(06-28-2012 08:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 08:40 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  If the Big Ten champ is ranked outside the Top XX, then it's a weird year where the champ is an embarrassment, like UCLA this year, and you may want to hide that crazy-uncle in a Dec 27 bowl.

I don't know much, but I guarantee you that this is NOT how the Big Ten thinks (and to be fair, no other power conference thinks this way, either). They want that late afternoon New Years Day bowl slot come hell or high water even with a .500 Penn State team. That's why they have power.

Maize's new thread provides more clarity with quotes from the WKU president and is much more consistent with everything else that we've heard: there are 5 contractual tie-ins for the power conferences and then the other slots would be filled by the committee.

I also thought about the math, and it could be that Delany, Silve and Scott see this as an acceptable risk.

For the Big Ten champ to not go to a son-of-BCS bowl three things have to happen, in the same year:
1. Rose Bowl hosts a semifinal. 1 in 3 chance.

2. One division, Legends or Leaders, totally $#!+s the bed and has a champ who wouldn't even crack the Top XX with a CCG win. Won't happen very often at all.

The SEC has never had a division winner not in the top 25, so I think a CCG upset puts them in the Top XX.

The ACC has had 7 CCGs, with 2 semi-unranked teams--they were #25 in one poll each, or in the BCS standings. VT 2008 pulled the upset, went to #19 in the coaches poll.

In the Big 12, with the famously weak Big 12 North, you only had 3 unranked teams in the CCG in 15 years, all of them came in 8-3 or 8-4. Texas won in 1996, went into the bowls ranked #20. Colorado in 1995 and 1996 lost badly. So say 3/30 = a 10% chance, being very very generous.

3. The unrankable team pulls the CCG upset. You could count the upsets, but for it to matter you have to count the times when an _unrankable_ team pulls the upset. The only unrankable team to have gone to a power conference CCG is UCLA 2011.

If Top XX is actually Top 12, forget I said anything. The power conferences will protect their champions in our-bowl-is-a-semifinal years.

If I were Boise, I would argue that under this system the Big East -- and the Big East alone -- has lost its AQ status, and that Boise can back out of its Big East deal with no penalty.

The fact is that if the other five conferences all have "contract bowls" and their champs are guaranteed access that is AQ in everything but name.

(06-28-2012 09:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  The only unrankable team to have gone to a power conference CCG is UCLA 2011.

Only because USC was ineligible...

(06-28-2012 10:35 AM)Duke Eagle Wrote:  If I were Boise, I would argue that under this system the Big East -- and the Big East alone -- has lost its AQ status, and that Boise can back out of its Big East deal with no penalty.

The fact is that if the other five conferences all have "contract bowls" and their champs are guaranteed access that is AQ in everything but name.

I was thinking that myself. Though maybe Big East gets around it because the fact that for the 5 conferences have just a contract for their #1 team to go to a bowl- so it's like a bowl tie in and not AQ. Kind of legal semantics if you will.

This is a pretty big deal and glad to hear it.

OTOH, this puts a ton on the committee. Sounds like the committee will actually rank the top whatever teams themselves. That is a much bigger task than just the top 4.

(06-28-2012 08:32 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 08:14 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 08:10 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 07:57 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Another thing--if they're using a ranking system, it gets much, much harder for the committee to do anything but pick 1, 2, 3, 4. And we know that they don't want to just go 1, 2, 3, 4 or they would have done that.

Well, saw a tweet last night on CBS-
ND AD revelation is that playoff selection committee will start releasing top 20 standings in midseason a la BCS.

I think that will be very interesting.

Hmm. So a step back towards transparency--you'll at least know who the Committee likes, even if we don't know why.

This is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but when you think about it, this runs completely counter to the entire point of a selection committee. What's basically happening is that it's a poll using only 10 to 20 people as opposed to 100 and they're slapping a selection committee label on it. The only extra value of a selection committee over a poll (IMHO) is that they can look at an entire body of work and all of the data at the end of the year and make an adjustment to an inequitable outcome (e.g. Stanford being ranked ahead of Oregon last year). All I see here is a poll with a smaller group of voters. Yuck. At least a larger poll can mitigate the impact of 1 or 2 bats**t crazy votes, whereas those bats**t crazy votes could completely alter everything in this selection committee scenario.

I agree. There are two key aspects of a committee.
#1 discussion-they talk about their rankings and refine them based on a detailed discussion
#2 no predisposition-you do it at the end so that you don't rank teams a certain way because you ranked them that way after only half their games and so that you don't over-weight late losses or big late wins. You look at the whole season.

I'm not interested in simply a "better" poll. That's what the Harris is supposed to be and its got some total nonsense in there.

(06-28-2012 10:35 AM)Duke Eagle Wrote:  If I were Boise, I would argue that under this system the Big East -- and the Big East alone -- has lost its AQ status, and that Boise can back out of its Big East deal with no penalty.

The fact is that if the other five conferences all have "contract bowls" and their champs are guaranteed access that is AQ in everything but name.

The penalty is reduced to $1M if the BE loses AQ status (unless everyone loses AQ status) before July 1, 2013. The penalty is not eliminated. I guess Boise could argue it, but the BE argument would likely win as they would still have AQ status on July 1, 2013.

(06-28-2012 10:37 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 09:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  The only unrankable team to have gone to a power conference CCG is UCLA 2011.

Only because USC was ineligible...

It still happened.

(06-28-2012 11:06 AM)CommuterBob Wrote:  The penalty is reduced to $1M if the BE loses AQ status (unless everyone loses AQ status) before July 1, 2013. The penalty is not eliminated. I guess Boise could argue it, but the BE argument would likely win as they would still have AQ status on July 1, 2013.

It's only relevant if Boise wants to leave/has to leave. If both sides' lawyers say it's not open-and-shut, settle at $3M.

(06-28-2012 11:11 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 10:37 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(06-28-2012 09:19 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  The only unrankable team to have gone to a power conference CCG is UCLA 2011.

Only because USC was ineligible...

It still happened.

I was just pointing out the circumstance which allowed it to happen...

The impression I got, which is probably completely wrong, is that instead of the current 4 "BCS" bowls there will be 6. Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta seem shoe-ins. The Cotton seems to be a good candidate. Pick a 6th, it doesn't matter who. 2 of those 6 will be designated playoff bowls. The winner of those 2 bowls will go on to a NC game. It may or may not be one of the other 4 bowls. It could be possible for the Fiesta to host a non-play off bowl game and then host the NCG a couple of weeks later.

If the Rose isn't hosting one of the designated playoff games they could still say they want the P12 and B1G teams that the "committee" designated in the top 12.

Double hosting is dead. The Championship Game will be bid out to cities around the country and not tied to any current bowls. That means Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, and a whole bunch of other cities will have a chance to host the big game every year if they pony up enough money.

(06-29-2012 07:45 AM)Lolly Popp Wrote:  Double hosting is dead. The Championship Game will be bid out to cities around the country and not tied to any current bowls. That means Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Denver, San Francisco, and a whole bunch of other cities will have a chance to host the big game every year if they pony up enough money.

Well...kinda. Atlanta, Dallas, and Orlando are all bidding for both the semifinals and NCG. Double hosting may or may not be dead, but I would think that the BCS would want to avoid having a semifinal city host the NCG as well, simply to spread out the wealth and exposure. So I would think that if any of those cities I listed were selected to host both, the NCG would be hosted in years when the semifinal is not in the host city's bowl.

If Jerry Jones can find any way to get both a semi-final and final at his new stadium, you can just bet he will...

I'm pretty sure anyone with a chance to do the same would jump at it in a heartbeat...