I may be spending the night at a relative’s, but nonetheless I’m still posting the new college football rankings (long-overdue, as always) and updating the lineal titles!
Now if only I could take care of that nagging college football schedule…
Details about changes to my college football playoff should be coming by the time next week’s rankings come out, including a major change I’m considering compared to last year.
Okay, I tried to write this as though we hadn’t already gone through two days and change of games already this week. Ball State has already played, which sucks as I had to carefully word its entry so as not to seem like an idiot while still plausibly coming from before its game. It didn’t help that I forgot my laptop’s power cord and had to waste two hours to go back home and get it. It would have saved me more than an hour and a half and I could have had the rankings up much earlier, and would be less under the gun for the schedule. Sadly, the SNF Flex Scheduling Watch not only may have to wait until Friday, but take into account Thursday night results as well.
Did you hear? Barack Obama supports a college football playoff! He wants to “get…the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a national champion.” Obviously this rolls right into my wheelhouse, and it gives me a chance to survey the landscape for my college football playoff proposal.
(How about McCain and his call to root out steroids? When you think about it, a playoff is a bit frivolous for Obama to be advocating; McCain talked about a more serious issue that can be life or death. It’s something that actually would be plausible for him to do as president, rather than get ridiculed by everyone outside sports, if Obama even had the power to do it at all. I read one comment that said “McCain wants make [sic] things back to the way they used to be. Obama is looking fix [sic] a broken system by making change.” Um… are you saying you think the proliferation of steroids is just “the way things are” now?)
Barack. I love ya. I voted for ya. I completely agree on the need for a playoff. But you’re not ambitious enough, man!
This happens every year at this time: wannabe playoff pushers ruin the good name of the playoff idea by proposing playoff schemes that’s whatever would be the ideal scheme for that particular year with a minimum of teams (to Protect the Sanctity of the Regular Season(tm)). Last year the big proposal was an eight-team playoff with automatic bids for the BCS conference champions. At least one place proposed also including an automatic bid for the best non-BCS conference team, leaving only one at-large. That would have worked last year, when there were only one or two non-conference champions with a claim at the BCS (Kansas and Georgia) and an undefeated non-BCS conference team (Hawaii).
It would be an unmitigated disaster this year. The Big 12 South is a clusterbleep, and leaving an odd team out between Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State would be rather inherently unfair, especially if everyone in that division has at least two losses. That would get amplified if you threw in the SEC Title Game loser or kept the non-BCS automatic qualifier. And if you junked the latter, what happens to what could still be as many as three undefeated non-BCS conference teams? And what about USC, which would get screwed if Oregon State wins out? And all this to keep the conference champions of the crummy ACC and Big East (highest-ranked teams in the BCS #19 and #25 respectively, and not much higher in my rankings)?
So now the big proposal is throwing in just the top eight teams regardless of conference affiliations, which might be unfair to leagues with a lot of parity, not to mention non-BCS schools that never really get that high. As Jay Mariotti said recently on Around the Horn (paraphrased), “this would be a good year for a playoff because we have eight championship-caliber teams”. Am I the only one who thinks that would make an eight-team playoff a bad idea? If the top eight teams are bunched up at the top, they have basically zero motivation to play for seeding, only to get into the tournament! It’s the same no matter where they’re seeded or who they play, so why bother?
As it turns out, at least this year, more really is more.
The 16-team system that has been gaining a lot of traction – all 11 conference champions, plus 5 at larges – is one system that would have worked last year and this year. Five at-larges was more than enough for everybody; Kansas and Georgia were both rewarded for their strong seasons with at-large berths in my simulated playoffs. (Five may in fact have been too many, as Florida and Boston College both got in, but as both were seeded ahead of teams that were seriously considered for the real-life title game it may have been deserved.) Missouri and West Virginia, after last-day upsets, were forced to go on the road in the first round against real-life championship contenders (but at least Missouri got in after their two losses both came to Oklahoma). 3-loss Virginia Tech was my 1 seed on the basis of their schedule; Arizona State, Cincinnati, and Texas had 3 losses but didn’t get in at all. (And remember, only two teams – Kansas and Hawaii – had one loss or fewer.)
