(06-10-2021 02:50 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-10-2021 02:43 PM)JamesTKirk Wrote:  

(06-10-2021 02:25 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  The top 4 ought to be the top 4 regardless of whether they're a conference champ, independent, or conference runner-up.

Disagree, Frank, and here's why:

The goal should be to put the most competitive ball games possible on people's TV screens.

Competitive games get a lot more viewership, and generate a lot more revenue for the networks, conferences, and teams.

Giving a bye to the Alabamas, Ohio States, Oklahomas, and Clemsons doesn't make the games more competitive.

It does the exact opposite - - it makes them less competitive.

The entire reason why the whole nation is up in arms about wanting to ditch the current format is that they're sick of watching the same few teams dominate the CFP year after year after year.

.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it will make a certain amount of sense if you read it with an open-mind:

If the success of the College Football Playoffs, in terms of not just total viewers, but of viewers who watch the games most of the way through hinges on making the games as competitive as possible:

The most effective way to maximize the competitiveness of the games in a 12-team CFP would be to give the first round byes (and home field advantage) to the four lowest-ranked teams.

The intent would be to even the playing field to the extent possible.

Frankly, the lowest-ranked teams would still be likely to be blown out, but at least they might be able to keep their games interesting through much of the first half.

There's also another rationale to doing everything possible to even the playing field:

It would force the elite teams to play that harder and give that much better of a performance if they want to win the national championship.

That's what everybody wants to see. Nobody wants to watch the elite teams win the championship in a cakewalk.

The lowest-ranked teams get a bye over the highest ranked teams simply for entertainment purposes???

I'm not even sure how to respond to this other than the last thing that we need to see is teams actually *tank* games in order to get the perverse advantage of having to play fewer games by being lower ranked. That would be pretty awful.

My response is this:

It seems to me that you are under-estimating how much stronger the top 4 teams are than the bottom 4 teams are.

Would you really expect Alabama to lose to Coastal Carolina just because Coastal gets a first round bye and plays the game on their home field?

I think that Alabama still wins that game in a cake walk, but Coastal might be able to score a field goal in the first half and hold 'Bama to 20 first half points before being annihilated in the second half.

When it comes to "tanking" games, I believe the most effective way to "tank" a game is to let a #1 Alabama play a #8 Cincinnati on its home field after a first round bye.

'Bama blows out Cincinnati in the first quarter of that game, and 10 million TV sets are switched to another channel before halftime.