road in a season.

Remember this too - eight teams is no friggin' guarantee that a C-USA or other non-Big Five team would be allowed a seat at the table.

I think it'll go to and stay at 8, and maybe, just maybe, the best non-P5 champion will get one slot. Doubt it though.

It could go to 32 teams and a G5 would most likely not be guaranteed a spot, certainly not at 8. The model for a playoff already exists, just look at FCS. The reason they won't follow that model is because it limits you to 11 regular season games and no conference championship games, but there's an easy solution:

Your 16 teams are the 10 division winners from the P5 (yes, the Big 12 would have to expand to at least 12 teams), the 5 conference champs for the G5, plus one at large. You seed the 16 teams based on rankings and go for it. Conversely, if the conferences wanted to have a CCG they could do their own elimination, but I think there would be more value in it for the SEC teams not to play each other in round 1. The P5 should like it, they get a disproportionate amount of the money and most years would either have 7 or 8 of the final 8.

16 seems like the magic number to me. All champions, plus at larges.

1. SEC
2. Big 10
3. Big 12
4. Pac 12
5. ACC
6. AAC
7. CUSA
8. MAC
9. Sun Belt
10. WAC (do they still do football?)
11. Mountain West
12. At Large
13. At Large
14. At Large
15. At Large
16. At Large



The top 8 conference champions would get a home game against the bottom 8 teams. Then the winners would advance in the playoffs while the losers could then accept other Bowl invitations.

An example would be this:

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
4. Florida State
5. Texas
6. Houston
7. Ball State
8. Southern Miss
9. Boise State
10. Louisiana-Lafayette
11. WAC school (still don't know if they do football now...)
12. LSU
13. Michigan
14. Stanford
15. Oklahoma
16. Virginia Tech


So in this, the first round matchups would be

Virginia Tech @ Alabama
Oklahoma @ Ohio State
Stanford @ Oregon
Michigan @ Florida State
LSU @ Texas
WAC School @ Houston
Louisiana Lafayette @ Ball State
Boise State @ Southern Miss


The only thing about this I'd change would be that the top 8 schools were seeded based off of top 8 conference champions, but the bottom 8 teams were based off of best teams. This way, Alabama is playing WAC School first round instead of Virginia Tech. While Va Tech may be the worst At Large, they may still be ranked #13 overall, which would have them traveling to Florida State.

Kinks to work out obviously, but I think this gives every conference an opportunity to be successful. Sadly, that's the exact reason it will never be implemented.

(05-27-2014 11:52 PM)EagNBran Wrote:  16 seems like the magic number to me. All champions, plus at larges.

1. SEC
2. Big 10
3. Big 12
4. Pac 12
5. ACC
6. AAC
7. CUSA
8. MAC
9. Sun Belt
10. WAC (do they still do football?)
11. Mountain West
12. At Large
13. At Large
14. At Large
15. At Large
16. At Large



The top 8 conference champions would get a home game against the bottom 8 teams. Then the winners would advance in the playoffs while the losers could then accept other Bowl invitations.

An example would be this:

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
4. Florida State
5. Texas
6. Houston
7. Ball State
8. Southern Miss
9. Boise State
10. Louisiana-Lafayette
11. WAC school (still don't know if they do football now...)
12. LSU
13. Michigan
14. Stanford
15. Oklahoma
16. Virginia Tech


So in this, the first round matchups would be

Virginia Tech @ Alabama
Oklahoma @ Ohio State
Stanford @ Oregon
Michigan @ Florida State
LSU @ Texas
WAC School @ Houston
Louisiana Lafayette @ Ball State
Boise State @ Southern Miss


The only thing about this I'd change would be that the top 8 schools were seeded based off of top 8 conference champions, but the bottom 8 teams were based off of best teams. This way, Alabama is playing WAC School first round instead of Virginia Tech. While Va Tech may be the worst At Large, they may still be ranked #13 overall, which would have them traveling to Florida State.

Kinks to work out obviously, but I think this gives every conference an opportunity to be successful. Sadly, that's the exact reason it will never be implemented.

As you note, it will never happen... We are moving towards a separation-either formally or de facto- in "Division 1"-FBS football. The non-Power conferences are segregated from the "Power" conferences. The "CFP" is meant for them, not the others. 4, 8, 16... The number doesn't matter to anyone outside the "Power 5" conferences.

(05-27-2014 02:42 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  For an influental coach or commissioner to start calling for an expansion to the playoffs because his school was fifth in the decsion making process for the four team playoff?

We all know it's going to happen. We all know four teams isn't enough to truly have a fair, equitable and legit playoff. Will we even make it through the first one before those calls start happening?

12 years

I think we'll see a move to six teams with byes for the top two seeds within three years.

(05-27-2014 02:45 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  One of the interesting things I believe is noteworthy is the fact that the NFL allows 40% of its teams into the playoff. College football will let 3%.