This year? I’d like to point any doubters to my case for a playoff – my system specifically – from the leadup to last year’s simulation.
Why, the 8-team proponents say, should I award spots in the tournament to every mid-major conference champion? No way are they better than potential at-large teams that would make for a true top 16. But this is actually a strength. Sure, the MAC, C-USA, and Sun Belt champions might not be real threats to win the national championship. But you can’t tell me it’s not incredibly valuable to pick up a top 3 seed and, basically, a free pass to the second round. The four seed, on the other hand, might be at risk of an upset against one of the better mid-major champions, or if it’s a really strong year for mid-majors, an at-large. The five and six seeds get stuck with either the lower-rated at-larges or the “BCS Buster” du jour.
There’s still a lot for the eight top teams to play for:
The Big 12′s Big 4 would all be jockeying for position, knowing they could get a Troy in the first round and a second-round home game, or they could get a Ball State or North Carolina or West Virginia or even an Ohio State or Oregon State, with a second-round road game against the first type of team looming. Oklahoma State doesn’t want people saying they could get a 9 seed; they want to knock off Texas Tech this weekend and get a game in front of their home fans, while Texas Tech doesn’t want to give the pollsters or committee an excuse to dump them from the top few seeds to the middle or even bottom few seeds, taking them from a relatively easy first round opponent to a team that could win it all if you don’t handle them now.
There’s a possibility that an Alabama-Florida SEC title game would be a coastfest for both teams under a playoff, but with the winner almost guaranteed a top three seed and the loser probably condemned to a 5 or worse (6 or worse for Florida), there’s still quite a bit to play for. Penn State doesn’t want to lose another game, because they’re probably getting a top three seed right now. Sure, it might be cold comfort to have a small number next to your name if you’re playing Tulsa or West Virginia, but look on the bright side: they wouldn’t be sinking so low as to be staring at Ohio State, Ball State, or even Boise State, not to mention the possible second-round home game.
It’s not perfect. Maybe I could reduce the field a little. But it provides meaningful incentives to increase your standing within the playoff, which is more than can be said for most smaller systems. I guess this is one place where I ever-so-slightly disagree with the new President-Elect of the United States. (Well, aside from some places in my platform examination.)
To learn more about my system and the criteria for my simulation of it later, click here.
Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t posted the results of the first Golden Bowl between LSU and USC, and it’s for the same reason I decided to drop the SuperPower Rankings. The Golden Bowl tournament turned out to be a lot less fun than I had hoped.
For almost every game, I had to pore over the numbers and probably reached a lot of wrong conclusions. I found myself breathing sighs of relief when the two people who voted on the second and third rounds agreed. It wasn’t as time consuming as the SuperPower Rankings but it left me with a sense of dread entering each round.
I had been planning on having a grandiose, John-Facenda-esque description of the Golden Bowl, but I barely managed to work up the knowledge or desire to write any description at all throughout the tournament. I have a feeling I would have fallen well short. Not only is a college football playoff far from an original idea, but others are doing much of what I intended to do a lot better than I would have.
That said, unlike the SuperPower Rankings, I’m still doing this next year. I like the Golden Bowl name, I’m hoping Da Blog grows enough in the next year that I won’t have to break ties at all, and I feel that a lot of simulated playoffs or proposed brackets blindly follow the BCS standings. I’ve heard it argued that a plus-one system would have ignored Georgia or USC in favor of Virginia Tech or Oklahoma; what that ignores is that a plus one would have forced the pollsters to pay more attention to the top four the way they pay attention to the top two now, which likely means #5 Georgia would have gotten past V-Tech or the Sooners, since they arguably had a stronger case for a national title shot than either. (Yes, I know V-Tech was my number 1 seed.) A true simulated playoffs that follows close to what the reality probably would be should follow the NCAA guidelines.
