quo vadis
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RE: The Unauthorized, Semi-Official 5-1-2 Mega Thread
(01-09-2021 08:01 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (01-09-2021 06:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (01-09-2021 01:29 PM)Attackcoog Wrote: (01-08-2021 12:15 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (01-07-2021 11:32 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote: Just don't think there can be a system where the MAC winner has a better chance of making the CFP than Penn State, Florida, Auburn, Texas, Florida State, etc.
Plus they would need to be penalized with a play-in game, short rest for next game, and receive much less money.
I just don't see that happening.
Yes, if we had had 5/1/2 since the start of the CFP, Houston would have more playoff appearances than Texas, Memphis would have more playoff appearances than Tennessee, Western Michigan would have more playoff appearances than Michigan, and UCF would have more playoff appearances than FSU, Florida or Miami.
I do not think it likely that the P5 will allow such a model to exist.
It already does have such a system. Right now---Houston has just as many playoff appearances as Michigan and Tennesee. Frankly, Houston has been to the playoffs just as much as the vast majority of P5 teams---zero times. Heck, Im pretty sure UCF has more CFP NYD bowl appearances than Tennesee or Michigan as well.
Either way, even if Houston did have more playoff appearances than the major teams you mentioned in a 5-1-2---the fault would lie squarely on the coaches of those teams that missed the playoffs. All they had to do is win their conference or claim a wild card---there would be no committee to blame. Lets be honest---all the wild cards in a 5-1-2 will be coming from the P5 ranks. So, after all the gnashing of teeth---almost twice as many P5 schools (like Tennessee, Michigan, Penn St, Texas, etc) would be entering the playoff each year than do under the current system. Is 5-1-2 perfect-----nope. But its the only system that creates a path for every team at the start of the season, while putting full control of the destiny of each team in that teams hands, while also guaranteeing that the #1 and #2 teams in the nation will always be in the playoff (CCG upsets will not block the #1 and #2 team from making the playoff if the Committee deems them the top two teams).
To me, there's a YUGE difference between Texas having zero playoff berths and Houston having zero playoff berths and Texas having zero playoff berths and Houston having one playoff berth. The little G5 brother having MORE would IMO be a big pride/status thing on both sides.
And I do not think the presence of two wild-cards mollifies that. That number is so small as to not make a bit of difference. Remember, when I say Texas would have zero playoffs and Houston one during the CFP years, that's assuming a 5/1/2 system with two wild-cards. Texas never would have gotten one. Ditto for FSU, Miami, etc. It's just two.
It will be extremely difficult to get in to the top 8, period. To do so while hampered by the presence of autobids that would allow a G5 ranked outside to claim-jump one of them - and yes, a P5 champ that is outside the top 8 to do so as well - makes it that much harder. IMO, those bids will be far to valuable to give away that way.
But maybe we shall see.
To be sure, I don’t think the P5 would *want* to give the G5 a slot of it didn’t have to do so. However, I think that’s the trade-off for each P5 champ getting an auto-bid. I know that we’ve gone around in this debate a lot, but it’s hard for me to see any way that there’s a playoff expansion without P5 auto-bids (regardless of the merits of that system versus a “straight 8” system).
From my perspective, the two biggest drivers of an 8-team playoff would be (1) more money (particularly in a pandemic world where colleges can’t pass up any revenue sources anymore) and (2) the P5 don’t want to be left out of the playoff *ever* again. 99% of the time isn’t good enough - it has to 100% of the time come hell or high water. When you see P5 leagues already so bothered by missing the CFP in a 4-team playoff, just imagine the “house on fire” narratives for a conference commissioner and university presidents of a P5 league misses the playoff in a straight 8 format (like Pac-12 would have this year). The whole point is to protect themselves when their champ is like this year’s Oregon team so they’re still not shut out (which I know is exactly what bothers proponents of a straight 8 system or having some type rankings requirement, but the point is that I can’t imagine how an 8-team playoff happens without 100% guaranteed P5 auto-bids at a minimum in the first place).
Frank, I totally get the notion that the P5 want certainty. That's what it means to be "powerful", you get stuff whether you deserve it or not. Like the P5 currently get a certain bid to an NY6 bowl, whether they deserve it or not.
But, I question how insistent they will be on that w/respect to an 8-team playoff, simply because they've never insisted on it before. At any time in the past 100+ years of major-conference football, the big conferences could have set up a playoff system that guaranteed a spot for each of them in the playoff, and they have never done so. They have set up a bunch of systems the past 30 years - the Bowl Alliance, Bowl Coalition, BCS and now CFP and in any or all of them they could have built that feature in, and yet never have. That suggests to me that it isn't that huge of a deal.
So IMO, since as recently as 2014, the P5 were willing to create a playoff that *guaranteed* that at least one of them would miss the playoffs every year, I do not dismiss the idea that they would be willing to create an 8-team playoff that would give each a much higher percentage chance, such as straight-8, a system that had it been in place since 2014, and not counting this year, would have left only one of them out of the playoffs one single time. To me, that dramatic decrease in the odds of being left out - from 29% in the current CFP (7 times a P5 conference was left out in the first 6 years of the CFP) to 4% in straight 8, is commensurate with how strongly the P5 feel about being included.
Plus, IMO the 5/1/2 model also has the problems of Little Brothers having an easier path to the playoff than a lot of major powers, and the legal issue of each P5 having a guaranteed spot while each G5 conference does not.
But again, maybe we shall see.
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2021 10:35 AM by quo vadis.)
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