Eight team playoff would be 6%
Twelve team playoff would be: 9%
And a 16-team playoff would still only be: 12.5%

but in the nfl, any of those 40% has a realistic shot to win the super bowl...if you did 40% of the ncaa (52 teams), it's not realistic that any of those teams could win it...

Dreams, dreams, dreams.

It must be summer. Good thing I have something else to keep me preoccupied or else I'd be daydreaming too.

(05-28-2014 12:51 PM)NTTHOR Wrote:  but in the nfl, any of those 40% has a realistic shot to win the super bowl...if you did 40% of the ncaa (52 teams), it's not realistic that any of those teams could win it...

First, let me state I never suggested 40% from college football. I believe there are too many teams that make the NFL playoffs, but I believe 16 would be a perfect number for college football. Ten to 12% is about the right number IMO.

Moving on...

So, is this a comparable analogy in your view? Honestly and realistically? We can have a chicken and egg debate on this all day if you want.

I will argue that the reason why that's so in the NFL is because there is equity in revenue sharing and everyone is eligible for the playoff. If we started the year where AFC teams were only guaranteed one of the 12 playoff spots and the NFC was granted the other 11 I don't think its too much of a limb to go out on and say that the NFC is going to have better football teams.

Similarly, if some of those 52 teams you reference who currently have no shot were given equal access to the playoff in college football and as a result a more equitable share of the revenue when they actually do make it you would see a lot more of those teams become more competive). And this is exactly what the P5 wants to prevent. Here's a perfect example. ECU has a very good football program. ECU, in the current contruct, will never win a national title. They'll likely never even make the four-team playoff, but that's one program that if they were put on equal footing for the playoff and resources could compete for a national title.

There's a reason why Fresno St can win a national title in baseball or why a Butler can come within a shot of beating Duke and winning a national title in basketball. It's because the system has some degree of equity (even though the non-power schools still fight an uphill battle in prestige and noteriety). There is absolutley no equity in college football. And if we had it your point becomes moot.

(05-28-2014 02:54 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  There's a reason why Fresno St can win a national title in baseball or why a Butler can come within a shot of beating Duke and winning a national title in basketball. It's because the system has some degree of equity (even though the non-power schools still fight an uphill battle in prestige and noteriety). There is absolutley no equity in college football. And if we had it your point becomes moot.

Football has the largest opportunity for disparity, there's ~100k difference in the top and bottom of average attendance.

Another big difference is in basketball two star players make up 40% of your starters, in football two stars aren't even 10% of your starters.

(05-28-2014 03:29 PM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 02:54 PM)ThreeifbyLightning Wrote:  There's a reason why Fresno St can win a national title in baseball or why a Butler can come within a shot of beating Duke and winning a national title in basketball. It's because the system has some degree of equity (even though the non-power schools still fight an uphill battle in prestige and noteriety). There is absolutley no equity in college football. And if we had it your point becomes moot.

Football has the largest opportunity for disparity, there's ~100k difference in the top and bottom of average attendance.

Another big difference is in basketball two star players make up 40% of your starters, in football two stars aren't even 10% of your starters.

I'm not even going to address the star ratings. It's so subjective and extremely impractical for all recruits in football to be rated properly and there is less recruiting services that address basketball.

The only thing we can say about this from a factual basis is there are a lot more athletes that get scholarships for football than the other two sports.

So, what you're really saying is there are more opportunities in football for better programs to consolidate talent because there are more scholarships to give out whereas the talent has to be spread around more in the other two sports. That is certainly true and would be a fair point. However, there is also a much larger pool of talent to pull from because there are more kids playing football in high school than basketball and baseball as well.

All that said, my response is the disparities you mentioned allows the P5 to further strengthen its grip and exploit the G5 schools with the way the new system is constructed. If the opposite were true, the number of programs that could compete for a national title would increase if for no other reason than the disparities you mentioned above couldn't be exploited to the greatest possible extent as they have been and will continue to be under the new playoff system.

(05-27-2014 08:38 PM)banker Wrote:  The reason they won't follow that model is because it limits you to 11 regular season games and no conference championship games ...

You can have a 16 team playoff with a reasonable number of games for everybody if you organize the season like this:

Link

10 regular season games for everybody.

Conference championship games for some.

2 postseason games for everybody who doesn't make the playoffs.

Playoff games for everybody else.

12 games minimum for each team.

15 games maximum (with a month off before the playoffs) for the two teams that play in the playoff championship game.

It will happen next January. At best, only 4 of the P5 conferences can have a team in the playoffs. That means that the one (maybe 2 if the SEC gets 2 teams in) left out is going to complain.

While it may be the best solution to have a 16 team seeding - the big boys ie $EC won't go for it unless they make up the 16 teams as under a all champions plus at few at larges will shut out many of the P5 & that won't sit well with them or their fan bases.