So, this ends the brief spurt of productivity from Da Blog from football. Sure, we’re a few steps away from the Super Bowl – the Patriots just blew past their 17th team, as reflected on the site – but that’s a fairly small part of what we do around here.
No, don’t run away! Come back! I know a lot of you are here for the football, so what can I do to get you to stick around?
Well, let’s start with my 100 Greatest Movies Project, which has been described in the past on the off chance you came here before it was cool. If you happen to be a fan of the movies, and not just the standard popcorn fare but all the classics from Hollywood’s golden age to the present day, I could use you to explain to the masses why they better recognize. If you want to write tributes and descriptions for Hollywood’s greatest films, let me know in the comments or at mwmailsea at yahoo dot com.
Once again, I had one easy selection and one in which I had to make the tiebreaker:
#5 LSU v. #11 USC
Once again, what home field gave to Georgia in the Capital One Bowl, it took away in the Rose Bowl. A ten-point win for USC gives the Men of Troy a game… has it really been five years in the making? Yes, it’s exactly the same national championship game we thought we’d get at the start of the season, but how we got here is another matter entirely.
Simply put, this is a battle between the solid LSU offense, keyed by a strong running attack… and one of the toughest defenses in the country.
But LSU is no slouch of a defense. In total yards allowed, it’s third and USC is second. If the old adage – “defense wins championships” – is true, this game will certainly prove it. And perhaps the only reason LSU trails USC is because LSU had to come out of the SEC… not to mention its high-powered offense… and the game, like the real national championship game, is in New Orleans…
Polls close 8 PM PST on Monday.
I only had to make decisions on two races, and only then because the vote (two for each match) split.
#5 LSU v. #8 Oklahoma (Sugar Bowl)
The mass of red in the stands of the Cotton Bowl turn the tide when a late comeback attempt by the Hokies ends just short of the first-down marker on fourth down. But what relative home field giveth, it can also taketh away. The #3 and #12 offenses in the country promise to light up the scoreboard – but not if the #9 and #20 defenses (the latter of which gives up the third-fewest yards per game) have anything to say about it. LSU relies on its #12 rushing attack, but it will have to contend with the #11 run defense of the Sooners. Oklahoma is more balanced, with a #18 rushing game and #26 passing game, but LSU is #18 and #17 at stopping the run and pass, respectively. It’s like they’re set up to counter each other!
#2 Georgia v. #11 USC (Rose Bowl)
Ohio State gets a surprise from a Georgia team that comes ready to match them on defense, as the Buckeye offense is exposed in a tight 7-6 Georgia victory that ends on an interception by the Bulldog defense snuffing a late comeback attempt. Things don’t get any easier for the Bulldogs, as they now have to travel far from home to play a team that some say should be seeded a lot higher. USC’s defense is not much worse than Ohio State’s – fourth in points, second in total yardage, eighth in passing defense, fourth in run defense – but it also does not have that great an offense, and if Georgia can handle Ohio State they can handle USC. As with Ohio State, USC’s offensive strength comes on the run.
All polls expire New Year’s Day at 5pm PT.
At least I got any votes at all, but I got a grand total of two total votes on the poll, so I had to make decisions on the other six matchups myself.
#1 Virginia Tech v. #8 Oklahoma (Cotton Bowl)
In a tight contest, Oklahoma survives by the seat of their pants after stalling a late comeback attempt by the Mountaineers. Now it comes down to a battle between #8 and #11 in rushing defense. The marquee matchup to watch is when the Sooners have the ball, as the #3 offense goes against the #2 defense in points put up.
