CSNbbs

1. We're not going to 8 teams. The contract is for 12 years, and renegotiating between ESPN, 10 conferences, 6 bowls plus NCAA rubber-stamping is too much of a headache.

2. If The Powers That Be want to "do something", I think the political solution is to bring back the BCS formula, replacing the CFP poll. I think after the first few years of the BCS era and the first few tweaks, the BCS poll rankings were generally accepted. Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCS_controversies to refresh my memory a little bit, just about all of them are settled by going from 2 teams to 4 teams.*

2a. There will always be controversy and debate over #4 vs 5. The Powers That Be should issue a stronger statement that "the primary purpose of the rankings is to determine a national champion, not to determine the best four teams. You should only argue that the system failed if you believe that a team left out is rightful national champion, not the rightful #4."

3. There are reasons that TPTB went with a committee over a poll formula, and the biggest ones talked about were conference championships and head-to-head, and more generally to have a human element involved.

So give the committee the discretion to debate and elevate teams one spot up or down, if that would move them into an Access Bowl or into the Semifinals.**

4. The modified rankings give you your 4 semifinalists and 8 other New Years' Six Bowl teams (subject to the Contract Bowl contracts and the top G5 champion provision). The committee's main job becomes to assign the matchups based on geography, history, compelling matchups, school preferences, etc. If No. 1 Oregon plays No. 2 OSU in the Rose Bowl in a semifinal, so be it.

*Most of the criticism of the later BCS was not about the formula or the ranking of teams, it was about a deserving #3 being left out, or it was about weak Big East champions getting included, or about bowls passing over higher-ranking teams for lower ranking teams, or AQ vs Non-AQ issues. There are now 4 teams in the playoff, the Big East Football Conference is no longer an issue, the New Years Six at-large bids are going to the highest ranked available teams.

** I think the committee is going through a lot of effort creating their top 25, and a lot of argument coming up with a philosophy of ranking teams. That's probably wasted time, it's probably influencing their decisions at the top of the ladder, and contributes to JEff Long coming out and saying stuff about Game Control.

Now that the final four is out, I wonder:

Upon further reflection, are the power 5 conferences going to be comfortable with the Committee of Thirteen having as much power and discretion as they do?
It at least appears as if they decided this weekend that the Big 12's lack of a CCG was disqualifying.
Maybe the committee has always had this in mind, but I don't think it was mentioned on the weekly show that TCU and Baylor were likely to drop at the end.

Right now, the Big 12 is furious, obviously. And the AAC, CUSA and Sun Belt are holding their breaths, wondering if another round of realignment is coming. I don't think CUSA was happy with the treatment of Marshall, and I wonder if the MAC and/or SBC sympathize, as they're likely to have a team some day be unbeaten against a creampuff schedule and want that day in the sun.

Big Ten is happy with the outcome, PAC has no reason to complain or to be thankful. SEC is waiting to see if Ole Miss gets a New Year's Six bowl or not.

Interestingly enough, Colley's simulated BCS rankings produced the exact same top 4 and the exact same 12 New Years' Six teams as the committee did.

http://www.colleyrankings.com/curBcsLike.html

Is an amalgam of different anonymous polls and computer algorithms a better lightning rod for criticism than a Committee of Thirteen?

So maybe the committee are using more data than we realize, and we're getting a very distorted picture talking about the Big 12 not having a CCG.

(12-07-2014 03:05 PM)johnbragg Wrote: [ -> ]Interestingly enough, Colley's simulated BCS rankings produced the exact same top 4 and the exact same 12 New Years' Six teams as the committee did.

http://www.colleyrankings.com/curBcsLike.html

Is an amalgam of different anonymous polls and computer algorithms a better lightning rod for criticism than a Committee of Thirteen?

So maybe the committee are using more data than we realize, and we're getting a very distorted picture talking about the Big 12 not having a CCG.

They may be using more "data" but it still isn't enough information to make the decisions they're making.

(12-07-2014 03:13 PM)NIU007 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-07-2014 03:05 PM)johnbragg Wrote: [ -> ]Interestingly enough, Colley's simulated BCS rankings produced the exact same top 4 and the exact same 12 New Years' Six teams as the committee did.

http://www.colleyrankings.com/curBcsLike.html

Is an amalgam of different anonymous polls and computer algorithms a better lightning rod for criticism than a Committee of Thirteen?

So maybe the committee are using more data than we realize, and we're getting a very distorted picture talking about the Big 12 not having a CCG.

They may be using more "data" but it still isn't enough information to make the decisions they're making.

Maybe, maybe not. I was struck by the fact that they came to the same decision that Colley's BCS simulator did, down to Mississippi STate over Michigan STate and Arizona in the Fiesta over Kansas STate. (Correction--Zombie BCS has TCU #5 over Baylor.)

I think if you are going to have a playoff---its silly not to have all 5 power conference champs involved. I don't think its going to be very long before the 8 team playoff is a reality. Very easy to snap the first round onto the existing structure. %AQs for the P5, 1-AQ for best G5, 2 wild cards. First round would be played the week after championship Saturday on the campus of the higher ranked team of each pairing. The losers in the first round are placed back into the eligible bowl pool so the existing bowl structure still has enough teams. If its done in this fashion everybody wins and the disruption is minimal. Just divide the extra cash---probably along the same percentages as the current money is. Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy.

(12-07-2014 03:26 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: [ -> ]I think if you are going to have a playoff---its silly not to have all 5 power conference champs involved. I don't think its going to be very long before the 8 team playoff is a reality. Very easy to snap the first round onto the existing structure. %AQs for the P5, 1-AQ for best G5, 2 wild cards. First round would be played the week after championship Saturday on the campus of the higher ranked team of each pairing. The losers in the first round are placed back into the eligible bowl pool so the existing bowl structure still has enough teams. If its done in this fashion everybody wins and the disruption is minimal. Just divide the extra cash---probably along the same percentages as the current money is. Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy.

Nothing is ever easy. You are increasing the G5 from 1/12 to 1/8. And you still need a process to decide the 2 wild-cards. This year, TCU and Mississippi State, if you use the Zombie BCS rankings.

It took from the dawn of college football from 1994 to get to the Bowl Alliance, and four more years to get the Big Ten and PAC into the system. 15 or 16 years from there to a four-team playoff. Billion dollar contracts don't get rearranged that easily.

HEck, CBS was too cheap to ante up and make a deal when the SEC expanded.

(12-07-2014 03:31 PM)johnbragg Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-07-2014 03:26 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: [ -> ]I think if you are going to have a playoff---its silly not to have all 5 power conference champs involved. I don't think its going to be very long before the 8 team playoff is a reality. Very easy to snap the first round onto the existing structure. %AQs for the P5, 1-AQ for best G5, 2 wild cards. First round would be played the week after championship Saturday on the campus of the higher ranked team of each pairing. The losers in the first round are placed back into the eligible bowl pool so the existing bowl structure still has enough teams. If its done in this fashion everybody wins and the disruption is minimal. Just divide the extra cash---probably along the same percentages as the current money is. Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy.

Nothing is ever easy. You are increasing the G5 from 1/12 to 1/8. And you still need a process to decide the 2 wild-cards. This year, TCU and Mississippi State, if you use the Zombie BCS rankings.

It took from the dawn of college football from 1994 to get to the Bowl Alliance, and four more years to get the Big Ten and PAC into the system. 15 or 16 years from there to a four-team playoff. Billion dollar contracts don't get rearranged that easily.

They are when the parties are unanimous. ESPN always wanted more games. The P5 will want more after a few years. The G5 just wants in. Its going to happen.