Dan Wetzel is right. This needs to happen.

[patdog]

Link

 

[Cow College]

I’m against eight teams all around. If your gonna do that ditch the bowls and do 16 teams

 

[Seinfeld]

Completely agree. Now if the SEC would just do away with divisions as well, we’d really be on to something

 

[WrapItDog]

The current playoff ESPN TV contract expires after the 2025 season. Since the contract was signed ESPN has lost 14 million subscribers (1.44 billion dollars a year). The NCAA has no desire to change the format and renegotiate the current contract with ESPN.

 

[8dog]

It expires in 2034

 

[WrapItDog]

It expires in 2034

ESPN and the group that will administer the new college football playoff have reached an agreement in principle to present the playoff games and selected other games for 12 years on an exclusive basis across ESPN’s platforms. The agreement will begin after the 2014 regular season (including January 2015) and continue through after the 2025 regular season (January 2026).

 

[Shamoan]

never understood this. why is being able to watch more football, a bad thing?

 

[8dog]

My bad. Thought you were referencing the sec-espn contract

 

[maroonmania]

Totally disagree that you can determine a conference champion fairly without a title game because in most conferences the schedules are not balanced. Only if you play everyone in your conference would you not really need a title game. I am personally for an 8 team playoff with 5 bids to the P5 conference champions, 1 bid to the highest ranked G5 school and 2 at large bids. Then, the first round would be played 2 weeks after conference championship weekend at the home sites of the top 4 seeds (the weekend before Christmas is dead sports-wise anyway). After that, you could play the final four off similarly to how its done now around the New Year. You could even send the 4 losers to designated bowls if you want, whatever. To be honest no college football team needs to lay around idle from the first weekend in December until New Year's anyway. Its the only sport I know of where rust becomes an issues because there is such a layoff before you play the playoff.

 

[The Situation]

Agree. Here are the steps.

- 8 team playoff, with 1 spot for G5, and 1 spot for each major conference. This can change over time if needed, or another realignment takes place.
- Round 1 takes the place of conference championship weekend.
- Do away with divisions in conferences, create pods to keep rivalries in tact, rotate all the other teams.
- Conference champions are determined by record. Is this fair? No, but who cares. It's just a banner that no one cares about.

Conferences are really nothing more than television alliances. So who cares if there is a 'championship game'. Just let it be a devalued banner like the other sports. All schedules are different, and all conferences are different, so why bother with allowing these games to have this much power.

I love Wolken's idea. Gives more access to the playoff, and you can still keep the bowls.

 

[The Situation]

never understood this. why is being able to watch more football, a bad thing?

Can only speak for me, but it's kind of an idealist sort of thing. If players would still care about the bowl game, then I'd say keep them. But they are skipping them to go to the NFL at this point, so it's obvious that no one really cares. It used to be a big deal and a way to judge your season.

Oh well, keep them or don't, it's not really a big deal. Just another devalued trophy.

 

[philduckworth]

Completely agree. Now if the SEC would just do away with divisions as well, we’d really be on to something

Definitely agree about doing away with divisions. If the powers that be only had that foresight a few years ago, the SEC wouldn't be stuck with Mizzou.

The conference championships are nothing more than a money grab. If there were no conference championships we could easily have an 8 or 16 team playoff.

 

[dorndawg]

Keep everything more or less as-is, but layer in a 4 team championship for G5 + independents other than Notre Dame. 130 teams supposedly competing for 1 championship is ludicrous.

 

[WrapItDog]

So who cares if there is a 'championship game'. Just let it be a devalued banner like the other sports.

In 1992 it was estimated that each SEC school would receive an additional $800,000 from the SEC Championship TV money. I have no idea how much it is now. You go to eight teams and the College Playoff TV money may go down for the SEC. With four teams the SEC has at least 25% of the playoff teams and two years ago had 50%. An eight team playoff would require the SEC to get in two teams every year to have 25%. As a MSU fan are you willing to give up some of our SEC TV revenue (millions) to schools like Memphis/UCF to have an eight team playoff and no SEC Championship game? Is it really worth diluting the TV money to see LSU/OSU/Bama destroy a Memphis/UCF in the first round?

 

[kired]

He kind of breezes right past this: Instead, there could be an eight-team playoff that hands out automatic bids to five league champions (each could be easily determined without the title game)

Easliy determined? So who does the SEC choose in 2009 as their champion? 12-0 Bama or 12-0 Florida?

Or in 2012 with 11-1 Bama or 11-1 Georgia? Or when it was 11-1 Auburn vs 11-1 Mizzou? Who gets the guaranteed SEC spot? Good luck with easliy determining that.