#2 Georgia v. #7 Ohio State (Capital One Bowl)
The Buckeyes and Tigers have a tight, low-scoring classic, as Missouri manages to contain the Buckeye running game enough to keep them in it. The Buckeyes just barely hang on for the 10-7 victory. Being a matchup between two of the most storied college football teams in the country, this game sells itself, but Georgia will now learn in a hurry just how difficult it can be to get past one of the strongest defenses in the country. Georgia does have a fairly stout defense of its own, though, and on offense, both teams’ strength lie in their respective running games. That means the matchup will focus on Chris Wells v. Knowshon Moreno.
#3 Kansas v. #11 USC (Fiesta Bowl)
Todd Reesing has a career day against the Knights of UCF and gives Kansas the trip to the second round they need. Meanwhile, USC puts up points in bunches and pulls off a 28-17 victory over the Eagles on the road. Now they play much closer to home against the Jayhawks, in another game that will rely much more on the arm of John David Booty than on the running game. Reesing and the #14 passing attack will have their hands full with USC’s #8 passing defense. Clearly, the Jayhawks aren’t playing cupcakes anymore!
#5 LSU v. #13 BYU (Orange Bowl)
A last-second field goal gives LSU a 44-42 win over the Warriors, but Florida is not so lucky. I probably should have mentioned this at the Selection Show, but we’re assuming that all players’ injury situations are the way they would be as of the close of voting, not at full strength. Seeing Tim Tebow’s arm in a cast at the Heisman presentation, I realized he would have been lucky to play at all. Without Tebow, the Gators go down in defeat, and BYU doesn’t have to leave the state for its next game. LSU is #12 in rushing offense and #12 in points put up, but BYU is #13 in points allowed, #10 in total yards allowed, and #7 in rushing yards allowed. BYU is #13 in passing offense and #15 in total yardage, but LSU is #3 in yards allowed and #16 in passing yardage, not to mention #18 in rushing yards allowed. It’s a veritable stat-a-palooza!
All polls expire in TWO weeks at 5 pm PT.
Welcome to the first annual Selection Show for the simulated Golden Bowl Tournament – your chance to see what a playoff would be like. If you want a playoff in college football, it’ll probably take the form here. Here are the parameters of the tournament:
Soon after I announce each octofinal pairing, the polls will open so you can vote to determine who moves on. The conference champions with auto bids are Virginia Tech, LSU, Ohio State, West Virginia, Oklahoma, BYU, USC, Hawaii, Central Florida, Central Michigan, and Florida Atlantic. Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Boston College, and Kansas have been selected as at-large teams.
Due to delays (damn you, Washington-Hawaii!) I’m not exactly done with all the seeding and pairing, so this will be a fairly slow process. But all in all, good luck to all our teams, especially our Number 1 seed, Virginia Tech.
Octofinal matchups:
#16 Central Michigan (MAC champion) v. #1 Virginia Tech (ACC champion)
I mentioned in an earlier post that the reason including ALL champions is actually a strength of my system is that it encourages the top teams to keep fighting for the tippy-top seeds. But both the 1 and 2 seeds (#2 will face the Sun Belt champ) are going to face tough opponents. Central Michigan’s only loss in-conference came to Eastern Michigan, and the Chippewas managed to knock off what was probably a better Ball State team. The Hokies’ two main advantages are home field and a superb defense.
#15 Florida Atlantic (Sun Belt champion) v. #2 Georgia (at-large)
Florida Atlantic, only a couple years removed from entering I-A, defeated a solid, 3-loss Troy team, one that managed to knock off Oklahoma State earlier in the year, on the road to win the Sun Belt title. Don’t count out their chances to mount a similar upset against a team so many people think is on fire. Look for a big marquee match-up between the Owls’ hot passing attack and the Bulldogs’ stouch defense in this battle of Southern teams.
#14 Central Florida (Conference USA champion) v. #3 Kansas (at-large)
The question here is simple: Can Kevin Smith, the nation’s leading running back whose lack of accolades UCF fans have been decrying, crack Kansas’ #6 rushing defense and prove he deserves every accolade denied him? Already the storylines are writing themselves!
