(04-24-2021 10:55 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (04-24-2021 09:05 AM)esayem Wrote: (04-24-2021 07:23 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (04-23-2021 08:56 PM)esayem Wrote: (04-23-2021 08:18 PM)Scoochpooch1 Wrote: Definitely interesting news but I just can't see any playoff format that gives Boise State (for ex) a better chance of making it than Purdue, Penn State, Florida State, etc being accepted.
Right. That’s why 16 is the best. You get the 10 conference champs maximizing conference CG’s and 6 at-large bids, which gives each P5 conference essentially two bids or more.
I'm not really sure that solves the issue he raised. Under your system, Boise would have made the playoffs four times the past seven seasons. I do not think FSU and Penn State have finished in the top 11 (which would be needed for a P5 to make the playoffs, assuming the champ is in the top 11) four times in the past seven years, much less Purdue.
With autobids, you are going to have G5 leaders who make the playoffs more frequently than all but the tippy-top P5.
I just looked up Penn State, one of the very most successful P5 teams of the past several years, with three trips to NY6 bowls. They would have made a 16-team playoff three times during the CFP time. Fewer than Boise, who hasn't been anywhere nearly as good.
What would that be, 3/7?
Then a program must decide: what’s more important the Big Ten contract or making the playoffs? Penn State is a program that could go Independent and secure their own TV deal while playing a softer schedule made up of eastern teams. I’m sure ESPN would love to have Penn State and Nebraska under their umbrella as Independents.
In some ways I see an expanded playoff being the recipe to destroy the super-conference concept.
The other option is straight 16, which I’m sure you’d get behind. I initially made that model to work from and Louisiana and BYU (and Carolina ) made it in, so there are still chances for non-P5 teams. Penn State didn’t really produce a profound case to be included this past season!
About the bolded part - why on earth would the B1G and SEC and the ACC and Big 12 put themselves in the position of having to make that choice? Why would these conferences, who control college athletics, endorse a system that puts them in this bind? I don't see it.
As for straight 16, IMO 16 is just too many, I like straight 8. But yes, if we have to go to 16, then straight 16.
The P5 and G5 are about to experience even a bigger gulf between them, in revenue, in ability to compete for top athletes, and in no way is the G5 making the cut for an expanded playoff system because it is Network driven and they want the largest markets possible involved. Why?
Right now they have AD's at the P5 level looking to recover what they are eyeballing as tremendous COVID losses, mostly due to gate and ticket donations more than TV revenue. The Networks see an opportunity to get around Conference Championship Games by promising more revenue to the P5 conferences for their participation in an 8 team playoff than by having the CCG's.
I actually think that an 8 team CFP will bring further consolidation in the P5 after then known effects of NIL and perhaps the removal of caps on stipends. Get down to a P4 (accomplished by the lure of money) and promise each conference that their division champions will be seeded in an 8 team national playoff.
This works because:
1. They offer more money for the 8 team playoff than they do now for CFP and the CCG's.
2. Everyone in the P5 really sees the year as less than optimum when they don't win the national championship and the risk of playing a team again that you've already beaten in the regular season in a CCG where key players might get injured is beginning to be irksome to coaching staffs and some fans even though publicly they lace them up and play because that's the way it is structured.
3. Guaranteeing each conference a regional site first round game against some other conference's #2 seed makes sense, reaches a broader base of fans every year, and holds the interest of the public who attends and the viewing audience.
4. Academics make no concessions in this plan as the number of games remains the same but the revenue goes up.
What I suspect will happen if we expand the playoffs is that the G5 will become a G4 and will hold something similar of their own.
So I don't see any Network driven expansion of the playoffs as an automatic sign that the G5 will be more included. In fact I see it as the bell tolling a more complete separation between the two.