Keenum just killed the playoff expansion idea.

[DoggieDaddy13]

Playoffs create apathy. The kids have “nothing” to play for once they are eliminated. The regular season gets even worse if you expand it. I follow several D2 programs and when teams believe that they are out of the playoff hunt, they quit. Only the hardcore fans or the extremely bored come to the pointless games... but, you can always find a good place to sit.

Imagine what it would be like at the D1 level where the guys have legit chances of making it to the League. Why risk injury in a game that doesn't matter other than for school pride which you really don't care that much about?

The larger question for the NCAA is whether they can claim to have parity among the teams when the same two teams are playing for the championship every year? Bama and Clemson are back next year and probably the three years after that.

Let’s eliminate all of the championship series B.S. and go back to the regular bowl tie-ins. It was a helluva a lot more fun having disputes over the National Championship than this same 17n scenario year in and year out.

I just want State to win an SEC Championship before I die. That's where we play and who we play. The mythical national title was, is, and always will be just that. And no amount of ESPN hype will ever change that.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

FCS has 24 Team Playoff...top 8 teams get bye’s...

 

[engie]

I'm sure you'll explain it to me.

Nah. You’d need a remedial understanding of why it’s dumb as 17 to comprehend the explanation of why.

 

[johnson86-1]

16 is WAY too many. There aren't 16 teams that deserve a shot at the national championship in any year. 8 is abought right, but it won't happen any time soon.

I wasn't advocating for those being in playoffs.

Wasn't very clear from what I wrote, but I meant use the BCS to fill the current 4 team playoff, and then also use the BCS plus a committee to put the 5th through 24th or even 5th through 32nd teams in bowl games with good matchups, so we actually get a dozen or more good bowl games. Right now it's extremely hit or miss outside of the NY6 because conference tie-ins often dictate lopsided matchups.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

It was conference winners only. So having 64 spots open had nothing to do with them allowing all conference winners. It always placed more importance on winning your conference, then expanded to allow other teams a shot after that.

So why should we make the mistake again, of not allowing other deserving teams to have a shot. Because again, winning a conference doesn't mean much if the conference sucks. I see no way around this unless conferences were split up with equal numbers of geographically located teams. At least then, you could live with it under the guise of it being truly national.

 

[paindonthurt_]

Are you seriously asking that question?
In nfl, nba and mlb, every team is on a level playing field at least somewhat.

If ucf, uab, etc get in for winning their conference, then it becomes way more “unfair” than you’re claiming it to be now.

If UCF wants to play, then 17ing play someone worth a ****.

 

[Clarence Boddicker]

Are you seriously asking that question?
In nfl, nba and mlb, every team is on a level playing field at least somewhat.

If ucf, uab, etc get in for winning their conference, then it becomes way more “unfair” than you’re claiming it to be now.

If UCF wants to play, then 17ing play someone worth a ****.

While you are correct, by adding that last statement you are opening up the argument about G5 conferences creating a ceiling, which certain posters will now use as a strawman argument.

 

[HumpDawgy]

Games becoming meaningless is complete BS. Rivalry games such as Egg Bowl will always have meaning as well as other big time games. Also, you have to win to become eligible to be picked for the playoffs, so....yeah....you have to win a lot of those "meaningless" games. Example being if State doesn't care about beating LSU, Auburn, OM, Arky, Bammer, or A&M, kiss the 17ing playoffs goodbye. You will be lucky to get an invite to the friggin Shriners Bowl.

 

[Ranchdawg]

I'm with you all the way. That way 1 representative from the big 5, Notre Dame and two more at large. BTW, just joking about Notre Dame.

 

[johnson86-1]

While you are correct, by adding that last statement you are opening up the argument about G5 conferences creating a ceiling, which certain posters will now use as a strawman argument.

??? I get that in theory, a team like UCF could decide they actually do want to compete for the playoff (rather than the much safer route of competing to complain about not being considered for the playoff) and find teams not willing to pay them market rates for buy games, but has that ever happened?

Has any G5 school ever had a top 25 quality team and tried to go out and schedule 3 or 4 Power 5 teams so they could legitimately claim they belong in the national championship discussion?

Florida has publicly said they'd provide UCF a 2-1. That's a great deal for UCF and they turned it down. Boise was able to get into season opening kickoff games. Did they ever try to go schedule 2 or 3 other P5 schools with a pulse and get turned down?

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

The English Premier League

Literally every single 17ing sport, at every single 17ing level has managed to figure out how to have a playoff and maintain the importance of the regular season (save MLB and their ridiculous 162 game snooze fest).

And who really gives a **** if the best team wins the trophy every year? Win when it's all or nothing or go home.

Would like to talk to you.

 

[patdog]

??? Florida has publicly said they'd provide UCF a 2-1. That's a great deal for UCF and they turned it down.

South Florida took Florida up on the same offer. They play in Tampa 2021 and in Gainesville in 2022 & 2025.

 

[Negative Waves]

They either need to expand the playoff or go back to the pre-BCS era bowl....

system. The current system turns out a mediocre product. The same teams play every year in the mini-playoff while everyone else gets a pointless bowl game. I didn't even watch last night because I'm tired of seeing Bama vs Clemson for the bazillionth time.