#13 BYU (Mountain West champion) v. #4 Florida (at-large)
Yes, Tigers fans, I know you beat Florida, but at home. Fortunately, the bracket lays out for the two of you to decide it on a neutral site as soon as the quarterfinals. And while LSU gets a significant challenge in Round 1, rest assured that Florida will get a battle from BYU, the #7 rushing and #10 overall yardage defense in the country, as well. Since Florida lacks a rushing attack beyond Tim Tebow, expect this to be a pass-happy game. With Florida itself being #10 in rushing defense, BYU will probably do the same, and they are #13 in passing offense. Trust me, this could be fun to watch, and BYU has a legit chance to pull one out in the Swamp.
Quarterfinal sites: 1/16/8/9 to Cotton Bowl; 2/15/7/10 to Capital One Bowl; 3/14/6/11 to Fiesta Bowl; 4/13/5/12 to Orange Bowl.
#12 Hawaii (WAC champion) v. #5 LSU (SEC champion)
Congratulations, Hawaii, on your undefeated season! Your reward: A date, in the very first round, with one of the teams in the real-life national championship game. Before you pout, mid-major fans, know that I could have very easily rated Hawaii ahead of USC, but didn’t mainly to maintain the Big 10-Pac-10 champions’ matchup occuring in the semifinal, which I would assign to the Rose Bowl. LSU’s got a good defense, but it could have its hands full with the up-and-down, high-scoring offense of Colt Brennan and Hawaii. LSU will have to rely on its own powerful offense to crack the Warriors’ armor.
#11 USC (Pac-10 champion) v. #6 Boston College (at-large)
Sorry, Trojans, try beating some good teams other than Arizona State and not losing to Stanford. This is another game that will come down to the passing attack: Boston College has the top rushing defense in the country (a possible challenge for USC rushing prodigy Joe McKnight) and USC is #4. That means it comes down to which QB can outplay the other: Matt Ryan or John David Booty. Quick warning to Ryan: SC is good on defense no matter what you do. It’ll be interesting to see if USC can still beat teams the way they’re used to when their playing in the cold, frigid Northeast.
This means that the #2 seed’s half of the bracket will play in the Rose Bowl, and #1′s half will play in the Sugar Bowl, for the semifinals.
#10 Missouri (at-large) v. #7 Ohio State (Big 10 champion)
Can Chase Daniel beat Ohio State’s top-ranked passing defense and 4th-ranked rushing defense in the Horseshoe? If anyone can, it’s the #6 passing offense of the Tigers. Also, this is one of the shorter gaps between two teams in the octofinals in terms of geographic distance, so don’t be surprised to find some Missouri gold littering the stands. You want to tell me you wouldn’t love to see this in a playoff format?
#9 West Virginia (Big East champion) v. #8 Oklahoma (Big 12 champion)
Okay, so this is the same as the real-life Fiesta Bowl. The difference is that the Mountaineers will have to go to Oklahoma to play the game. Oklahoma will still have an edge in the real-life game because that’ll be even further from Morgantown. The #11 Sooner rushing defense will try to contain the #4 rushing offense keyed by Pat White and Steve Slaton. Meanwhile, the #4 defense by overall yardage will try to contain the #3 offense by points put up. Will the Big East prove it deserves to be considered a top-caliber conference when its champion knocks off the champion of the Big 12? (Oh, how important it is to keep winning. West Virginia likely would have not only hosted a game, but landed a seed as high as fourth, if they had just taken care of Pittsburgh.)
All polls close next Sunday at 5 PM PST. Track the bracket here.
Couple of notes.
First, I’ve launched Da Countdown. Now you can actually watch the countdown to the selection show for my college football playoff. (Note that it counts down to Sunday at 4 PM regardless of time zone. Ideally it would count down to 4 PM PST specifically, but I don’t know of any such countdowns out there on the Internet that are any good.)
