Every other sport, regardless of level, in America utilizes a tournament or playoff to crown a champion. What we've been doing in CFB is ridiculous, ludicrous, and incredulous. HS football? Playoff. NFL football? Playoff. FCS football? Playoff. FBS football? Pencil necked suits, sports writers and computers will determine the champion. What's happening now is fixing a broken system.
14-team playoff to begin 2026
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
- Start date
never understood the logic in playoffs can be done as a way to crown a football champion at every single level except college.
I can understand not liking expansion...but how in the world is a playoff system a result of "trophy generation?" 14 out of 134 FBS schools will make this playoff, hardly an overwhelming sample size. I'd hate to hear your opinion of March Madness.
There is no rationalization, other than just not wanting change.
Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, softball, volleyball, etc...
yes. But even keeping it football... rec ball, high school, pro and every level of college except D1? Makes one wonder who exactly are the powers that be trying to appease.
But yet a progressional just one year older can? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to change, if you legitimately liked the old system better. There are aspects of the playoff system that I don't like - mainly the focus media-wise on only the teams in competition for a playoff spot and the devaluing of bowl games - but expansion of the playoff will open more spots for discussion and create fewer "meaningless" bowls. The product is going to be more interesting from a fan's perspective.
I will say, the loss of importance placed on New Year's Day bowl games and 10 win seasons is a negative, but it is what it is. You're not putting the genie back in the bottle.
Calling the new system a "trophy generation" problem make zero sense.
Yeah, preference is one thing. You like what you like.
10 wins should be the goal. If you look at last year, #14 in the final rankings before the CFP was AZ at 9-3. LSU was #13 at 9-3. 12 and above all had at least 10 wins. However, in 2021 you had to go all the way down to #18 to get to a 9 win team. So that 10th win is super important now. But wouldn't get you in the door now.
And we are not going back to just 10 regular season games. Anyone remember those days? I do. How many of the anti-playoff expansion folks want to turn back that clock?
If the big thing is supposedly making it the NFL, 17 games a year in college exposes you even more. It’s still supposed to be college. It’s not the NFL. Just like a Friday night frat party is not the same as “progressional” one year later business dinner for your work.
Depends on where you go to work!
I actually think we need to eliminate a couple of reg season games. Who really cares if a couple of cupcakes are taken out. If a 12 game regular season is a reason to not expand the playoff then make it 10.
Probably somewhat proportionate, or not very disproportionate, to what Division 1 has grown to in 2024. But escalating inclusiveness does not work to identify excellence. But great teams can lose key pieces while winnowing out the unworthy pretenders, which is why there shouldn't be any.
But aren’t we led to believe it’s all about getting players to the league. Do FCS players play a league championship game and then start the playoffs? Either the league championship game should be eliminated or a regular season game dropped. But we know it’s not happening. Wait til players with big nfl paydays nearing opt out of playoff games. It will happen.
That will all be taken care of when they're named employees of either the schools or conferences. There will be collective bargaining that will decide if it's too many games. Players will be contractually obligated to play in all games.
Agree…..it’s already pro ball so I really am like you. It’s a 5 year old thought of mine. I can’t wait for the opt outs, especially from the teams 8-14 who know they don’t stand a chanc. Their star players aren’t going to risk injury to lose nfl draft status. The fan whining then will be unbearable.
None of this is to identify excellence. It's to entertain. Period. That's why we have an indoor facility, football only ops building, football only players building...all ESPN money, either directly or indirectly. 88% of bball champions have come from seeds 3 or higher, with 62% coming from #1 seeds. No team beyond an 8 seed has ever won, which would suggest the tournament should have never expanded beyond 32. But it did, and EXPLODED in popularity, which was all they were after.
The lower football divisions have been doing it for years
Yet lower football divisions have had no problem doing it for years. Why not go back to 10 regular season football games per season since it's a "war"? smh
And the lower divisions in college football have been suffering and complaining? Sheesh
Lesser divisions play one fewer game. Lesser divisions also play playoff games on home fields, which favors the better teams. But lesser divisions don't matter to most people anyway.
Still gonna waste wherewithal beating teams that ought to be playing in the Banana Bowl.
Not all, but not all that go to New Year's Day Five, or Six, or whatever it is, deserve a shot at the National Championship. It's a travesty. Not all that play in the FCS playoffs deserve it, either.
Those lesser divisions matter to those in the lesser divisions and to their fans. There are some lesser FBS teams I don't care about. And we could play one fewer game and even two per year. Why not go back to 10 regular season games per year? Would you favor that? Has not the NFL increased the number of games they play over the years? Has the NFL not increased playoff participants over the years? Yes they have. Times change. Some want to change with the times. Some think it would be nice to go back to the 1950s. Others though adjust with the times.
Why not leave the pretenders out of it? Regular season and championship Saturday reveal who they are.
Outliers surface if there are enough of them given enough opportunities, but I want to have a process that identifies the best team virtually invariably.
So every other sport in America, at every level, has it wrong, and CFB has always been right?
That's not sports today at just about any level, except FBS college football (the collegiate and sports outlier). That is about to change as FBS college football enters the 20th century in the 21st century....at last.
We would have made the 12-team, forget 14-team, playoff twice during the Spurrier era, according to On3. The year we finished 4th in the nation....who knows for sure what would have happened? The year Spurrier won the national championship at Florida (beating FSU ), they lost to FSU in the regular season. Get into the playoffs, then you have a chance. Anything is possible. It's up to Beamer to get us there. I do not understand any Carolina fan's opposition to that. But it doesn't matter because playoff expansion is happening, regardless of their opposition.
Not all change is good, especially if it promotes the ascension of the merely good or very good to where only excellence belongs.