With one more week to go, the following scenario is plausible, if unlikely.

Conference champions

PAC Arizona 11-2
ACC Georgia Tech 11-2
B12 Kansas State 10-2
SEC Missouri 11-2
B1G Wisconsin 11-2

MWC Boise State 11-2
USA Marshall 12-1
MAC Northern Illinois 11-2

Non-champions

ACC Florida State 12-1
SEC Alabama 11-2
SEC Mississippi State 10-2
B12 TCU 10-2
B12 Baylor 10-2
B1G Ohio State 11-2
B1G Michigan State 10-2
PAC Oregon 11-2

....................................................................................................................

You are the committee. Sort that mess out.

fsu ,Alabama a big 12 team and fill in the blank(probably mich state)

You would probably need something like a playoff to sort out those 16 teams. Wonder if anyone has thought of that.

There's never gonna be a 16 team playoff

(11-30-2014 08:53 AM)ken d Wrote:  With one more week to go, the following scenario is plausible, if unlikely.

Conference champions

PAC Arizona 11-2
ACC Georgia Tech 11-2
B12 Kansas State 10-2
SEC Missouri 11-2
B1G Wisconsin 11-2

MWC Boise State 11-2
USA Marshall 12-1
MAC Northern Illinois 11-2

Non-champions

ACC Florida State 12-1
SEC Alabama 11-2
SEC Mississippi State 10-2
B12 TCU 10-2
B12 Baylor 10-2
B1G Ohio State 11-2
B1G Michigan State 10-2
PAC Oregon 11-2

....................................................................................................................

You are the committee. Sort that mess out.

How about SDSU ,BGSU and La Tech who gets the access bowl .

That isn't even the most difficult scenario of all the possibilities. The obvious solution there is to fall back on conference champs and then they just have to decide which one of those five gets left out.

But this scenario does point out a flaw of this playoff that should have been obvious from day one. At some point there will likely be a situation where the five P5 champs are very close and it will be controversial no matter which one gets left out. It makes the system look bad, it's as if the NFL had a 7-team playoff and 8 division champs, or if MLB had 5 playoff spots and 6 division winners.

In any 4-team playoff, no matter what happens on the last week of the season - whether all the favorites win or all the favorites lose or some combo of mixing and matching - there is going to be a flashpoint of controversy at the dividing line between in and out, in this format, between teams 4 and 5.

That is inevitable, it is built in to the structure of the system. So it really doesn't matter how the games play out next week, the committee is going to have its hands full picking that 4th team. The only way the results of those games matter is they will create various mixes of different teams that are in contention for the 4th slot. But the amount of difficulty in picking #4 won't change. It's going to be tough, period.

(11-30-2014 11:57 AM)Wedge Wrote:  That isn't even the most difficult scenario of all the possibilities. The obvious solution there is to fall back on conference champs and then they just have to decide which one of those five gets left out.

But this scenario does point out a flaw of this playoff that should have been obvious from day one. At some point there will likely be a situation where the five P5 champs are very close and it will be controversial no matter which one gets left out. It makes the system look bad, it's as if the NFL had a 7-team playoff and 8 division champs, or if MLB had 5 playoff spots and 6 division winners.

I agree. If I had to guess, the odd man out in that group would be Wisconsin. Georgia Tech would have been the team that ended one of the longest winning streaks in college football history, after beating Clemson and Georgia the two weeks before that. Missouri is from the SEC, which is usually reason enough these days. Arizona would have beaten Oregon twice in the same season, and Kansas State would be coming off a win against Baylor. Wisconsin would likely be seen as beating a wounded Ohio State that just lost its second star quarterback in the same season.

Just as interesting would be the battle for the remaining NY6 bowls. The P5 would get 7 spots, and there would be 9 P5's with two losses each. If it were me, I'd give one to each conference, and the remaining two to the B1G to make up for snubbing them in the Final Four. That would leave out TCU who staggered to the finish line and Mississippi State who would didn't play in its CCG and isn't a great TV draw.

Fortunately for the committee, this is only the remotest of possibilities, as it would require that the entire top 6 in the rankings would have to lose next week. If, on they other hand, they all win, my money would be on Alabama vs Baylor in the Sugar Bowl and Oregon vs FSU in the Rose. The B1G is still odd man out.

(11-30-2014 10:02 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  There's never gonna be a 16 team playoff

That would be a shame. It at least needs to go to 8.

(11-30-2014 01:28 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(11-30-2014 11:57 AM)Wedge Wrote:  That isn't even the most difficult scenario of all the possibilities. The obvious solution there is to fall back on conference champs and then they just have to decide which one of those five gets left out.

But this scenario does point out a flaw of this playoff that should have been obvious from day one. At some point there will likely be a situation where the five P5 champs are very close and it will be controversial no matter which one gets left out. It makes the system look bad, it's as if the NFL had a 7-team playoff and 8 division champs, or if MLB had 5 playoff spots and 6 division winners.