I’ve also done some reorganizing of the sidebar, moving “About Me” to the top. I may have a new Da Blog Poll in the future on whether Da Countdown and Da Blog Poll should be above the Archive or below it.
Over the past week, I’ve been working on hammering out the at-large bids to my simulated college football playoff. As I’ve detailed here before, if you want a playoff, the most logical way for it to work is a full 16-team field with all 11 conference champions and 5 at-large bids. Currently, I haven’t made any seedings and none of the at-larges are set in stone, so that I can react to this weekend’s slate of games.
I’ve been treating that as a bare minimum, and when I originally conceived of it I saw it as a logical limitation on a playoff. If you wanted the NCAA to institute a playoff, that’s the bare minimum they were likely to accept – no 8-team garbage. Most 8-team layouts I’ve seen have all six BCS conference champions, which is just as disenfranchising as before – to potential second-best teams from BCS conferences as well as non-BCS conference champions. Partly because of these concerns, and because I saw even five at larges as too limiting, I’ve been toying with the idea of a 24-team playoff with 8 byes to the second round.
But looking over this idea, I find that, far from being a creation of expediency and compromise, this might actually be the ideal tournament format and the one most likely to stand up to the scrutiny of the BCS backers. Here are the most common arguments leveled against the idea of a playoff and my responses:
The regular season, which is part of what makes college football special, will become meaningless. Big upsets will mean less if the losers are going to get into a playoff anyway. Not under my system. With such Darwinian competition for five at-large spots, the only truly sure way to get into the playoffs is to win your conference. It’s not like basketball where the Big Six conference tournaments are a big joke because everyone who gets semi-far is getting into the NCAAs anyway. If you slip, and it costs you the conference title, you have to be absolutely perfect the rest of the way to battle it out for position for an at-large. USC probably is not getting into my tournament if they lose to UCLA, Michigan almost certainly is not getting an at-large and the loss to Appalachian State is no small part of it, and there is a scenario in which LSU doesn’t get into my tournament either. Those upsets are still meaningful, as is Illinois’ upset over Ohio State, and as do many more games on the schedule besides – under my system, every conference championship takes on profound importance every year (the ACC and SEC Title Games are important parts of my waiting game to fill at-larges, but in reality they’re sideshows to the national title race). Every team wants to run the table and go undefeated (I’ll explain why, and why OSU’s upset still matters, in a moment), but you never know when someone will come up and ruin your shot at a conference title (see this season). So you have to be sure that, just in case something wrong happens, you can sufficiently impress the Powers that Be that are choosing the at-larges that your team is worthy. What does this mean? It means that TEAMS WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE AN INCENTIVE TO SCHEDULE TOUGH OPPONENTS! Do you think Michigan would have passed up that game against Hawaii under my system? Hell no; they couldn’t pass up the strength of schedule boost it would provide should they lose to Ohio State (again) and lose the Big 10 Title. Losing to Hawaii would cost Michigan an undefeated season, but it wouldn’t affect their chances of winning the Big 10. Beating Hawaii, on the other hand, would make a big statement that would shore up their case for getting in, their seeding once in, and their case for a 1 seed should they go undefeated.