Before the BCS, more of the bowls were important due to #1 and 2 not playing each other in most cases. Plus, the controversy by not having a definitive #1 generated tons of talk in the media and around the water-cooler. When #1 and 2 played each other on a rare occasion, the excitement generated by the game was huge. The 87 #1 Miami #2 Penn State match-up in the Fiesta Bowl ended up creating it as a major New Year's Day bowl.

If they expand the playoff, this is what I think they should do:

1) Limit the regular season to 10 games
2) For the 11th game, your team either will play in the conference championship game or a predetermined opponent chosen before the season if you don't make the conference champ game. This would create excitement due to several teams having to win since they would be "on the bubble".
3) Hold a 32-team playoff. The top 25 plus 7 at large teams (primarily Group of 5 conference champs). Selection Sunday would generate tremendous hype.
4) The rounds of 32, 16, and 8 would be played at the higher ranked teams home field. Corporations could sponsor these games.
5) The "final four" and title game would be played in the old New Year 6 bowls. The bowls would be split in 2 groups of 3, so they would be played every other year in the playoff. Players would get paid if they make it to these rounds.
6) Either scrap the old bowls or keep a few of them around and pay the players. The further you make it up the playoff, the better paying the bowl you would go to. Winning team players get 5-10 times more than what the losing team players would get.

 

[o_Hot Rock]

that people get so offended at allowing conference winners into the playoff to win the championship? It's like the only sport in the world that doesn't do that.

We know and that's how it should be. If you lose to Purdue by 30 then you out. Sorry, you have to wait until next year.

All those conference winners that are not good? Are you crazy? This is as big a joke as anything I have seen.

 

[Eleven Bravo]

I don’t think Keemun killed anything. From my understanding he has the same input as everyone else on that board. He was merely acting as the spokesman for the group.

This 4 team playoff is far from perfect, to be sure. College football itself is far from perfect. I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be just as well if we went back to just playing the bowl games at the end of the season and let the coaches decide who should be recognized as the National Champion. That’s the way it worked for many years.

Right now, the two participating teams in the NC game play one more game than everyone else-two more than teams that don’t have a conference championship game. If you go to an 8-team playoff, the teams that play the NC game will have played 2-3 more games than everyone else depending upon the conference championship games. If you go to a 16-game playoff, Clemson and Alabama would have played their 16th game of the season last night. As I recall, the academic community were the ones most opposed to the playoff in the first place. They didn’t like the idea of the current setup because of the increased demands on the student athletes (with the emphasis on “student”) by playing an extra game. Now, people are proposing adding 2-4 additional games. They will really oppose that idea. The fact is that these kids are students before they are athletes-they aren’t called “athlete-students”, even though it’s pretty clear that fans look at them purely as athletes.

College football is a cartel. It consists of a dozen or so blue bloods and a bunch of also-rans. Do any of you think that the National Champion is going to be someone other than those few teams who traditionally win the thing? I seriously don’t think that the cartel members are going to let some “turd in the punchbowl” come out of nowhere and crash their party. If you go to an 8 or 16 team playoff you will end up with the final four teams that you end up with under the current system, because the cartel will control who the matchups are between and protect their members just like always.

 

[thatsbaseball]

That bracket would be like wrestling tournament without weight divisions **

 

[Upyurs]

Actually. They need to go back to the BCS.

This format sucks. Group of people who don’t know Jack **** about football select the 4 teams. Hell, Oklahoma didn’t belong. Notre Dame didn’t belong. And Alabama didn’t belong!

We need to Value the bowls more.

Go back to the big bowls being great matchups and then having Coaches vote on the Champion after the bowls.
It worked for 50 years!!!

I mean damn! The “peach bowl” is now a prestigious bowl! Really??? The Liberty Bowl has the same value as the Gator Bowl! really?

The CFP didn’t fix ****. It made Conference referees cheat to make sure the blue bloods stayed up top.

So who did belong in it?

 

[engie]

We know and that's how it should be. If you lose to Purdue by 30 then you out. Sorry, you have to wait until next year.

All those conference winners that are not good? Are you crazy? This is as big a joke as anything I have seen.

So, what about all of the different "conference champs" that lose to Purdue by 40 and Ohio St by 60? They should get in over the team that beat them by 60 and ended up with about the same record?

Until every conference plays round robin and every championship game is based on #1 vs #2 in that conference, "conference champions" is a ridiculous metric to make the whole foundation of who gets into the playoffs. There are 5 teams in the SEC cross-division that the other side doesn't play on any given year. I realize that it's been quite awhile since there was any real parity at the top of the SEC for this to rear it's head, but in a non-Saban conference full of elite coaches and programs(which is what this has been for a long time prior to him running them all out of town and into retirement) scheduling would more often than not define who got into that championship game. It did for a long time before -- and in those days, you only avoided 3 teams on the other side.

The computers are the best way to define actual team quality. They always have been.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

that people get so offended at allowing conference winners into the playoff to win the championship? It's like the only sport in the world that doesn't do that.

Are you serious Clark? The conferences are extremely unbalanced. You really think UCF’s schedule is comparable to ours? It’s absurd. I mean Washington lost to Auburn. What business do they have in the playoff?