I agree. If I had to guess, the odd man out in that group would be Wisconsin. Georgia Tech would have been the team that ended one of the longest winning streaks in college football history, after beating Clemson and Georgia the two weeks before that. Missouri is from the SEC, which is usually reason enough these days. Arizona would have beaten Oregon twice in the same season, and Kansas State would be coming off a win against Baylor. Wisconsin would likely be seen as beating a wounded Ohio State that just lost its second star quarterback in the same season.

Just as interesting would be the battle for the remaining NY6 bowls. The P5 would get 7 spots, and there would be 9 P5's with two losses each. If it were me, I'd give one to each conference, and the remaining two to the B1G to make up for snubbing them in the Final Four. That would leave out TCU who staggered to the finish line and Mississippi State who would didn't play in its CCG and isn't a great TV draw.

Fortunately for the committee, this is only the remotest of possibilities, as it would require that the entire top 6 in the rankings would have to lose next week. If, on they other hand, they all win, my money would be on Alabama vs Baylor in the Sugar Bowl and Oregon vs FSU in the Rose. The B1G is still odd man out.

The committee is hoping for the easy scenario, which would be exactly two of the top six teams losing next week.

Alabama
Oregon
Ohio State
TCU

Easy-peasy.

(11-30-2014 12:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  In any 4-team playoff, no matter what happens on the last week of the season - whether all the favorites win or all the favorites lose or some combo of mixing and matching - there is going to be a flashpoint of controversy at the dividing line between in and out, in this format, between teams 4 and 5.

That is inevitable, it is built in to the structure of the system. So it really doesn't matter how the games play out next week, the committee is going to have its hands full picking that 4th team. The only way the results of those games matter is they will create various mixes of different teams that are in contention for the 4th slot. But the amount of difficulty in picking #4 won't change. It's going to be tough, period.

Well this year there could potentially be serious questions about the difference between #1 and #7 if there are no upsets.

(11-30-2014 02:00 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(11-30-2014 12:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  In any 4-team playoff, no matter what happens on the last week of the season - whether all the favorites win or all the favorites lose or some combo of mixing and matching - there is going to be a flashpoint of controversy at the dividing line between in and out, in this format, between teams 4 and 5.

That is inevitable, it is built in to the structure of the system. So it really doesn't matter how the games play out next week, the committee is going to have its hands full picking that 4th team. The only way the results of those games matter is they will create various mixes of different teams that are in contention for the 4th slot. But the amount of difficulty in picking #4 won't change. It's going to be tough, period.

Well this year there could potentially be serious questions about the difference between #1 and #7 if there are no upsets.

Anyone in the Top 12 this year could win an eight team tournament IMO.

The national playoff starts this Saturday.

The conference championship game losers are OUT.

If TCU or Baylor loses on Saturday, they are OUT.

After Saturday, the committee chooses between the four conference championship game winners and/or Baylor / TCU.

There is no way that a team other than the conference champs / Baylor / TCU is making the national semi-finals.

The only conference with a shot at having two teams make the semi-finals is the B-12.

IMO.

(11-30-2014 10:02 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  There's never gonna be a 16 team playoff

Like there would never be a 4 team playoff?

Simple.

Leave out Kansas State. Make a statement that conference championship games give you extra credit.

Arizona, Georgia Tech, Missouri, and Wisconsin get in for beating Top 10 opponents in the conference title games.

It would be the four schools that could guarantee the most advertising money. The reasoning the committee would choose for their selection would simply be the most convenient to give the results the network wanted. It has nothing to do with who played whom and the records since almost all of them would have 2 losses. It is, and always has been, and is likely to be, just about how much money can be made off of those selected.

(11-30-2014 11:17 PM)TampaKnight Wrote:  Simple.

Leave out Kansas State. Make a statement that conference championship games give you extra credit.

Arizona, Georgia Tech, Missouri, and Wisconsin get in for beating Top 10 opponents in the conference title games.

I probably will choose Arizona, Florida State, Alabama and Wisconsin because Florida State and Alabama have done so much more than their conference champions. Arizona and Wisconsin get the playoff spot because the extra win tilt the scales for them. Big 12 gets penalized for not having a conference championship game as you suggested.

(11-30-2014 11:17 PM)TampaKnight Wrote:  Simple.

Leave out Kansas State. Make a statement that conference championship games give you extra credit.

Arizona, Georgia Tech, Missouri, and Wisconsin get in for beating Top 10 opponents in the conference title games.

There's no rational reason to give extra credit for a conference championship game. Those games should be treated like any other, with a team getting normal credit depending on how good their opponent is. E.g., if Missouri is ranked #15 this week and Kansas State is #14, then if Alabama beats Missouri in the SECCG and Baylor beats KST, Alabama should get no more credit than Baylor does for beating #14 Kansas State.

But if the committee does put extra value on winning a conference, then what is fair is to give a team that is an outright conference champion an edge over a team that is a co-champion. Because it's simply better to be an outright champ than a shared champ. The whole idea of a "shared champ" has an element of oxymoronic to it.

And of course if you don't have a CCG, then a shared title is more likely. So it definitely behooves conferences without a CCG to have a formal tie-breaker criteria for picking an outright champ.