Late in the season, if a team has no or 1 loss, and has already locked up their conference or at least a spot in the playoff, they will rest starters and begin to coast, like in the NFL. Not if they want to beat their rival they won’t. More importantly, such a strategy can be suicidal. My plan has an element that looks like a weakness at first. Why, the 8-team proponents say, should I award spots in the tournament to every mid-major conference champion? No way are they better than potential at-large teams that would make for a true top 16. But this is actually a strength. Sure, the MAC, C-USA, and Sun Belt champions might not be real threats to win the national championship. But you can’t tell me it’s not incredibly valuable to pick up a top 3 seed and, basically, a free pass to the second round. The four seed, on the other hand, might be at risk of an upset against one of the better mid-major champions, or if it’s a really strong year for mid-majors, an at-large. The five and six seeds get stuck with either the lower-rated at-larges or the “BCS Buster” du jour. Ohio State likely would have gotten a top two seed had they run the table. Now, however, Ohio State might fall behind some at-large teams and pick up a four or worse. Last year, I’ve heard it said that Michigan-Ohio State would have been nowhere near as special without a playoff. See this year’s Patriots-Cowboys, Patriots-Colts, and Cowboys-Packers matchups and get back to me on that. Ignoring how huge the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is, the fact is that Michigan-Ohio State likely would have been for a No. 1 seed on the line, and thus a worse first-round opponent, and the loser could have easily slipped below No. 2 – Michigan could have easily slipped to #4 behind Florida and Louisville. If you manage to get a 1 seed, the Sun Belt (or quite frankly, the MAC or C-USA; Troy is a pretty good team this year) is probably going to feed you a team so crappy, you might as well rest your starters and coast then, as a reward for your stellar regular-season performance.
Protect the sanctity of the bowls! Oh please. I once agreed with this point, until I realized that 90% of the bowls are crap. No one gives a shit about most of these meaningless bowls that semi-randomly pair teams together and lets them loose to play a game, and generally we learn absolutely nothing from it and there’s no reason to watch. Who cares about the Meineke Car Care Bowl or the New Orleans Bowl? The BCS has ruined the sanctity of the bowls already (just ask the Cotton Bowl), with the result that the Rose Bowl is the only bowl that still has a “tradition” worth saving. That’s easy enough to keep. Seed the field so that the Pac-10 and Big 10 champion would always meet in a semifinal. Make that semifinal the Rose Bowl. Bingo, problem solved, at least for the most part.
But the beautiful thing about the bowls is that we have 32 winners, not 1. There’s a reason college basketball has the NIT. I’m only selecting 16 teams for my tournament. All the other teams can still go to the bowls, including early-round tournament losers. There’s even the possibility of a third-place game. What’s that? You say those bowls would be meaningless? Hell, they’re meaningless now. The BCS bowls are the only non-national championship bowls worth watching (with some exceptions like that year when Louisville and Boise State played in the Liberty Bowl when BSU was undefeated and Louisville came within a play of doing the same). Teams that don’t make the tournament can still get an ego boost from the bowls, and the tournament-loser “consolation bowls” can be used to partially settle certain arguments not covered in the tournament itself.
You have to protect the integrity of academics! Oh please. These people are probably the same people that added a 12th game purely for the money. College football sold out on academics long ago, and the Division I-AA, II, and III football tournaments don’t seem to have grossly negative effects on academics. If you’re concerned about players not being able to participate in finals week, you can insert a one-week gap into the tournament. That would result in the semifinals being played around New Year’s Day and the national championship being played about when it is now.
The fans can’t possibly attend all these games! They seem to have no problem moving from site to site in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. You can alleviate the problem if need be by playing at least the first round at campus sites.
You’re not getting rid of controversy. There’ll just be controversy as to who gets in from the at-large pool. At least we won’t have any more undefeated teams with NO chance of playing for a national championship. By the point we get to the edge of the at-large pool we’re talking about two, three, or even four-loss teams that probably don’t have a real shot at winning the whole thing anyway. Does anyone really think that the teams on the bubble of the NCAA basketball tournament ever have any real shot at winning the national championship, George Mason notwithstanding?
Will someone please think of the children! This is often an argument that college football players are very young and often don’t have their feelings considered – never mind that the players themselves overwhelmingly support a playoff. According to this, we shouldn’t be overworking the poor little kids and leaving them at risk to injury in so many added games. It certainly doesn’t seem to hurt those kids in I-AA, II, and III to have a football playoff, does it?