 

[ll Martain ll]

I know this will never happen, but I’m a fan of a massive realignment, where the Power 5 plus a few breaks off or forms a new football “Premiere League” and creates 6 to 8 new conferences with 10 teams max in each conference. Bowls can stay, and become true consolation games for schools not in the playoffs.

Everyone plays 9 games conference round robin for football (and no more FCS teams), 18 games home/home for basketball, and 27 games (9x3) for baseball. It balances all of the major sports schedules.

Football can do an 8 or 12 team playoff at rotating neutral sites with conference winners plus wild cards if they want. The regular season becomes meaningful again, since everyone is playing in season for their conference championship without divisions.

The biggest downside to this would be the have-nots don’t really have a path to the top league.

 

[Seinfeld]

My guess is that it’s not being discussed because it’s not an issue for the SEC’s perennial powers, but it really is BS when you look around the country at the schedules that many of these Top 25 teams get to enjoy.

This is obviously an extreme case, but I married into a big pro-Memphis family, and they were literally discussing last weekend the fact that they may not want the cotton bowl because that would mean they’d actually have to play someone good. It sure would be nice to let someone else run the Auburn, Florida, LSU, Bama gauntlet one of these 17ing years besides us

 

[shotgunDawg]

Reduce scholarships to 70-75 & have a 16 team playoff.

That's the best situation.

While having a 16 team playoff would be great for schools like MSU, who would compete to make it, it'll be basically the same 4 teams in the final 4 most years unless some parity is brought to the sport. The only way I now to bring anymore parity, without have a draft, is to reduce scholarships & lessen the margin for error for the blue bloods

 

[00Dawg]

This I could buy into.

You keep the conference titles (which almost everyone outside of Bama, Clemson, and Ohio State does care about), and you keep the bowls.

Memphis goes 11-1, then gets smashed by LSU in Baton Rouge? They still get a Cotton Bowl berth.
Utah is undefeated, but exposed by Oklahoma in the first round? Congrats on your first ever Rose Bowl.
Bama tripped up again, then lays an egg against Ohio State....well, they'll tank the Sugar Bowl, but Saban's teams have done before.

Throw in a pod system for the SEC regular season (still only 8 conference games, please), and it's the best of all worlds for Mississippi State, which is what everyone on this board should want.

 

[philduckworth]

Reduce scholarships to 70-75 & have a 16 team playoff.

That's the best situation.

While having a 16 team playoff would be great for schools like MSU, who would compete to make it, it'll be basically the same 4 teams in the final 4 most years unless some parity is brought to the sport. The only way I now to bring anymore parity, without have a draft, is to reduce scholarships & lessen the margin for error for the blue bloods

That's what I would love to see. You would have to eliminate conference championship games to do this. And maybe reduce 12 regular season games down to 11 like it used to be. Which I think would be fine.

 

[maroonmania]

The scholarship reduction thing should be done today for the betterment of college football regardless of anything else relative to playoffs and conference realignments.

 

[philduckworth]

100%. Maybe a 2 phase deal. Reduce from 85 to 80 immediately. Then from 80 to 75 over the next 5 years.

annual scholarships would need to be reduced immediately to a hard cap of 20 per calendar year.

 

[bruiser.sixpack]

Keep it at 8 conference games or change it to 10. Teams need to have same number of home and away games every year for the income.

 

[The Situation]

He kind of breezes right past this: Instead, there could be an eight-team playoff that hands out automatic bids to five league champions (each could be easily determined without the title game)

Easliy determined? So who does the SEC choose in 2009 as their champion? 12-0 Bama or 12-0 Florida?

Or in 2012 with 11-1 Bama or 11-1 Georgia? Or when it was 11-1 Auburn vs 11-1 Mizzou? Who gets the guaranteed SEC spot? Good luck with easliy determining that.

SEC doesn't determine that. Playoff committee does. All you have to do is guarantee one of them a spot. There are two at large spots.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Reduce scholarships to 70-75 & have a 16 team playoff.

That's the best situation.

While having a 16 team playoff would be great for schools like MSU, who would compete to make it, it'll be basically the same 4 teams in the final 4 most years unless some parity is brought to the sport. The only way I now to bring anymore parity, without have a draft, is to reduce scholarships & lessen the margin for error for the blue bloods

I really like this one and I think it would make teams much more even across the NCAA and create a money monster for the teams with an expanded playoff.

I we need to drop the bowls or use them for the playoffs as a whole even if we have to add two weeks of playoffs after the bowls.

We just need someone smarter than me to figure it all out but we have to reduce the scholarships to even things out a bit AND look at those Bama greyshirt rules.