A playoff won’t give us the best team at the end of the season, only the hottest or the one best able to avoid – or pull off – upsets. By the same token, this is also a problem with our current “regular season playoff”. Everyone knows USC was better than Cal in 2003, and thus better than all the teams they played, but losing to Cal cost USC a trip to the national championship game. It’s a dirty little secret: the team that goes undefeated isn’t necessarily the best, just the luckiest at avoiding potential upsets. Similarly, it’s a problem no matter what type of system exists, including the current BCS. Ohio State in all likelihood was better than Florida last year but the Gators got hot at the right time, so they became national champions.
We already have a playoff – the regular season! Oh please. For the love of God. Tell that to Auburn in 2004, Boise State last year, or – especially – Hawaii this year. And try to keep spewing that argument if we get a team with two losses in this “playoff” still playing in the national championship game. Most of the arguments attatched to this meaningless blanket statement have been covered above.
The controversy the current system creates is one reason why college football is second in popularity right now only to the NFL. And a playoff would give it a shot to rectify that problem. Before you call that far-fetched, look at college basketball – it’s more popular than the NBA, even comparing their respective regular seasons, and the college regular season is supposedly meaningless. Texas-USC in 2006 produced gerbonkers ratings. That was a controversy-free year, so I doubt it would have gotten lower ratings if it had come at the end of a playoff. If anything, the ratings would have been even higher because the playoff would provide a way to guide and nurture the ascending hype. And a championship game in years that the BCS created controversy would likely be more popular as well. The more people accept a game as a championship, the more popular it is – what a concept!
College football loses money. Ultimately, this is what’s killing the idea of a playoff. The schools would lose money compared to the bowls, the conferences would lose money, the bowls would lose money, the networks would lose money. The current system produces 5 bowls worth watching. My system would produce 15 games worth watching and increase the importance of every one, which helps everyone except the bowls – unless the bowls were made part of the tournament. That’s before we consider how lucrative a TV deal would be associated with this playoff. Just look at the success of the Basketball Tournament. But the real killer? The BCS conferences would have to share more of the pie. Even if they would still, individually, get more nominally, they don’t want to have to share with the little guys.
Well, the little guys have already pressured them to open up the BCS – it’s now almost certain for an undefeated non-BCS conference team to get into the BCS bowls. They can do it again. I guarantee that we will have a plus-one system within the next 16 years, and I would be willing to bet that we will get a full-fledged playoff of at least 8 teams within my lifetime. There are many more advantages besides the ones presented here, and this is perhaps the best idea I’m likely to see, with one of the few others coming close being basically an adaptation of this idea with only one at-large and a 12-team field.
A version that’s essentially what I’ve laid out previously is making the rounds from here, with the difference that the bowl games would be cut out until the national championship, with all rounds through the semifinals on campus sites, on the grounds that bowls put money in the hands of people outside the system, and are played in more sterile environments (as of next year, three of the four BCS bowls will be played on NFL fields, two of which I don’t believe host a BCS conference team, and the fourth won’t be in an NFL market, with the most storied non-BCS bowl soon to move to an NFL field as well) than the home fields of college football’s most storied programs. The truth is probably some sort of compromise, if only as a practicality to appease bowl directors and traditionalists, with the main battleground in my system likely to be the quarterfinals. The main advantage of bowl sites is to make things more fair by mostly cutting out the home-field advantage. On the other hand, there’s a reason why I’m keeping campus sites for the first round: among other things, it provides yet another incentive for competing for seeding, by way of fighting for a lucrative top-eight seed, which not only provides competitive advantage but also sends money flowing into the coffers of the school for hosting the game.
Please tune in to Da Blog this Monday at 4 PM PST for the Golden Bowl Playoff Selection Show, where I will announce the bracket for our simulated playoff and open first-round voting.
All college lineal titles have been updated, as has the Chase for 19-0. However, due to “minor server issues” on Freehostia’s end, the Week 13 College Football Rankings are delayed. Even though I told it to upload at the same time as the lineal titles… huh. Let’s hope this doesn’t become a trend…